0Eng 346: Introduction to English Language Teaching

Mid - Western University

Faculty of Educational Sciences
B. E. S. in English Education
Course Title: Introduction to English Language Teaching
Course No: ENG. 346 Credit hours: 3 hrs
Semester: Fourth Full Marks:
Pass Marks:
1 Course Introduction
This course introduces the students to the basics of English
language teaching. The course begins with the terms used in
English language teaching and learning followed by the main
approaches and methods used in ELT. Similarly, the course will
also introduce the students to the current ELT pedagogical
practices. The students will also learn some classroom
management skills in this course.
2 Course objectives
The objectives of the course are as follows:
a) To familiarize them to the characteristics of good language
learners
b) To make them able to describe the good learning context
 c) To offer classroom management skills
d) To expose them to the different approaches and methods
of English language teaching
e) To offer students classroom management skills in language
classrooms.
3 Course Contents
Unit one: Good Language Learners and Good Language
Teachers
1.1 Characteristics of good language learners
1.2 Learning context
1.3 Motivation and learning
1.4 Characteristics of good language teacher .
1.5 Teacher and teaching
1.6 Rapport building and teaching skills
Unit Two: Management of Learning and Teaching
2.1 Classroom management
2.2 Dealing with the learners
2.3 Managing talking time
2.4 Successful language learning
2.5 Lesson sequences
Unit three: Language teaching approaches and methods
3.1 Historical Overview of the Methods
3.1.1 The Grammar - Translation Method
3.1.2 The Direct Method
3.1.3 The Audio Lingual Method-
3.1.4 The silent way
3.1.5 Total Physical Response
3.1.6 Community language learning
3.2 Recent trends of the methods
3.2.1 Communicative language teaching
3.2.2 Content-based, task based and participatory Approaches
3.2.3 Learning strategy training, cooperative learning and
multiple intelligences
Unit four: Beginning Teaching
4.1 The subject matter of language teaching
4.2 First lessons- hints and strategies
4.3Method? What Method?
Unit five: Classroom Activities
5.1 Running an activity
5.2 Exploiting an activity
5.3 Pair work information gaps
5.4 Small group discussions
5.5 Pair work grammar activity
Unit six: Classroom management
6.1 What is classroom management?
6.2 Classroom interaction
6.3 Seating
6.4 Giving directions
6.5 Participate, monitor or vanish?
6.6 Gestures
6.7 Using the board well
6.8 Board drawing
6.9 Eliciting
6.10 Students using their own language
6.11 Intuition
4 Instructional techniques
- Class discussion
- Presentation
 - Group work\pair work
- Project work
- Self- study
5 Evaluation Scheme
Internal: 40 marks
External: 60 marks
Internal evaluation will be based on the following criteria
- Attendance and classroom presentation- 5 marks
- Project work\assignment\writing 1 - 10 marks
- Project work\assignment\writing 2 - 10 marks
- Mid - term exam \project - 15 marks
Unit one: Good Language Learners and Good Language
Teachers
1.1 Characteristics of good language learners
It is the fact thing that the learners are different to each other.
Some learners are good in language learning and some are not.
Some learners are active and some learners are passive. Some
are introvert where as some are extrovert. But, those learners
who are good in language learning have different
characteristics from others. In another way, the learners should
develop the following characteristics to be a good learner.
1 Take Responsibility
Good language learners find their own way and take charge of
their learning. They find the methods that are best for them as
individual learners. They learn from others and experiment
with different methods. They are able to work independently
and take responsibility for developing aspects of their own
language learning.
2 Good language learners skill 
Good language learners are skillful in using the target language.
If they can’t think of a word in their target language, they try to
describe it, so that other people should understand it.
If someone is speaking really fast, they ask them to speak
slowly so that they can understand each other. The only
goal successful language learners follow is to keep the
conversation going.
3 Be Creative
Creativity is very important if you want to learn anything, not
only just language. It is because creativity helps learners to
determine what they are going to do with what they have
learnt. Good language learners are creative. They understand
that language is creative. They experiment with the language
and play with grammar, words, and sounds. Noam Chomsky,
one of the prominent figures says that language is creative.
Language is used differently by different people on the basis of
the situation.
4 Create Opportunities
Good language learners make their own opportunities for
practicing the language inside and outside of the classroom.
They know that language is practice. They are eager to use the
target language everywhere. They seem to be watching and
listening the movies, stories, speeches, conversations in English
or learning the lyrics of their favorite songs.

5 Be Patient

It's a must -have characteristic for a good language learner.

Dealing with new letters or words of a new language and
memorizing them at the same time is not easy. It requires a
sincere effort to listen patiently to each and every word and
focusing to understand their meaning without necessarily
understanding each and every word. Good language learners
learn to live with uncertainty by focusing on the meaning of
what they can understand, by not getting flustered, and by
continuing to talk or listen without necessarily understanding
every word.

6 Using different techniques

Good language learners use different strategies to recall to

command over the target language. Here are some ways that
language learners follow to master their learning:
1 - They talk to themselves in front of the mirror and work on
their mistakes

2 - They read out loud while writing

3 - They listen to music, interviews in the language they are
learning
4 - They watch movies and try repeating the dialogues regularly
to match tone and accent
5 - They try speaking the tongue twisters
6 - They watch cookery shows and speak the grocery names in a
new language and so on.
7 Make Mistakes

Good language learners are brave enough to make mistakes.

They are not afraid of it. Make productive mistakes i.e. once
any mistake is made, they try not to repeat it again. Good
language learners make errors work for them and not against
them. It is the fact thing that we learn a second language by
trial and error.

8 Remember your Roots

Good language learners use linguistic knowledge, including

knowledge of their first language, in learning a second
language. Understand that learning a language is a logical
process.
9 Use Context

Good language learners use contextual clues to aid their

comprehension of the language. They maximize use of all
potential contexts around the language attended to for
enhancing comprehension.

10 They Concentrate More on Practical Learning

A successful language learner always pays attention to the
implementation of their learning rather than just reading,
writing and listening. Doing so helps them to be fluent and at
the same time, they become more confident.
Speaking to the natives, conversing with co-learners regularly,
speaking about themselves, putting up a video on YouTube,
giving some lessons on that particular language, performing a
drama scene, etc. are some of the things that successful
language learners often do.
11 Don't Worry about Every Detail

Good language learners learn chunks of language as wholes and

formalized routines to help them perform beyond their
competence. For example, they may learn idioms, proverbs, or
other phrases knowing what the whole phrase means without
necessarily understanding each individual part.

12 They Keep Learning All the Time

As we all know learning is a never-ending process. The more
you learn the better you become over the period of time.

A successful language learner does the same. They keep on

learning from day to night by expanding their exposure. They
nick pick minute details and work on them on a regular basis so
that they can perfect themselves.

These are some of the important things that good language

learners do to learn their target language fast. If you want to do
the same, then just follow the points mentioned above to
succeed in language learning.

13 They Test their Progress & Improve

Testing progress is very important as it is the only way to
improve. And a good language learner always analyzes their
flaws and mistakes so that they can improve incorrect
direction.

They focus on different aspects such as they monitor their

accent, conversations, fluency, vocabulary. They also pay
attention to conversational strategies such as hesitation
techniques, fillers, and rearticulating or repetition
techniques and so on.
They always experiment with their monitoring techniques so
that they can improve better.

14 Learn Different Styles

Good language learners learn different styles of speech or
writing to learn to vary their language according to the
formality of the situation. Everyone has their own learning style
and so do the language learners. They discover their own
learning style that they find comfortable and learn in the same
way.

Just for your information basically there are four modes of

learning and remembering anything easily described below:
 Visual – Learning via images, graphs, maps, etc.
 Auditory – Learning via talking or listening
 Reading & Writing – Learning via reading and writing
 Kinesthetic – Learning via activities and trying them.
So, find out which type of learning suits and develop your own
learning styles to remember things easily.

15 They Learn Communication Techniques Well

Communication is the ultimate goal when you are learning a
new language. Maybe you want to converse with the natives,
with your clients or just want to explore the culture and
language as a tourist. In any of these cases or other, proper
communication technique is very import to have.

16 They Avoid Monotonous Routine

Monotonous routines are often boring and doing anything
monotonously over the period of time becomes a burden. And
trust me no one likes burden. Good language learners do the
same work differently to keep themselves interested.
For example –
  They include songs in their learning process.
 They watch movies in a language they are trying to learn.
 They play word games of the respective language and so
on.

17 Optimistic Attitude
It is one of the most important qualities that a learner
possesses. Attitude plays a vital role in learning any language
and that too an optimistic one. Learners always keep a positive
view of the target language and its culture that keeps them
motivated all the time.

1.2 Learning context

English is learnt and taught in many different contexts, and in
many different class arrangements. Such differences will have a
considerable effect on how and what it is we teach.
1 EFL, ESL and ESOL
For many years we have made a distinction between people
who study English as a foreign language and those who study
it as a second or other language. It has been suggested that
students of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) tend to be
learning so that they can use English when travelling or to
communicate with other people, from whatever country, who
also speak English. ESL (English as a Second Language)
students, on the other hand, are usually living in the target-
language community. The latter may need to learn the
particular language variety of that community (Scottish
English, southern English from England, Australian English,
Texan English, etc) rather than a more general language
variety. They may need to combine their learning of English
with knowledge of how to do things in the target-language
community - such as going to a bank, renting a flat, accessing
health services, etc. The English they learn, therefore, may
differ from that studied by EFL students, whose needs are not
so specific to a particular time and place. However, this
distinction begins to look less satisfactory when we look at the
way people use English in a global context. The use of English
for international communication, especially with the Internet,
means that many ‘EFL students’ are in effect living in a global
target-language community and so might be thought of as ‘ESL
students’ instead! Partly as a result of this we now tend to use
the term ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) to
describe both situations. Nevertheless, the context in which
the language is learnt (what community they wish to be part
of) is still of considerable relevance to the kind of English they
will want and need to study, and the skills they will need to
acquire.
2 Schools and language schools
A huge number of students learn English in primary and
secondary classrooms around the world. They have not chosen
to do these themselves, but learn because English is on the
curriculum. Depending on the country, area and the school
itself, they may have the advantage of the latest classroom
equipment and information technology (IT), or they may, as in
many parts of the world, be sitting in rows in classrooms with
a blackboard and no other teaching aid. Private language
schools, on the other hand, tend to be better equipped than
some government schools (though this is not always the case).
They will frequently have smaller class sizes, and, crucially, the
students in them may well have chosen to come and study.
This will affect their motivation at the beginning of the
process.
3 Large classes and one-to-one teaching
Some students prefer to have a private session with just them
on their own and a teacher, commonly referred to as one-to-
one teaching. At the other end of the scale, English is taught in
some environments to groups of over 100 students at a time.
Government school classes in many countries have up to 30
students, whereas a typical number in a private language
school lies somewhere between 8 and 15 learners. Clearly the
size of the class will affect how we teach. Pair work and group
work are often used in large classes to give students more
chances for interaction than they would otherwise get with
whole-class teaching. In a one-to-one setting the teacher is
able to tailor the lesson to an individual’s specific needs,
whereas with larger groups compromises have to be reached
between the group and the individuals within it. In large
classes the teacher may well teach from the front more often
than with smaller groups, where mingling with students when
they work in pairs, etc may be much more feasible and time-
efficient.
4 In-school and in-company
The vast majority of language classes in the world take place in
educational institutions such as the schools and language
schools we have already mentioned, and, in addition, colleges
and universities. In such situations teachers have to be aware
of school policy and confirm to syllabus and curriculum
decisions taken by whoever is responsible for the academic
running of the school. There may well be learning outcomes
which students are expected to achieve, and students may be
preparing for specific exams. A number of companies also
offer language classes and expect teachers to go to the
company office or factory to teach. Here the ‘classroom’ may
not be quite as appropriate as those which are specially
designed for teaching and learning. But more importantly, the
teacher may need to negotiate the class content, not only with
the students, but also with whoever is paying for the tuition.
5 Real and virtual learning environments
 Language learning has traditionally involved a teacher and a
student or students being in the same physical space.
However, the development of high-speed Internet access has
helped to bring about new virtual learning environments in
which students can learn even when they are literally
thousands of miles away (and in a different time zone) from a
teacher or other classmates. Some of the issues for both real
and virtual learning environments are the same. Students still
need to be motivated and we still need to offer help in that
area. As a result, the best virtual learning sites have online
tutors who interact with their students via email or online chat
forums. It is also possible to create groups of students who are
all following the same online program - and who can therefore
‘talk’ to each other in the same way (i.e. electronically). But
despite these interpersonal elements, some students find it
more difficult to sustain their motivation online than they
might as part of a real learning group. Virtual learning is
significantly different from face-to-face classes for a number of
reasons. Firstly, students can attend lessons when they want
for the most part (though real-time chat forums have to be
scheduled), rather than when lessons are timetabled (as in
schools). Secondly, it no longer matters where the students
are since they can log on from any location in the world.
Online learning may have these advantages, but some of the
benefits of real learning environments are less easy to
replicate electronically. These include the physical reality of
having teachers and students around you when you are
learning so that you can see their expressions and get
messages from their gestures, tone of voice, etc. Many
learners will prefer the presence of real people to the sight of
a screen, with or without pictures and video. Some
communication software (such as MSN Messenger and Skype)
allows users to see each other on the screen as they
communicate, but this is still less attractive - and considerably
more jerky - than being face to face with the teacher and
fellow students. Of course, whereas in real learning
environments learning can take place with very little technical
equipment, virtual learning relies on good hardware and
software, and effective and reliable Internet connections.
Although this book will certainly look at uses of the Internet
and other IT applications, it is not primarily concerned with the
virtual learning environment, preferring instead to
concentrate on situations where the teachers and learners are
usually in the same place, at the same time.
1.3 Learner differences
We, all know that the learners are the similar in the classroom.
They differ from one to another in terms of age, level, attitude,
abilities, knowledge, learning style, educational and cultural
background, interest etc. Harmer (2008) is of the opinion that,
Whatever their reasons for learning (or the circumstances in
which it takes place), it is sometimes tempting to see all
students as being more or less the same. Yet there are marked
differences, not only in terms of their age and level, but also in
terms of different individual abilities, knowledge and
preferences. A good teacher, therefore, should
Study deeply these different aspects found in the learners and
plan how to teach addressing all of them. The learner
differences given by Harmer (2008) are as follows.
1 Age
Learners are often described as children, young learners,
adolescents, young adults or adults. Within education, the
term children are generally used for learners between the
ages of about 2 to about 14. Students are generally described
as young learners between the ages of about 5 to 9, and very
young learners are usually between 2 and 5. At what ages it is
safe to call students adolescents is often uncertain, since the
onset of adolescence is bound up with physical and emotional
changes rather than chronological age. However, this term
tends to refer to students from the ages of about 12 to 17,
whereas young adults are generally thought to be between 16
and 20.
We will look at three ages: children, adolescents and adults.
However, we need to remember that there is a large degree of
individual variation in the ways in which different children
develop. The descriptions that follow, therefore, must be seen
as generalizations only.
Children
We know that children don’t just focus on what is being
taught, but also learn all sorts of other things at the same
time, taking information from whatever is going on around
them. We know that seeing, hearing and touching are just as
important for understanding as the teacher’s explanation. We
are conscious, too, that the abstraction of, say, grammar rules,
will be less effective the younger the students are. But we also
know that children respond well to individual attention from
the teacher and are usually pleased to receive teacher
approval.
Children usually respond well to activities that focus on their
lives and experiences. But a child’s attention span - their
willingness to stay rooted in one activity - is often fairly short.
A crucial characteristic of young children is their ability to
become competent speakers of a new language with
remarkable facility, provided they get enough exposure to it.
They forget languages; it seems, with equal ease. This
language-acquiring ability is steadily compromised as they
head towards adolescence.
Adolescents
One of the greatest differences between adolescents and
young children is that these older children have developed a
greater capacity for abstract thought as they have grown up.
In other words, their intellects are kicking in, and they can talk
about more abstract ideas, teasing out concepts in a way that
younger children find difficult. Many adolescents readily
understand and accept the need for learning of a more
intellectual type. At their best, adolescent students have a
great capacity for learning, enormous potential for creative
thought and a passionate commitment to things which
interest them. Adolescence is bound up with a search for
identity and a need for self-esteem. This is often the result of
the students’ position within their peer group rather than
being the consequence of teacher approval.
Adults
Older learners often (but not always) have a wider range of life
experiences to draw on, both as individuals and as learners,
than younger students do. They are often more disciplined
than adolescents and apply themselves to the task of learning
even when it seems fairly boring. They often have a clear
understanding of why they are learning things, and can sustain
their motivation by perceiving (and holding on to) long-term
learning goals. On the other hand, adult learners come with a
lot of previous learning experience which may hamper their
progress. Students who have had negative learning
experiences in the past may be nervous of new learning.
Students used to be failure may be consciously or
subconsciously prepared for more failure. Older students who
have got out of the habit of study may find classrooms
daunting places. They may also have strong views about
teaching methods from their past, which the teacher will have
to take into account. Because students at different ages have
different characteristics, the way we teach them will differ too.
With younger children we may offer a greater variety of
games, songs and puzzles than we would do with older
students. We may want to ensure that there are more
frequent changes of activity. With a group of adolescents we
will try to keep in mind the importance of a student’s place
within his or her peer group and take special care when
correcting or assigning roles within an activity, etc. Our choice
of topics will reflect their emerging interests. One of the
recurring nightmares for teachers of adolescents, in particular,
is that we might lose control of the class. We worry about
lessons that slip away from us, and which we can’t manage
because the students don’t like the subject, each other, the
teacher or the school - or sometimes just because they feel
like misbehaving, or because issues in their life outside the
classroom are affecting their behavior and outlook on life. Yet
teenagers are not the only students who sometimes exhibit
problem behavior (that is behavior which causes a problem for
the teacher, the student him- or herself, and, perhaps, the
others in the classroom). Younger children can, of course,
cause difficulties for the teacher and class, too. Adults can also
be disruptive and exhausting. They may not do it in the same
way as younger learners, but teachers of adults can experience
a range of behaviors such as students who resist the teacher’s
attempts to focus their attention on the topic of the lesson
and spend the lesson talking to their neighbors, or who
disagree vocally with much of what the teacher or their
classmates are saying. They may arrive late for class or fail to
do any homework. And, whatever the causes of this behavior,
a problem is created. Teachers need to work both to prevent
problem behavior, and to respond to it appropriately if it
occurs. We will discuss how the teacher’s behavior can inspire
the students’ confidence and cooperation, and we are to find
out the ways what to do if students exhibit problem behavior.
2 Learning styles
All students respond to various stimuli (such as pictures,
sounds, music, movement, etc), but for most of them (and us)
some things stimulate them into learning more than other
things do. The Neuro-Linguistic Programming models (often
called NLP) takes account of this by showing how some
students are especially influenced by visual stimuli and are
therefore likely to remember things better if they see them.
Some students, on the other hand, are especially affected by
auditory input and, as a result, respond very well to things
they hear. Kinaesthetic activity is especially effective for other
learners, who seem to learn best when they are involved in
some kind of physical activity, such as moving around, or
rearranging things with their hands. The point is that although
we all respond to all of these stimuli, for most of us, one or
other of them (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) is more powerful
than the others in enabling us to learn and remember what we
have learnt. Another way of looking at student variation is
offered by the concept of Multiple Intelligences, first
articulated by Howard Gardner (mentioned in Harmer (2008).
In his formulation (and that of people who have followed and
expanded his theories), we all have a number of different
intelligences (mathematical, musical, interpersonal, spatial,
emotional, etc). However, while one person’s mathematical
intelligence might be highly developed, their interpersonal
intelligence (the ability to interact with and relate to other
people) might be less advanced, whereas another person
might have good spatial awareness and musical intelligence,
but might be weak mathematically. Thus it is inappropriate to
describe someone as being ‘intelligent’ or ‘unintelligent’,
because while we may not have much of a knack for, say,
music, that does not mean our abilities are similarly limited in
other areas. What these two theories tell us (from their
different standpoints) is that in any one classroom we have a
number of different individuals with different learning styles
and preferences. Experienced teachers know this and try to
ensure that different learning styles are catered for as often as
is possible. In effect, this means offering a wide range of
different activity types in our lessons in order to cater for
individual differences and needs. Nevertheless, we need to
find out whether there are any generalizations which will help
us to encourage habits in students which will help all of them.
We might say, for example, that homework is good for
everyone and so is reading for pleasure. Certain activities -
such as many of the speaking activities are good for all the
students in the class, though the way we organize them (and
the precise things we ask students to do) may vary for exactly
the reasons we have been discussing.
3 Levels
Teachers of English generally make three basic distinctions to
categorize the language knowledge of their students:
beginner, intermediate and advanced. Broadly speaking,
beginners are those who don’t know any English and advanced
students are those whose level of English is competent,
allowing them to read unsimplified factual and fictional texts
and communicate fluently Between these two extremes,
intermediate suggests a basic competence in speaking and
writing and an ability to comprehend fairly straightforward
listening and reading. However, as we shall see, these are
rough and ready labels whose exact meaning can vary from
institution to institution.
Other descriptive terms are also used in an attempt to be
more specific about exactly what kind of beginner,
intermediate or advanced students we are talking about. A
distinction is made between beginners (students who start a
beginners’ course having heard virtually no English) and false
beginners to reflect the fact that the latter can’t really use any
English but actually know quite a lot which can be quickly
activated; they’re not real beginners. Elementary students are
no longer beginners and are able to communicate in a basic
way. They can string some sentences together, construct a
simple story, or take part in simple spoken interactions.
Pre-intermediate students have not yet achieved intermediate
competence, which involves greater fluency and general
comprehension of some general authentic English. However,
they have come across most of the basic structures and lexis
of the language. Upper-intermediate students, on the other
hand, have the competence of intermediate students plus an
extended knowledge of grammatical construction and skill
use. However, they may not have achieved the accuracy or
depth of knowledge which their advanced colleagues have
acquired, and as a result are less able to operate at different
levels of subtlety.
If we remind ourselves that terms such as beginner and
intermediate are rough guides only (in other words, unlike the
Association of Language Testers of Europe(ALTE) levels, they
do not say exactly what the students can do), then we are in a
position to make broad generalizations about the different
levels:
Beginners
Success is easy to see at this level, and easy for the teacher to
arrange. But then so is failure! Some adult beginners find that
language learning is more stressful than they expected and
reluctantly give up. However, if things are going well, teaching
beginners can be incredibly stimulating. The pleasure of being
able to see our part in our students’ success is invigorating.
Intermediate students
Success is less obvious at intermediate level. Intermediate
students have already achieved a lot, but they are less likely to
be able to recognize an almost daily progress. On the contrary,
it may sometimes seem to them that they don’t improve that
much or that fast anymore. We often call this the plateau
effect, and the teacher has to make strenuous attempts to
show students what they still need to learn without being
discouraging. One of the ways of doing this is to make the
tasks we give them more challenging, and to get them to
analyze language more thoroughly. We need to help them set
clear goals for themselves so that they have something to
measure their achievement by.
Advanced students
Students at this level already know a lot of English. There is
still the danger of the plateau effect (even if the plateau itself
is higher up!) so we have to create a classroom culture where
students understand what still has to be done, and we need to
provide good, clear evidence of progress. We can do this
through a concentration not so much on grammatical
accuracy, but on style and perceptions of, for example,
appropriacy (using the right language in the right situation),
connotation (whether words have a negative or positive tinge,
for example) and inference (how we can read behind the
words to get a writer’s true meaning). In these areas, we can
enable students to use language with more subtlety. It is also
at this level, especially, that we have to encourage students to
take more and more responsibility for their own learning.
Although many activities can clearly be used at more than one
level (designing newspaper front pages, writing radio
commercials, etc), others are not so universally appropriate.
With beginners, for example, we will not suggest abstract
discussions or the writing of discursive essays. For advanced
students, a drill (where students repeat in chorus and
individually) focusing on simple past tense questions will
almost certainly be inappropriate. Where a simple role-play
with ordinary information questions (‘What time does the next
train to London leave?’, ‘What’s the platform for the London
train?’, etc) may be a good target for beginners to aim at, the
focus for advanced students will have to be richer and more
subtle, for example, ‘What’s the best way to persuade
someone of your opinion in an argument?’, ‘How can we
structure writing to hold the reader’s attention?’, ‘What
different devices do English speakers use to give emphasis to
the bits of information they want you to notice?’
Another obvious difference in the way we teach different
levels is language. Beginners need to be exposed to fairly
simple grammar and vocabulary which they can understand. In
their language work, they may get pleasure (and good
learning) from concentrating on straightforward questions like
‘What’s your name?’, ‘What’s your telephone number?’,
‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, etc. Intermediate students know all this
language already and so we will not ask them to concentrate
on it.
The level of language also affects the teacher’s behavior. At
beginner levels, the need for us to rough-tune our speech is
very great: we can exaggerate our voice tone and use gesture
to help us to get our meaning across. But at higher levels, such
extreme behavior is not so important. Indeed, it will probably
come across to the students as patronizing.
At all levels, teachers need to ascertain what students know
before deciding what to focus on. At higher levels, we can use
what the students already know as the basis for our work; at
lower levels we will, for example, always try to elicit the
language (that is, try to get the language from the students
rather than giving it to them) we are going to focus on. That
way we know whether to continue with our plan or whether
to amend it then and there because students, perhaps, know
more than we expected.
4 Educational and cultural background
We have already discussed how students at different ages
present different characteristics in the classroom. Another
aspect of individual variation lies in the students’ cultural (and
educational) background.
Some children come from homes where education is highly
valued, and where parental help is readily available. Other
children, however, may come from less supportive
backgrounds where no such backup is on offer. Older students
- especially adults - may come from a variety of backgrounds
and, as a result, have very different expectations of what
teaching and learning involves.
Where students have different cultural backgrounds from the
teacher or from each other, they may feel differently from
their classmates about topics in the curriculum. They may
have different responses to classroom practices from the ones
the teacher expected or the ones which the writers of the
course book they are using had anticipated. In some
educational cultures, for example, students are expected to be
articulate and question (or even challenge) their teachers,
whereas in others, the students’ quietness and modesty are
more highly prized. Some educational cultures find learning by
rote (memorizing facts and figures) more attractive than
learning by doing (where students are involved in project work
and experimentation in order to arrive at knowledge). And it is
worth remembering that even where students all live in the
same town or area; it is often the case that they come from a
variety of cultural backgrounds.
In many English-speaking countries such as Britain, the US,
Australia, etc, multilingual classes (classes where students
come from different countries and therefore have different
mother tongues) are the norm, especially in private language
schools. As a result, students are likely to represent a range of
educational and cultural backgrounds.
As teachers, we need to be sensitive to these different
backgrounds. We need to be able to explain what we are
 doing and why; we need to use material, offer topics and
employ teaching techniques which, even when engaging and
challenging, will not offend anyone in the group. Where
possible, we need to be able to offer different material, topics
and teaching techniques (at different times) to suit the
different individual expectations and tastes.
1.3 Motivation and learning
Motivation
Motivation refers to the internal drive that encourages
somebody to perform certain actions in particular situations.
Motivation is one of the most important factors for successful
teaching and learning. If the learners are motivated directly or
indirectly, they can achieve the goal of learning easily. The
learners or the students can be motivated with the awareness
of the two types of goals. They are short-term goals and long
term goals. For example, if the learners are motivated with the
attraction of the better or prestigious job in future, they are
easy to teach; here the 'prestigious job' is the example of a long
-term goal. Similarly, the language learners are motivated with
the desire to be able to communicate with the members of a
target community; the 'desire to be able' is long- term goal.
Short- term goals might include such things as wanting to pass
the examination. In general, strongly motivated student or
learners with goals because there lacks a permanent or real
drive for them. Short-term goals are not as effective as the
long-term goals.
Types of Motivation
According to Harmer (2008), there are two types motivation
in general which are as follows:
1 Extrinsic Motivation
If the learners are curious to learn something by heart due the
factors outside the classroom, it is simply called extrinsic
motivation. It is the fact thing that some learners study a
language because they have an idea of something which they
wish to achieve. Extrinsic motivation is further categorized into
integrative motivation and instrumental motivation.
a. Integrative motivation
It is the fact thing that some learners are deeply interested to
learn the culture of target language. They have great desire
how to adapt in the target langue community tomorrow. For
achieving the expected desire, they seem to be learning the
language actively. Therefore, if the learners are learning the
target language with an eye to adapt in the target language
community by understanding its culture, this type of
motivation is called integrative motivation.
b. Instrumental motivation
It is also one of the crucial factors due to which the learners
are motivated in learning the target language. Here, the
learners seem to be learning the target language in the hope
that they will get better job and title. They have understood
the national and international scope of that language. They
feel that it is easier to get the expected job everywhere if they
learn the very target language. It can be concluded that, if the
learners are learning the language on the purpose of getting
the well job and status, it is called the instructional motivation.
2 Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is a type of motivation in which the
learners are desirous to learn something; here language, due
to the factors inside the classroom. Physical conditions,
methods, the teachers etc. are the factors of intrinsic
motivation that determine whether the learners learn the
language by heart or not. If these factors are well, learning
activity is well and just vice versa. The factors affecting in the
classroom are discussed below.
a - Physical conditions
A physical condition refers to the management of the
classroom. Here, there must be well management of desks
and benches. The classroom should be neat, clean and bright.
The windows and the doors of the classroom need to be well
managed so that the fresh air can easily pass. The board is to
be well placed so that all students can see whatever written
on the board by the teachers. It's better if the inspiring
pictures and quotations are painted and written on the wall of
the classroom. It these things are managed well, the learners
are mentally prepared by heart for learning.
b- Method
We, all know that lots of methods are developed in the
teaching sector to conduct the teaching learning activities
effectively in the classroom with the time. Another fact thing
we are to keep into our mind is that no the method is perfect
in self. Some methods are well in one context and some
methods are well in another context. What kind of methods
we use in the classroom depends on the level, age, topic and
situation. Likewise, sometimes, the teachers are to use only
one method and sometimes more than one. So, the teachers
are to be very careful while using the different methods in the
classroom so that the teaching learning activities can be
effective and fruitful.
C -The teacher
The teacher himself is one of the crucial factors that directly
affect the teaching learning process and achievement. The
teacher's personality, appearance, teaching methods and
techniques he uses, the manners how he behaves etc. can be
the factors to decide his position in the students' heart. So, the
teacher is very much responsible whether the teaching
learning in the classroom is successful or not.
D -Success
Success is one of the important intrinsic motivational factors
that is to be seriously paid attention by the teacher. Presence
or absence of success plays a vital part in the motivational
drive of a student. Both complete failure and complete success
may be de-motivating for the students. It will be the teacher's
job to set goals and tasks at which most of his students can be
successful or rather tasks which he or she could realistically
expect the students to be able to achieve. To give students
very high challenge activities (high, because the level of
difficulty for the students is extreme) where there is not
appropriate success may have a negative effect on motivation.
It will also be the case that low challenge activities are equally
de-motivating. If the students can achieve all the tasks with no
difficulty at all they may lose the motivation that they have
when faced with the right level of challenge.
E Responsibility for learning
If giving students agency is seen as a key component in
sustaining motivation, then such agency is not just about
giving students more decision-making power. It is also about
encouraging them to take more responsibility for their own
learning. We need to tell them that unless they are prepared
to take some of the strain, their learning is likely to be less
successful than if they themselves become active learners
(rather than passive recipients of teaching).
This message may be difficult for some students from certain
educational backgrounds and cultures who have been led to
believe that it is the teacher’s job to provide learning. In such
cases, teachers will not be successful if they merely try to
impose a pattern of learner autonomy. Instead of imposing
autonomy, therefore, we need to gradually extend the
students’ role in learning. At first we will expect them, for
example, to make their own dialogues after they have listened
to a model on an audio track. Such standard practice (getting
students to try out new language) is one small way of
encouraging student involvement in learning. We might go on
to try to get individual students to investigate a grammar issue
or solve a reading puzzle on their own, rather than having
things explained to them by the teacher. We might get them
to look for the meanings of words and how they are used in
their dictionaries (see below) rather than telling them what
the words mean. As students get used to working things out
for themselves and/or doing work at home, so they can
gradually start to become more autonomous.
Getting students to do various kinds of homework, such as
written exercises, compositions or further study is one of the
best ways to encourage student autonomy. What is important
is that teachers should choose the right kind of task for the
students. It should be within their grasp, and not take up too
much of their time - or occupy too little of it by being trivial.
Even more importantly than this, teachers should follow up
homework when they say they are going to, imposing the
same deadlines upon themselves as they do on their students.
Other ways of promoting student self-reliance include having
them read for pleasure in their own time and find their own
resources for language practice (in books or on the Internet,
for example).
Apart from homework, teachers will help students to become
autonomous if they encourage them to use monolingual
learners’ dictionaries (dictionaries written only in English, but
which are designed especially for learners) and then help them
to understand how and when to use them. At earlier stages of
learning, good bilingual dictionaries serve the same function
and allow the students a large measure of independence from
the teacher.
We will help students to be responsible for their learning if we
show them where (either in books, in self-access centers or
online) they can continue studying outside the classroom. For
example, we can point them in the direction of suitable
websites (if they have computer access), or recommend good
 CD or DVD resources. If students are lucky, their institution will
have a self-access centre with a range of resources comprising
books newspapers, magazines, worksheets, listening material,
videos and DVDs, and computers with access to the Internet.
Students can decide if and when to visit such centers and what
they want to do there. Self-access centers should help
students to make appropriate choices by having good
cataloguing systems and ensuring that people are on hand to
help students find their way around. However, the object of a
self-access centre is that students should themselves take
responsibility for what they do and make their own decisions
about what is most appropriate for them.
Of course, many schools do not have self-access centers, and
even where they do, many students do not make full use of
them. This is because not all students, as we have said, are
equally capable of being (or wanting to be) autonomous
learners. Despite this fact, we should do our best to encourage
them to have agency without forcing it upon them.
1.4 Characteristics of good language teacher

The English language is widely spoken in different parts of the

globe. People who are not native English speakers can improve
their English language and pursue other courses abroad. This
can also help them in securing jobs in other countries or doing
business with foreign people. An experienced teacher can help
you in improving your listening, writing, pronunciation, and
reading skills. A good, well-trained teacher can make a huge
difference in your education and future. Highly-effective English
teachers should be fresh always, introduce new ideas and
changes, experiment with new things and be unique. These are
some of the essential qualities of a good teacher that can help
learners in improving academically. The following are the
essential qualities that a good language teacher should have:

1 Resourceful
We, all know that a teacher is taken as the source of
knowledge by the students. They believe on the teacher fully.
They seem to be listening, speaking, reading and writing on
basis of the instructions given by the teacher. They ask the
varieties of questions if they feel problem. The teacher,
therefore, should be fully responsible to the students and try
his best to satisfy them as much as possible. Being a language
teacher, He has to have deep knowledge about the different
aspects of target language like vocabularies, grammar,
pronunciation, meaning and function. He is to teach how the
language is used by the native speaker in real life situation. He
should be up to date to the new ideas, concepts, methods,
techniques, use of technology in language teaching being
emerged at present by different prominent figures and
transfer the very knowledge.
2 Rapport building
Another crucial feature we find in a good language teacher is
rapport building. Rapport building refers to the one of the
skills of a teacher of establishing well and friendly relationship
to the students as well between the students. It is the fact
thing that teaching learning activity is successful only on that
condition when there is harmonious relationship between the
teacher and students. The teacher, therefore, should create
close relation to the students by listening the opinions of
them, calling them by their names, respecting them and
playing the role of 'being even handed'. Likewise, the teacher
is not to use only formal language all the time in the
classroom. Sometimes, he is to use colloquial language that
makes the students be close to the teacher by avoiding the
fear, hesitation and shy in the students. In the same way, the
teacher is not to teach the content of language all the time
that creates the monotonous in the students but he is to use
the target language to share the feelings, desires and opinion
of the students. They are happy and feel interesting when they
get opportunities to share feelings. The teacher also should
share his experience, feelings and opinions he has on the basis
 of the time and situation that encourages the students to do
something and good teachers do so naturally.
3 Enjoying in his job
A good teacher enjoys in his job. If a teacher enjoys fully, he
can teach well. He can teach by heart. So is the case in the
language teacher. He is to devote in searching and studying in
different aspects of the target language. He is to devote on
how the language is used by its native speakers in real life
situation and taught accordingly. He is to pay attention on
different new methods, techniques and use of technology in
language teaching and thinks seriously how these things can
be used in the classroom. He not only teaches the content of
language but also teaches the ways of learning the language
so that the students can learn the language themselves in
their own pace outside the classroom as well. But, if the
teacher is teaching only for his job, the teaching and learning
of language becomes failure.

4 Adaptability

Teachers should adapt themselves to all students that they are

handling. The approach used by professionals depends on the
individual needs of students. They should keep track of their
students’ progress throughout the sessions. Any approach or
plan that isn’t working should be changed
5 Good interactions
A good language teacher conducts the good interaction
between the teacher and students and among the students to
develop their communicative skills. He knows that language is
practice. The more we practice, the better language we have.
If the interaction is conducted frequently in the classroom, the
students get opportunities how the target language is used in
real life situation and they will have no difficulty in using the
target language in real environment.
6 Eye contact
Eye contact is one of the important features of a good
language teacher that helps the teacher in evaluating the
behaviors, activities, feelings and interests of the students
towards the topic the teacher is teaching in the classroom. Not
only that, if the teacher has well eye contact to each students,
they feel that the teacher knows them well and he is paying
attention to them. As a result, they feel their responsibility in
learning. They are active in learning. The students cannot
diverse their mind to the secondary things and the teaching
and learning of language is successful.
7 Smiling face
A good language teacher has a smiling face. He always smiles
in the classroom that creates close relationship to the
 students. If a teacher enters with a smile, looks with smile and
talks with smile, the students feel very close to the teacher.
They have no fear and shy to talk with the teacher. The
students can share everything they have to teachers frankly.
There is positive attitude in the students towards the teacher
that creates well learning environment.
8 Gestures/postures
While teaching language, it's good if a teacher uses
gesture/posture which is an essential feature of a good
language teacher. It is the fact thing that the main purpose of
language is to convey the meaning from one to another. Most
of the time, there is verbal communication but the meaning is
further clear if there is use of non-verbal communication like
gesture/posture along with the verbal communication. It
makes the students active as well.
9 Variations in voice
Being a good language teacher, he should have variation in
voice that makes the students active in the language classroom.
This means, a teacher should not use the same level of voice
from beginning to the end of the class that creates the
monotonous feelings in the students. They start dozing or
decentralizing their mind to the secondary things. The teacher,
therefore, should keep on changing his voice. Sometimes, his
voice should be in higher level, sometimes
in moderate level and sometimes, in lower level that
concentrates the mind of the students to the topic but the
voice must be audible to all in the classroom.

10 Energy

Students who are attentive can absorb almost everything that is

being taught. Professionals should be enthusiastic and
energetic. Being interactive and making the coursework more
interesting is the key to inspiring active interest in your student.
It can also motivate them to do better.

11 Entertainment

It is universally accepted that language is learnt with fun. The

students can learn language faster if the language classroom is
full of pleasure and fun. Telling the jokes and stories, sharing
the own experiences, playing the music, showing different
dramas, films, the important places on computer, discussing
about the autobiography of the great personalities, debate
program and many more activities that can be conducted in the
classroom so that the students can learn the language with
great fun. But all the activities should be in target language.

12 Movement
Movement is one of important features that we find in a good
language teacher. Being a teacher, he is not to stand in a place
while teaching in the classroom that creates monotonous
 feelings in the students and makes them passive. A good
teacher is to move from front to back, back to front, left to
right, right to left and one group to another on the basis on
the situation. If we do so, the students also participate actively
in the teaching learning activities and language learning is
successful.
13 Punctual
A good teacher should be punctual in the classroom that
creates positive feelings in the students. They feel that the
teacher is honest, dutiful and active in providing the
knowledge and they are also eager to learn something new in
the classroom. The students are to be informed already if the
teacher is to be absent in the class. But, if the teacher is non-
punctual, it decreases the reliability of the teacher and
students do not believe on the teacher. Negative impact
towards the teacher is developed. As a result, language
teaching is unsuccessful.
14 Experience

Professionals should have a better understanding of the English

language for them to impart skills to learners. They should
demonstrate confidence in their reading, writing, and
pronunciation skills. He or she should explain the different
concepts in a manner that students can understand. Again, they
should know where to start and pace their work correctly.
Being interactive can help them in checking that learners
understand.

16 Facilitation
Facilitation is one of the pivotal characteristics found in a good
language teacher. Here, the teacher pays attention on the
students to know whether they have any problems while
involving in different language learning activities like debate,
various group discussions, interaction, writing the composition
etc. or not. He facilitates warmly if any problems found in the
students so that they can go ahead in their language learning
activities.
17 Managing the classroom
Managing the classroom environment is one of the important
features a good teacher should have. It is the fact thing that the
environment plays vital role in learning sector. This is the case
regarding the language learning also. The classroom
environment, therefore, should be favorable for the students:
well arrangement of desks, benches, board, neat, clean and
bright room, seating arrangements of the students on basis of
the topic. Likewise, the target language environment is to be
created in the classroom so that the students are also
interested in using the target language there.
18 The power of Motivation
It is the fact thing that motivation plays vital role in language
learning that inspires the students to learn language by heart. If
they are well motivated, there is active participation of them.
We all know that the teacher itself is also one of the crucial
motivational factors who can take drastic change in language
learning activities if he plays an effective role. The methods and
techniques he uses in the classroom, behaviors, teaching styles,
linguistic knowledge, fluency, rapport building capacity etc. of
him determines whether the students are curious to learn or
not. A good teacher, therefore, uses his all skills and knowledge
properly on the basis of the topic and situation.
19 Evaluating
Teaching and evaluating is interrelated to each other that must
go simultaneously. Some of the teachers seem to be
emphasizing on teaching but giving less attention on evaluation
which is not good. It doesn't tell us whether the students are
learning the language properly or not. A good language
teacher, therefore, always evaluates his students to know the
learning progress and achievement in language and the
effectiveness in his methods and techniques he has adopted in
his language teaching. If not, he should change his teaching
styles on the basis of the psychology and response of the
students.
1.5 Teacher and teaching
The roles of teacher
It is the universally accepted matter that a teacher has to be
equipped with the essential theoretical knowledge and
practical skills. Good teachers possess different types of
characteristics or qualities. The roles of a good teacher vary
from one approach/method to next. The traditional language
teaching methods like GT method, the lecture method etc.
demand active and dominating role of a language teacher. They
view that the teacher should function as the authority in the
class. But the modern approaches, such as the communicative
approach, the content-based language teaching etc. believe
that the teacher should play the role of a facilitator. Some of
the roles of a good language teacher are, in brief, discussed
below:
1. MENTOR

Teachers play the role of a mentor for learners, especially

during formative years at school. Early learners and young
students usually observe the behavior and approach of their
teachers to mirror their own actions. The advice given by
teachers is taken seriously and very often the students turn to
their teachers for guidance and advice. Senior teachers can also
play the role of a mentor to junior teachers, imparting practical
wisdom from their years of experience.

2 Controller
When a teacher acts as the controller, he plays the role of the
in-charge or authority of teaching-learning activities. He
controls both teaching items and learning activities. If he plays
the role of a controller, he has to transmit his knowledge to his
students. He tells his students to memorize the rules and
examples through reading and various types of drills. The
students cannot get proper opportunities to speak language.
Presentation and practice are followed by question-answer
under his control. Students do not play any active role; they
follow the teacher's suggestions and commands. In this
situation; communicative activities do not take place in the
class.
3 Manager
The teacher has to organize or manage the entire teaching-
learning activities. He has to organize everything which he and
his students need in the class. He manages teaching aids, and
supplementary materials. He suggests the students what and
how they have to practice in the class and in which activities
they have to be involved. When the students perform desired
activities, he has to provide feedback. Thus, the teacher acts as
the organizer or manager in the class.
4 Facilitator
Nowadays, it is viewed that the teacher has to act as the
facilitator in the class. The prime job of the teacher is to
facilitate the students in order to enable them to achieve the
desired ends, the set objectives of teaching and learning. In this
sense, teaching refers to facilitation. He can facilitate the
learners in a numbers of ways. Primarily, he has to find out the
students' problems to facilitate them. There are multiple ways
to facilitation. For example, the students may be in problems
regarding the vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar or content.
The teacher should find out and help them to solve the very
problems recently.
5 Evaluator
The teacher has to assess his students' practices and responses.
He has to provide reinforcement and feedback to enrich his
students' learning and achievement. He has to correct his
students' mistakes and errors through effective ways. To assess
the students seems to be a challenging job because of the
question of fairness. On the basis of the evaluation, he has to
grade the students. Grading facilitates both teaching and
learning. Here, he had to perform his role as the judge/
evaluator with profound care, conscience, fairness and
sensitivity.
6 Prompter
The teacher has to inspire, help and encourage the students if
they have been losing, or if they are not practicing or taking
part properly. They must be supported and encouraged on
time, not being delayed. The students have to be encouraged
to think creatively; they must provide the students right
amount of encouragement and support on time to strengthen
their learning. The role of the prompter seems to be very
similar to that of the facilitator.
7 Participator
The teacher can take part in a discussion to enliven the
environment because students enjoy teacher's participation.
The teacher himself feels comfortable to guide the students if
he takes part in a discussion because he can play the role as a
model that can be followed by the students. In communicative
activities such as role-plays, simulations, information gap
activities, etc, teacher's participation seems to be more useful.
But the teacher must not take part as a teacher, but as a real
participant. He must be amply sensitive and careful not to
dominate the learners; if they are dominated, they are
discouraged to practice through communicative activities.
8 Resource person
In some situations, the teacher cannot present himself as a
participant; he is obliged to play the role of a resource person.
When students are facing the problems, they can get help from
the teacher if he works as a resource person. He provides the
students with the resources they need while they are practicing
the target language. It is better that if he encourages the
students to look for the resources required, they can be
independent in their learning. He must be able careful that his
students are not to be spoon- fed. He can guide the students to
get the information required as they make use of the resources
available.
9 Tutor
If the teacher plays the roles of a prompter along with the roles
of a resource person, he is said to be acting as a tutor. When
students are working on longer projects such as preparations
for talk, debate, he can act as a tutor. He briefly explains to
guide the students. They feel they are supported and helped by
the teacher if he acts as a tutor. He briefly explains to guide the
students. They feel they are supported and helped by the
teacher if he acts as a tutor. As a result, the class atmosphere is
greatly enhanced. But students are not to be spoon-fed in the
name of providing support and help.
10 Observer
The teacher has to observe students' activities and responses.
He has to guide them if they are not practicing properly. In
order to discover their errors and problem areas, he must
observe them deeply. If he does not observe their performance
properly, he cannot guide, help, support, instruct, control and
encourage his students. His complete observation provides him
feedback to make his students learn more successfully in
future. Therefore, he has to observe his students' performance,
responses and activities to be well -informed of the students'
levels and achievements.
11 Performer
Some language teaching methods believe that the teacher has
to play the role of a performer. He is required to be a skillful
manipulator, using questions, commands, and other cues to
elicit desired responses from the learners.
12 Teaching aid
The teacher himself is a kind of teaching aid. He can get a piece
of teaching equipment in his own right. He is especially useful
while using mimes and gestures, as language models, and as a
provider of comprehensible input. The teacher uses mimes,
gestures and expressions to convey meanings and to treat lively
atmosphere. Instead of the textbooks, taped materials, the
students get language models from the teacher. The teacher
provides exposure as the input to his students.
13 Counselor
It is the fact thing that some students are, sometimes, in
serious problem. They are not willing to work under command
of the teachers. They have no friendly behaviors to their
classmates as well. They are no more interested in reading and
writing activities. The classroom may be in disorder due to the
bad behaviors of them. On the very situation, the teacher is to
work seriously and has to play the role of the counselor. He is
to find out the root causes of the problems and counsel
accordingly. Not only that, the teacher has to counsel his
students in order to make them enable to achieve the
objectives desired.
14 Psychologist
In fact, the students differ from one to another in terms of
psychological point of view. They have different desires and
willing according to their age, level, context etc. The teacher,
therefore, has to study and investigate students' cognitive and
psychological aspects to treat them properly. If he works as a
psychologist, he can teach his students properly.
15 Monitor
The teacher has to play the role of a monitor in teaching-
learning activities. He monitors and guides his students while
the teaching-learning activities are going on.
16 Performer
Some language teaching methods believe that the teacher has
to play the role of performer. He is required to be a skillful
manipulator, using g questions, commands, and other cues to
elicit desired responses from the learners. It helps the learners
to be a good performer in the days to come.
17 Rapport builder
The teacher should act as a rapport builder in the classroom.
Being a teacher, his responsibility is to create well and friendly
relationship to each that helps in learning the things in warm
environment. Calling the students by their first name, listening
and respecting the students are some crucial acts that help in
establishing the rapport among the students and teacher.
Fairness and friendly behavior of the teacher, use of colloquial
language, jokes, eye contact, smiling face etc. also help in
creating rapport in the classroom.
18 Role model
Teacher tasks
Teaching doesn’t just involve the relationship we have with
students, of course. As professionals we are also asked to
perform certain tasks.
a- preparation
Effective teachers are well-prepared. But another feature of
being well-prepared is having thought in advance of what we
are going to do in our lessons. As we walk towards our
classroom, in other words, we need to have some idea of what
the students are going to achieve in the lesson; we should have
some learning outcomes in our head. Of course, what happens
in a lesson does not always confirm to our plans for it but
students always take comfort from the perception that their
teacher has thought about what will be appropriate for their
particular class on that particular day. The degree to which we
plan our lessons differs from teacher to teacher. It will often
depend, among other things, on whether we have taught this
lesson (or something like it) before.

b- Keeping records
Many teachers find the administrative features of their job
(taking the register, filling forms and writing report cards)
irksome, yet such record keeping is a necessary adjunct to the
classroom experience. There is one particularly good reason for
keeping a record of what we have taught. It works as a way of
looking back at what we have done in order to decide what to
do next. And if we keep a record of how well things have gone
(what has been more or less successful), we will begin to come
to conclusions about what works and what doesn’t. It is
important for professional teachers to try to evaluate how
successful an activity has been in terms of student engagement
and learning outcomes. If we do this, we will start to amend our
teaching practice in the light of experience, rather than getting
stuck in sterile routines. It is one of the characteristics of good
teachers that they are constantly changing and developing their
teaching practice as a result of reflecting on their teaching
experiences.
 c- Being reliable
Professional teachers are reliable about things like time keeping
and homework. It is very difficult to be rate students for being
late for lessons if we get into the habit (for whatever reason) of
turning up late ourselves. It is unsatisfactory to insist on the
prompt delivery of homework if it takes us weeks to correct it
and give it back. Being reliable in this way is simply a matter of
following the old idiom of ‘practicing what we preach’.
Teacher knowledge
Apart from the ability to create and foster good teacher-
student rapport and the possession of skills necessary for
organizing successful lessons, teachers need to know a lot
about the subject they are teaching (the English language).
They will need to know what equipment is available in their
school and how to use it. They need to know what materials are
available for teachers and students. They should also do their
best to keep abreast of new developments in teaching
approaches and techniques by consulting a range of print
material, online resources, and by attending, where possible,
development sessions and teacher seminars.
a-The language system
Language teachers need to know how the language works. This
means having knowledge of the grammar system and
understanding the lexical system: how words change their
shape depending on their grammatical function, and how they
group together into phrases. They need to be aware of
pronunciation features such as sounds, stress and intonation.
Students have a right to expect that teachers of the English
language can explain straightforward grammar concepts;
including how and when they are used. They expect their
teachers to know the difference between the colloquial
language that people use in informal conversation and the
more formal language required in more formal settings. They
also expect teachers to be able to demonstrate and help them
to pronounce words correctly and with appropriate intonation.
When students have doubts about the language, they
frequently ask their teachers to explain things. They ask ‘What’s
the difference between ... and ...?’ or ‘Why can’t we say ...?’
Sometimes the answer is clear and easy to explain. But at other
times the issue is one of great complexity and even the most
experienced teacher will have difficulty giving an instant
answer. In other words, our knowledge of the language system
may not be adequate for certain kinds of on-the-spot questions
about subtleties. Moreover, sometimes the question is not
especially relevant - it is a distraction from what is going on in
the lesson.
In such situations, teachers need to be able to say things like
‘That’s a very interesting question. I think the answer is X, but I
will check to make sure and I will bring you a more complete
answer tomorrow’ or ‘that’s a very interesting question. I don’t
want to answer it now because we are doing something else.
But you can find the answer yourself if you go to this book.
We’ll discuss it tomorrow’. Students will realize that these
answers are perfectly appropriate when the teacher does
indeed return for the next lesson with the information that
they have promised. This will demonstrate the teacher’s
knowledge of the language and reference materials. But if, on
the other hand, we forget to find the information and never
mention the question again, students will gradually start to
think we just don’t know enough about the language to find
what we are looking for - or that we just don’t care.
b- Materials and resources
When students ask the kind of complicated questions
mentioned above, good teachers know where to find the
answers. We need, in other words, to know about books and
websites where such technical information is available.
However, this is quite a challenge in today’s world, where the
sheer number of course book titles released every year can
sometimes seem overwhelming, and where there are quite a
significant number of grammar books and monolingual
learners’ dictionaries (MLDs) to choose from - to say nothing of
the multitude of useful websites on the Internet. No one
expects teachers to be all-knowing in this respect: what
colleagues and students can expect, however, is that teachers
know where to find at least one good reference grammar at the
appropriate level, or a good MLD, or can direct them to a
library or a website where they can find these things. If
teachers are using a course book, students expect them, of
course, to know how the materials work. Their confidence will
be greatly enhanced if they can see that the teacher has looked
at the material they are using before the lesson, and has
worked out a way of dealing with it.
d- Classroom equipment
Over the last few decades the growth in different types of
classroom equipment has been incredible. Once upon a time
we only had pens, board and chalk to work with. But then along
came the tape recorder, the language laboratory, video
machines, the overhead projector, computers, data projectors
and interactive whiteboards. Some teachers are more
comfortable with these various pieces of educational
technology than others. This will always be the case. There is no
reason why everyone should be equally proficient at
everything. However, students will expect that teachers should
know how to use the equipment that they have elected to use.
Learning how to use various types of equipment is a major part
of modern teacher training. However, we should do everything
in our power to avoid being overzealous about the equipment
itself. It is only worth using if it can do things that other
equipment or routines cannot. The essentials of good teaching -
i.e. rapport, professionalism, using good activities - will always
be more important than the actual means of delivery. What has
changed recently, though, is that students can do things they
were unable to do before thanks to technical innovation. Thus
modern podcasts (downloadable listening which can be played
on individual MP3 players) give students many more listening
opportunities than ever before. They can also write their own
blogs (Internet diaries) and put them on the web. They can
burn CDs with examples of their work and the materials used in
class to take home when a course has finished. They can search
for a wide range of language and information resources in a
way that would have been impossible a few years ago. As
teachers, we need to do everything we can to keep abreast of
technological change in educational resources. But we should
never let technology drive our decisions about teaching and
learning. We should, instead, decide what our learners want to
achieve and only then see what kind of techniques and
technology will help them to do this.
e- Keeping up-to-date
Teachers need to know how to use a variety of activities in the
classroom, of course, but they also need to be constantly
finding out about new ways of doing things. A good way of
learning about new activities and techniques is to read the
various teachers’ magazines and journals that are available.
There is now a wealth of information about teaching on the
Internet, too. Magazines, books and websites often contain
good descriptions of new activities and how to use them. We
can also learn a lot from attending seminars and teachers’
conferences, and listening to other teachers describing new
activities and the successes they have had with them. Two
things need to be said about the various ‘knowledges’ we have
been describing. In the first place, it is difficult for newly
qualified teachers to keep everything in their heads at the same
time as they struggle with the demands of a new job.
Nevertheless, as they learn their craft, we would expect them
to be hungry for as much knowledge in these areas as possible
since this will make them better teachers. Secondly, this kind of
knowledge is not static, hence the need to keep up-to-date.
Things change almost daily. New books, classroom equipment
and computer software are being produced all the time, just as
teachers keep coming up with wonderful new ways of doing old
things (such as grammar presentation or discussion activities).
Staying in touch with these developments can seem daunting,
of course, because of the pace of change, but it is worth
remembering how deadly it would be if things always stayed
the same.
Teaching: Art or science?
Is teaching language an art, then, or is it a science? As this
chapter has shown, there are good grounds for focusing- it's
almost-scientific attributes. Understanding the language system
and finding the best ways to explain it is some kind of a
scientific Endeavour, especially when we continue to research
its changes and evolution. In the same way, some of the
technical skills that are required of teachers (procedures for
how to do things, a constant attention to innovation in
educational technology and materials design) need to be
almost scientific in their rigor. Yet teaching is an art, too. It
works when the relationship that is created between teacher
and students, and between the students in a group, is at its
best. If we have managed to establish a good rapport with a
group, almost anything is possible. We have discussed some of
the key requirements in creating such a rapport, yet behind
everything we have said lurks the possibility of magic - or a lack
of it. Because the way some teachers are able to establish
fantastic rapport, or get students really interested in a new
activity may be observable, but trying to work out exactly how
it was done or why it happened may be more difficult. In the
same way, the instant decision-making we have been discussing
can happen on supposedly scientific grounds, but its success,
and the creativity that can be unleashed, is often the result of
the teacher’s feelings or judgment at that very moment. For as
we have said, good teachers listen and watch, and use both
professional and personal skills to respond to what they see
and hear. Good teachers have a knack of responding by doing
things ‘right’, and that is most definitely an art.
1.6 Rapport building and teaching skills
Rapport building
The term 'Rapport' refers to the harmonious relationship
between the teacher and the students and students between
students in the classroom. So, Rapport building refers to the
skill of a particular teacher in which he tries his best to
establish well relation between the teacher and the students
and among the students in the classroom by using different
techniques he has.
In the classroom, the teachers use different skills to make
their class successful. However, sometimes things do not work
well as they had planned. There may be many reasons for this,
but the one that many teachers find most difficult to deal with
is when students fail to cooperate. This can disturb the
learning environment. There should be cooperation from both
sides (i.e. from teacher and students). There should be close
relationship between them. The teacher should be aware of
the fact that when students come to the class the brig with
them their own personalities and their learning expectation.
Their behavior will also be influenced by their current
circumstances and by what happens in the classroom. He
should try to understand their feelings and treat them
accordingly. If he fails to treat them in proper way; then there
cannot be a good relationship between the teacher and
students which is harmful both for the students and the
teachers. Harmer (2008) argues that in part successful rapport
derives from the students' perception of the teacher as a good
leader and successful professional. If, when teachers come to
the class, students can see that they are well organized and
well prepared, they are likely to have confidence. This is an
essential component in the successful relationship between
students and their teachers. It extends as well to the teachers''
demonstrable knowledge of the subject they are teaching and
to their familiarity with classroom materials and equipment.
All of these things tell the students that they are 'in good
hands' of a teacher. However, rapport depends on the way
that a teacher interacts with his students. Even if a teacher is
well prepared and has a very good knowledge on the subject
matter, he may not be able to create a good learning
environment if he cannot address his students properly. If his
interaction does not work well, his ability to help students to
lean will be seriously compromised. This means, the way the
teacher interacts with his students in the classroom is very
crucial in teaching. His interaction with his students directly
affects learning. Therefore, he should try to mange successful
interaction with his students which is a key for effective
learning environment.
According to Harmer (2008), there are some useful techniques
which help the teachers in establishing the well relationship
between the students and the teacher as well as among the
students in the classroom.
1 Recognizing the students
Recognizing the students is important skill which helps the
teacher to create well and friendly environment between the
teacher and the students. It is the fact thing students want
their teachers to know who they are. They would like their
teachers to know their names, of course, but they also
appreciate it when teachers have some understanding of their
characters. It is extremely difficult for a teacher to learn the
names of all the students in overcrowded classes. Some
experienced teachers have developed a number of strategies
to help them cope with this situation. One method is to ask
the students to put a name cards on the desk in front of them
or stick name badges to their sweaters or jackets. Another
ways is asking the students to sit in the same place until the
teacher learns his/her name. Many teachers use the register
to make notes about individual students (do they wear
glasses? Are they short? Are they thin? Etc. and other keep
separate notes about the individuals in their classes. Some
teachers try to associate the names in register with their
students before starting a lesson. Knowing all the students'
names though it is difficult, is extremely important to establish
a good rapport with individuals. The students feel happy if
they are called by their names. If a teacher calls their students
by their name, they realize that the teacher knows them very
well. They become closer to the teacher. They feel their
responsibility to learn the things carefully to maintain the very
relationship with the teacher. It helps in avoiding the fear and
shy in the students. As a result, they can speak to the teacher
openly by heart. They start paying attention on what the
teacher says and makes them do in the classroom. So, calling
the students by their first name is the crucial thing to be kept
in mind of the teacher to create good and friendly relationship
to each student.
2 Listening to Students
Another crucial thing to create well relation between the
teacher and students is 'Listening to Students.' In the
classroom, the teacher is not to teach or explain the subject
matter in one sided way that may create the monotonous in
the students. It makes the students passive. He should teach
different matters by using various techniques on the basis of
the nature of the topic and listen the ideas, feelings and
comments of the students. He should pay attention on how
the students are showing the reactions on different techniques
and contents and address accordingly. If the views of the
students are listened by the teacher, the students are curious
to express different views on topic. They can share the ideas
about a particular topic without hesitation and shy. There is
active participation from the side of the students. The
classroom becomes more interactive and interesting. Likewise,
it helps the teacher on chaging the different techniques on the
basis on the level, topic, age and interest of the students. So,
the teacher needs to listen his students properly. He needs to
show that he is interested in what students are saying. The
ability to listen to each individual student's opinion is a
professional personality of a teacher that helps in establishing
the well relation to each of them.
3 Respecting the students
Respecting the students is also one of the crucial thing due to
which the teacher can create harmonious environment in the
classroom. It is the universal thing that everybody wants to be
respected. Nobody wants to be humiliated in front of the
people. So is there in the classroom. No student likes to be
insulted in the classroom, either by the classmates or teacher.
Each student wants to read and write in respectful
environment. Keeping this psychological aspect in mind, the
teacher should be very much careful while correcting or
responding the students. If we are too critical, our students
will be discouraged to learn. They will lose interest and
courage to learn something. It is true that students respond
well if they are praised. But if we are constantly praising them
or over complementing them on their work - particularly
where their own self- evaluation tells them they have not
done well -may prove counterproductive. In the first place,
over praise may create 'praise junkies' that is students who are
so addicted to praise that they become attention seekers and
their need for praise blinds them to what progress they are
actually making. Secondly, students learn to discriminate
between praise that is properly earned and medals that are
given out carelessly. The problem is that some students are
happy to be corrected robustly but others need more support
and positive reinforcement. So, the teachers are correct or
respond the students on the basis of the psychological
behavior of them. In other words, just as students have
different learning styles and intelligences, they too have
different preferences when it comes to being corrected. But
whatever method of correction we choose and who ever we
are working with, students need to know that we are treating
them with respect and not using mockery or sarcasm- or
expressing despair at their efforts. We should not forget that
praise is better than claim. The teachers who respect students
do their best to see them in a positive light. They are not
negative about their learners. They do not react with anger or
ridicule when students do unplanned things. They never beat,
curse or insult even if students respond in wrong way.
Teachers respond very diplomatically. As a result, the students
are always positive to these teachers.
4 Being even -handed
Being even handed is one of the important features that a
teacher should have to establish well relation to each student
in the classroom. But, most of teachers seem to be showing
different behaviors according to the educational status of the
students. Those students who are good performer, cheerful,
active, talent, extrovert and well motivated to learn in the
classroom, are loved, cared and paid attention by the teachers
and just vice versa. The teachers are satisfied with the
achievement of those better students but neglect the passive,
introvert and weak students. This means, there is bias
behavior of the teacher in the classroom. As a result, the
teacher cannot be common to all students and loses his
popularity. His teaching learning process cannot be also
fruitful due to the negligence of those passive students. But, a
good teacher focuses on those students who are passive,
introvert and weaker. He loves them so much, becomes close,
finds the causes of the passivism and teaches them by
counseling, motivating and encouraging. The students are also
better and better by the time.
It is the fact thing that if the weak students understand the
subject matter in the classroom, all students can understand
the subject matter and vice versa. So, it is the weak, passive
and introverts students who are to be focused by the teachers
while teaching in the classroom. The result is also well on the
whole and teaching learning process is successful. Therefore,
all the students in a class should be treated equally by the
teachers focusing on those weak students. If a teacher can do
so, he gets popularity among the students and his teaching
learning process is also successful. It will be a mark of his
professionalism as well.
Teaching Skills
Teaching a language effectively in a classroom is not an easy
task that people simply think. In fact, it is the most challenging
job in which the teachers need special skills to handle the
different activities in the classroom. Teaching in a country like
Nepal is really a very challenging job for all the teachers
because the classes are very large with the students from
different languages background. All the language teachers
should be familiar with some issues like how does learning
process take place? What are the factors that affect language
learning? How can a teacher ensure success for all the
students? They should be familiar with different teaching
methods and techniques to apply in the classroom. They
should be able to maintain a good rapport and apply different
techniques in the classroom. They should be able to perform
different roles to help their students learn better. They need
to evaluate their students' performance and give them
immediate feedback.
It is fact thing that the teachers need certain skills to run the
classroom activities effectively. The four teaching skills given
by Harmer (2008) are as follows:
1 Managing classes
Effective teachers see classroom management as a separate
aspect of their skill. In other words, whatever activity we ask
our students to be involved in, or whether they are working
with a board, a tape recorder or a computer, we will have
thought of (and be able to carry out) procedures to make the
activity successful. We will know how to put students into
groups, or when to start and finish an activity. We will have
worked out what kinds of instructions to give, and what order
to do things in. We will have decided whether students should
work in groups, in pairs or as a whole class. We will have
considered whether we want to move them around the class,
or move the chairs into a different seating pattern.
 Successful class management also involves being able to
prevent disruptive behavior and reacting to it effectively when
it occurs.
2 Matching tasks and groups
Students will learn more successfully if they enjoy the
activities they are involved in and are interested or stimulated
by the topics we (or they) bring into the classroom. If the
teacher makes his lessons interesting, the students don't fall
asleep. Of course, in many institutions, topics and activities are
decreed to some extent by the material in the course book
that is being used. But even in such situations, there is a lot we
can do to make sure we cater for the range of needs and
interests of the students in our classes. Many teachers have
the unsettling experience of using an activity with, say, two or
three groups and having considerable success only to find that
it completely fails in the next class. There could be many
reasons for this, including the students, the time of day, a
mismatch between the task and the level or just the fact that
the group weren’t ‘in the mood’. However, what such
experiences clearly suggest is that we need to think carefully
about matching activities and topics to the different groups we
teach. Whereas, for example, some groups seem happy to
work creatively on their own, others need more help and
guidance. Where some students respond well to teacher
presentation (with the teacher acting as a controller), others
are much happier when they investigate language issues on
their own.
3 Variety
Good teachers vary activities and topics over a period of time.
The best activity type will be less motivating the sixth time we
ask the students to take part in it than it was when they first
came across it. Much of the value of an activity, in other
words, resides in its freshness. But even where we use the
same activity types for some reason (because the curriculum
expects this or because it is a feature of the materials we are
using), it is important to try to ensure that learner roles are
not always the same. If we use a lot of group discussion, for
example, we want to be sure that the same student isn’t
always given the role of taking notes, rather than actually
participating in the discussion themselves. When we get
students to read texts, we won’t always have them work on
comprehension questions in the same way. Sometimes they
might compare answers in pairs; sometimes they might
interview each other about the text; sometimes they might do
all the work on their own. Variety works within lessons, too. It
is not just children who can become bored by doing the same
thing all the time. Thus, although there may be considerable
advantages in using language drills for beginner students, we
won’t want to keep a drill running for half an hour because it
would exhaust both students and teacher. However, we might
make a different kind of activity, such as a role-play, last for
longer than this. A lot depends on exactly what we are asking
students to do.
Where we are using a course book for a large part of the
time, it is advisable to vary the ways in which we use certain
repetitive activity types. Just because reading comprehension
exercises always look the same in a book, for example, it
doesn’t mean we always have to approach them in the same
way.
4 Destinations
When we take learning activities into the classroom, we need
to persuade our students of their usefulness. Good activities
should have some kind of destination or learning outcome,
and it is the job of the teacher to make this destination
apparent. Students need to have an idea of where they are
going, and more importantly, to recognize when they have got
there. Of course, some activities, such as discussions, don’t
have a fixed end. Nevertheless, even in such circumstances, it
will be helpful if we can make sure that students leave the
class with some tangible result. That is why a summing-up, or
feedback session at the end of a discussion, for example, is so
valuable.
 Teacher knowledge Apart from the ability to create and foster
good teacher-student rapport and the possession

Unit Two: Management of Learning and Teaching

2.1 Classroom management
Classroom should be well managed if we want to achieve the
desired learning outcomes. While managing the classroom, a
teacher does everything in order to make learners achieve that
has been desired. Some problems may occur in the class from
students such as disruptive talking, inaudible responses,
sleeping in the class, tiredness, heating in the tests and
unwillingness to speak the target language. Classroom
management involves physical management and teaching-
learning management. Arranging the furniture, placing the
board in suitable situation, proper use of technological devices
such as computer, OHP, Mobile, Recording materials, painting
the different pictures and writing the inspiring quotations on
the wall, making the room neat and clean etc. belong to
physical management. If the classroom is well managed
physically, the environment is favorable for students and they
are interested in teaching leaning activities by heart.
Teaching-learning management is also one of the important
aspects of classroom management that should be conducted
properly by a teacher. The use of proper methods and
techniques on the basis of topic and situation, teacher's
language( formal/informal), teacher's voice(audibility, variety),
rapport building(calling them by their names, listening them,
respecting them), eye contact, use of body language, proper
movement, seating arrangement, grouping the students on the
basis of the topic, systematic presentation, the suitable
distance between the teacher and students on the basis of the
psychology of them, proper use of mother language of the
students, talking time management, giving the instructions
properly etc. are some important variables that come under the
heading of teaching learning management. A good teacher,
therefore, should pay attention on well management of both
physical and teaching-learning management deeply. If a teacher
can do so, the teaching-learning activity is successful.
2.2 Dealing with the learners
Being an English language teacher, it's not good to focus only
on the content and techniques though these are essential
aspects in language teaching. His first responsibility goes to
know who the learners are. It is the fact thing that, until and
unless the teacher can't understand his learners properly, he
can't teach well. He, therefore, should study deeply about the
age, level, educational and cultural background and
psychological behavior of the learners and start teaching
accordingly by using different skills he has on the basis of the
situation. Apart from these things, there are some crucial things
to be paid attention by the teachers while dealing with the
learners in the classroom. Harmer (2008) is of the opinion that
our physical presence can play a large part in our management
of the classroom environment. The way we move and stand
and the degree to which we are physically demonstrative can
have a clear effect on the management of the class. Most
importantly, the way we are able to respond to what happens
in class, the degree to which we are aware of what is going on,
often marks the difference between successful teaching and
less satisfactory lessons. All teachers, like all people, have their
own physical characteristics and habits, and they will take these
into the classroom with them. But there are a number of issues
to consider which are not just matters of personality or style
and which have a direct bearing on the students’ perception of
us.
1 Proximity
Teachers need to consider how close they should be to the
students they are working with. Some students are
uncomfortable if their teacher stands or sits close to them. For
some, on the other hand, distance is a sign of coldness.
Teachers should be conscious of how close they are to their
students, should take this into account when assessing their
students’ reactions and should, if necessary, modify their
behavior.
2 Appropriacy
Deciding how close to the students you should be when you
work with them is a matter of appropriacy. So is the general
way in which teachers sit or stand in classrooms. Many teachers
create an extremely friendly atmosphere by crouching down
when they work with students in pairs. In this way, they are at
the same level as their seated students. However, some
students find this informality worrying. Some teachers are even
happy to sit on the floor, and in certain situations this may be
appropriate. But in others it may well lead to a situation where
students are put off concentrating.
All the positions teachers take - sitting on the edge of tables,
standing behind a lectern, standing on a raised dais, etc - make
strong statements about the kind of person the teacher is. It is
important, therefore, to consider what kind of effect such
physical behavior has so that we can behave in a way which is
appropriate to the students we are teaching and the
relationship we wish to create with them. If we want to manage
a class effectively, such a relationship is crucial.
3 Movement
Some teachers tend to spend most of their class time in one
place - at the front of the class, for example, or to the side, or in
the middle. Others spend a great deal of time walking from side
to side, or striding up and down the aisles between the chairs.
Although this, again, is to some extent a matter of personal
preference, it is worth remembering that motionless teachers
can bore students, while teachers who are constantly in motion
can turn their students into tennis spectators, their heads
moving from side to side until they become exhausted.
Most successful teachers move around the classroom to some
extent. That way they can retain their students’ interest (if they
are leading an activity) or work more closely with smaller
groups (when they go to help a pair or group). How much we
move around in the classroom will depend on our personal
style, where we feel most comfortable for the management of
the class and whether or not we want to work with smaller
groups. Awareness In order to manage a class successfully, the
teacher has to be aware of what students are doing and, where
possible, how they are feeling. This means watching and
listening just as carefully as teaching. This will be difficult if we
keep too much distance or if we are perceived by the students
to be cold and aloof because then we will find it difficult to
establish the kind of rapport.
Awareness means assessing what students have said and
responding appropriately. According to the writer Michael
Lewis, a colleague of his, Peter Wilberg (mentioned Harmer,
(2008), put this perfectly when he said that ‘the teacher’s
primary responsibility is response-ability’! This means being
able to perceive the success or failure of what is taking place in
the classroom, and being flexible enough to respond to what is
going on. We need to be as conscious as possible of what is
going on in the students’ heads. It is almost impossible to help
students to learn a language in a classroom setting without
making contact with them in this way. The exact nature of this
contact will vary from teacher to teacher and from class to
class. Finally, it is not just awareness of the students that is
important. We also need to be self-aware, in order to try to
gauge the success (or otherwise) of our behavior and to gain an
understanding of how our students see us. The teacher’s
physical approach and personality in the class is one aspect of
class management to consider.
2.3 Managing Talking Time
How the teachers talk and interact with the students is one of
the crucial teacher skills, but it does not demand technical
expertise. It does, however, require teachers to empathize with
the people they are talking to by establishing a good rapport
with them. One group of people who seem to find it fairly
natural to adapt their language to their audience are parents
when they talk to their young children. Studies show that they
use more exaggerated tones of voice and speak with less
complex grammatical structures than they would if they were
talking to adults. Their vocabulary is generally more restricted,
they make more frequent attempts to establish eye contact and
they use other forms of physical contact. They generally do
these things unconsciously. Though the teacher-student
relationship is not the same as that between a parent and child,
this subconscious ability to rough-tune the language is a skill
that teachers and parents have in common. Rough-tuning is the
simplification of language which both parents and teachers
make in order to increase the chances of their being
understood. Neither group sets out to get the level of language
exactly correct for their audience. They rely, instead, on a
general perception of what is being understood and what is
not. Because they are constantly aware of the effect that their
words are having, they are able to adjust their language use - in
terms of grammatical complexity, vocabulary use and voice
tone - when their listener shows signs of incomprehension. In
order to rough-tune their language, teachers need to be aware
of three things. Firstly, they should consider the kind of
language that students are likely to understand. Secondly, they
need to think about what they wish to say to the students and
how best to do it. And thirdly, they need to consider the
manner in which they will speak (in terms of intonation, tone of
voice, etc). But these considerations need not be detailed. To
be successful at rough tuning, all we have to do is speak at a
level which is more or less appropriate. Experienced teachers'
rough-tune the way they speak to students as a matter of
course. Newer teachers need to pay attention to their students’
comprehension and use it as the yardstick by which to measure
their own speaking style in the classroom. Apart from adapting
their language, teachers also use physical movements and
gestures (these are often quite exaggerated), such as shrugging
the shoulders for ‘who cares?’ or scratching the head to show
puzzlement. Many teachers also use gestures to demonstrate
things like the past tense (pointing back over their shoulders).
They use facial expressions to show emotions such as happiness
and sadness, and mime to demonstrate actions such as opening
a book or filling a glass and drinking. Gesture, expression and
mime should become a natural adjunct to the language we use,
especially with students at lower levels.
This shows that teacher talk is also indispensable aspect in
language teaching- learning activities that become a source of
target language input for the students. He should know how to
talk to the students on the basis of the level, age and situation.
But there is a continuing debate about the amount of time
teachers should spend talking in class. Classes are sometimes
criticized because there is too much TTT (Teacher Talking Time)
and not enough STT (Student Talking Time). Overuse of TTT is
inappropriate because the more a teacher talks, the less chance
there is for the students to practice their own speaking - and it
is the students who need the practice, not the teacher. If a
teacher talks and talks, the students will have less time for
other things, too, such as reading and writing. For these
reasons, a good teacher maximizes STT and minimizes TTT.
Good TTT may have beneficial qualities, however. If teachers
know how to talk to students, if they know how to rough-tune
their language to the students’ level as discussed above, then
the students get a chance to hear language which is certainly
above their own productive level, but which they can more or
less understand. Such comprehensible input - where students
receive rough-tuned input in a relaxed and unthreatening way -
is an important feature in language acquisition. Perhaps,
therefore, we should not talk simply about the difference
between STT and TTT, but also consider TTQ (Teacher Talking
Quality). In other words, teachers who just go on and on, using
language which is not especially useful or appropriate, are not
offering students the right kind of talking, whereas teachers
who engage students with their stories and interaction, using
appropriate comprehensible input will be helping them to
understand and acquire the language. The best lessons,
therefore, are ones where STT is maximized, but where at
appropriate moments during the lesson the teacher is not
afraid to summarize what is happening, tell a story or enter into
discussion, etc. Good teachers use their common sense and
experience to get the balance right that makes language
teaching learning very much fruitful one.
2.4 Successful language learning
Harmer (2008) is of the opinion regarding the successful
language learning that most current language teaching tries to
offer a judicious blend of many of the ideas and elements
discussed above. It recognizes the value of language exposure
through comprehensible input, while still believing that most
people (apart from young children) find chances to concentrate
on language forms and how they can be used extremely
helpful. Current language teaching practice generally gives
students the opportunity to think about how a piece of
grammar works (or which words group together, for example),
while at the same time providing opportunities for language
use in communicative activities and task-based procedures. It
offers students the security of appropriate controlled practice
(depending on variables such as the students’ age, personal
learning styles and the language in question), while also letting
them have a go at using all and any language they know. Such
eclecticism - choosing between the best elements of a number
of different ideas and methods - is a proper response to the
competing claims of the various trends we have described.
However, the danger of eclecticism is the possible conclusion
that since we can use bits and pieces from different theories
and methods, ‘anything goes’. Our lessons can then become a
disorganized ragbag of different activities with no obvious
coherence or philosophy to underpin them. This can be just as
damaging as the methodological rigidity that eclecticism aims
to replace. However, eclecticism that makes use of an
underlying philosophy and structure, in other words, a
principled eclecticism avoids these risks. Believing that students
need exposure, motivation and opportunities for language use,
and acknowledging that different students may respond more
or less well to different stimuli, it suggests that most teaching
sequences need to have certain characteristics or elements,
whether they take place over a few minutes, half an hour, a
lesson or a sequence of lessons. These elements are Engage,
Study and Activate. Having discussed what they mean, we will
go on to look at how they can occur within three typical
sequences out of many.
1 Engage (E)
Most of us can remember lessons at school which were
uninvolving and where we ‘switched off’ from what was being
taught. We may also remember lessons where we were more
or less paying attention, but where we were not really
‘hooked’. We were not engaged emotionally with what was
going on; we were not curious, passionate or involved. Yet
things are learnt much better if both our minds and our hearts
are brought into service. Engagement of this type is one of the
vital ingredients for successful learning. Activities and materials
which frequently engage students include: games (depending
on the age of the learners and the type of game), music,
discussions (when handled challengingly), stimulating pictures,
dramatic stories, amusing anecdotes, etc. Even where such
activities and materials are not used, teachers can do their best
to ensure that their students engage with the topic, exercise or
language they are going to be dealing with by asking them to
make predictions, or relate classroom materials to their own
lives. A lot will depend, of course, on what the individual
students are like and how well the teacher provokes and
encourages engagement. The reason why this element is so
important in teaching sequences, therefore, is that when
students are properly engaged, their involvement in the study
and activation stages is likely to be far more pronounced, and,
as a result, the benefit they get from these will be considerably
greater.
2 Study (S)
Study activities are those where the students are asked to focus
on the construction of something, whether it is the language
itself, the ways in which it is used or how it sounds and looks.
Study activities can range from the focus on and practice of a
single sound to an investigation of how a writer achieves a
particular effect in a long text; from the examination and
practice of a verb tense to the study of a transcript of informal
speech in order to discuss spoken style. In the PPP procedure
described above, both presentation and practice (the first two
stages) are focusing on the construction of an element of
grammar or lexis; after all, controlled practice (where students
repeat many phrases using the language they are focusing on)
is designed to make students think about language
construction. When we have students repeat words with the
correct pronunciation (or say the words we want them to say
based on cues we give them), it is because we want them to
think about the best way to say the words. We want them to
think of the construction of the words’ pronunciation. But study
here means more than the PPP procedure - although PPP is, of
course, one kind of study. Students can study in a variety of
different ways. Sometimes we may show them a new grammar
pattern, repeating each element separately or putting a
diagram on the board before getting them to repeat sentences,
and that is very much like a PPP procedure. But at other times,
we may show students examples of language and ask them to
try to work out the rules. Such discovery activities ask the
students to do all the intellectual work, rather than leaving it to
the teacher. Sometimes students can read a text together and
find words and phrases they want to concentrate on for later
study. At other times, they may spend time, with the teacher,
listening to or looking at the language they have used to see
when it has been more or less successful. All of these (and
many other possibilities) are examples of the study of language
construction. Some typical language areas for study might be
the study and practice of the vowel sound in ‘ship’ and ‘sheep’
(e.g. ‘chip’, ‘cheap’, ‘dip’, ‘deep’, ‘bit’, ‘beat’, etc), the study and
practice of the third person singular of the present simple (‘He
sleeps’, ‘she laughs’, ‘it works’, etc), the study and practice of
lexical phrases for inviting (‘ Would you like to come to the
cinema/to a concert?’, etc), the study and practice of the way
we use pronouns in written discourse (e.g. ‘A man entered a
house in Brixton. He was tall with an unusual hat. It was
multicolored ...’, etc), the study and practice of paragraph
organization (topic sentence, development, conclusion) or of
the rules for using ‘make’ and ‘do’.
3 Activate (A)
This element describes exercises and activities which are
designed to get students using language as freely and
communicatively as they can. We will not be asking them to
focus on the use of a particular structure, or to try to use words
from a list we give them. That would make what they are doing
more like a study activity, where they are expected to focus on
the accuracy of specific bits of language, rather than on the
message they are trying to convey or the task that needs to be
performed. The objective in an activate activity is for them to
use all and any language which may be appropriate for a given
situation or topic. In this way, students get a chance to try out
real language use with little or no restriction - a kind of
rehearsal for the real world.
Personalization (where students use language they have
studied to talk about themselves, or to make their own original
dialogues, often as the third or production phase of PPP)
provides a bridge between the study and activate stages. But
more genuinely activate exercises include role-plays (where
students act out, as realistically as possible, an exchange
between a travel agent and a client, for example),
advertisement design (where students write and then record a
radio commercial, for example), debates and discussions,
Describe and draw (where one student tries to get another to
draw a picture without that other student being able to see the
original), story and poem writing, email exchanges, writing in
groups, etc.
Activation is not just about producing language in speech and
writing, however. When students read or listen for pleasure (or
when they are listening or reading to understand the message
rather than thinking about the form of the language they are
seeing or hearing), they are involved in language activation.
They are using all and any language at their disposal to
comprehend the reading or listening text. But, of course,
students may, once they have been through an activation
stage, go back to what they have said or to the text they have
read, and focus upon its construction. Activation can be a
prelude to study, rather than necessarily the other way round.
All three ESA elements need to be present in most lessons or
teaching sequences. Whatever the main focus of the lesson
(e.g. a grammar topic or a reading skills exercise), students
always need to be engaged, if possible, so that they can get the
maximum benefit from the learning experience. Most students
will readily appreciate opportunities to activate their language
knowledge, but for many of them the inclusion of study
elements, however small or of short duration these are, will
persuade them of the usefulness of the lesson. Some events,
for example a debate or a role-play, a prolonged Internet-based
search or a piece of extended writing take a lot of time and so,
in one lesson, teachers may not want to interrupt the flow of
activation with a study stage. But they may want to use the
exercise as a basis for study (perhaps in a different lesson). The
same might be true of an extended study period where chances
for activation are few. But, in both these cases, the only
limitation is time. The missing elements will appear at some
other time.
The majority of teaching and learning at lower levels is not
made up of such long activities, however. Instead, it is far more
likely that there will be more than one ESA sequence in a given
lesson sequence or period.
2.5Lesson sequences
Harmer (2008) opines that three elements of ESA need to be
present in lesson sequences; this does not mean that they
should always occur in the same order. In the first place, the
order is bound to change depending on what we want to
achieve. If we are running a task-based lesson, the study event
may well come after activation. On the other hand, if we are
introducing a piece of grammar, we may study the language
first before the students are asked to try to use it. Secondly,
there is a danger that if we always do things in the same order,
students will become bored; predictability can diminish
students’ enthusiasm and motivation - and ours, as teachers,
too. Many different teaching sequences (using the ESA
elements in a number of different ways) are possible. We can
look at just three possibilities to sense how varied the
sequences can be. One type of teaching sequence takes
students in a straight line and, as a result, is called straight
arrows: first the teacher gets the class interested and engaged;
then they study something; then they try to activate it by
putting it into production. Here is an example of such a
sequence designed for elementary-level students to teach ‘can’
and ‘can’t’:
1 Engage
Students and teacher look at a picture, website or DVD of new
generation robots. Perhaps they can watch a brief clip of the
movie I, Robot or some other contemporary film with a similar
theme. They say whether they like or don’t like the idea of
robots.
2 Study
The teacher shows students (the picture of) a particular robot.
Students are introduced to ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ (how they are
pronounced and constructed) and say things like ‘It can use a
cash machine’ and ‘It can’t play the piano’. The teacher tries to
make sure the sentences are pronounced correctly and that the
students use accurate grammar.
3 Activate
Students work in groups to design and describe their dream
robot. They make a presentation to the class saying what their
robot can and can’t do. We can represent this kind of lesson
like this: ESA straight arrows sequence, much like PPP
procedures, work very well for certain structures. The robot
example clearly shows how ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ are constructed
and how they are used. It gives students a chance to practice
the language in a controlled way (during the study phase) and
then gives them the chance to begin to activate the ‘new’
language in an enjoyable way.
However, if we teach all our lessons like this, we may not be
giving our students’ own learning styles a fair chance. Such a
procedure may work at lower levels for straightforward
language, but it might not be so appropriate for more advanced
learners with more complex language. It won’t be of much use
if we want students to get involved with a reading text or have
a discussion about something. It wouldn’t be terribly useful
either if most of the students already know how to use ‘can’
and ‘can’t’.
Thus, while there is nothing wrong with using the straight
arrows sequence — for the right students at the right level,
learning the right language - it is not always appropriate.
Instead, there are other possibilities for the sequence of the
ESA elements. Here, for example, is a boomerang procedure:
1 Engage
Students and teacher discuss issues surrounding job interviews.
What makes a good interviewee? What sort of thing does the
interviewer want to find out? Hopefully, the students get
interested in the topic.
2 Activate
The teacher describes an interview situation which the students
are going to act out in a role-play. The students plan the kind of
questions they are going to ask and the kind of answers they
might want to give (not focusing specifically on language
construction, etc, but treating it as a real-life task). They then
role-play the interviews. While they are doing this, the teacher
makes a note of language difficulties they have and particular
mistakes that can be worked on later.
3 Study
When the role-plays are over, the teacher works with the
students on the grammar and vocabulary which caused them
trouble. For example, students can compare their language
with more correct usage and try to work out (discover) for
themselves where they went wrong. The teacher may explain
what the problems were or refer students to grammar books,
etc. They might do some controlled practice of the language.
4 Activate
Sometime later, students role-play another job interview,
having absorbed the corrections to the language they used last
time round. A diagram for boomerang lessons can show this
procedure like this: EAS(A) boomerang sequence. In this
sequence the teacher is answering the needs of the students.
They are not taught language until and unless they have shown
(in the activate phase) that they have a need for it. In some
ways, this makes much better sense because the connection
between what students need to learn and what they are taught
is more transparent. However, it places a greater burden on the
teacher since he or she will have to be able to find good
teaching material based on the (often unforeseen) problems
thrown up at the first activate stage. It may also be more
appropriate for students at intermediate and advanced levels
since they have quite a lot of language already available to
them to use in an activate stage. Boomerang sequences feel
much more like the kind of TBL procedures; the task comes
first, not a specific language point. But then the boomerang
comes back (if we need it) to remind us to study some of the
language used, more or less successfully, in the task. A more
specific type of boomerang sequence is sometimes called test-
teach-test where the students are first asked to use language in
an activation stage, and are then taught how to deal with things
they made mistakes with before trying the testing part of it
again. Many lessons aren’t quite as clear-cut as this, however.
Instead, they are a mixture of procedures and mini-procedures,
a variety of short episodes building up to a whole. Here is an
example of this kind of patchwork lesson: 1 Engage —►
Activate: students look at a picture of sunbathers and respond
to it by commenting on the people and the activity they are
taking part in. Maybe they look at each other’s holiday photos,
etc. Then, they act out a dialogue between a doctor and a
sunburn victim after a day at the beach.
2 Activate
Students look at a text describing different people with
different skin types and the effects the sun has on their skin.
They say how they feel about the effects of the sun.
3 Study
The teacher does vocabulary work on words such as ‘pale’, ‘fair-
skinned’, ‘freckles’, ‘tan’, etc, ensuring that students
understand the meaning and the hyphenated compound
nature of some of them, and that they are able to say them
with the correct pronunciation in appropriate contexts.
4 Activate
Students describe themselves or people they know in the same
kind of ways as the reading text.
5 Study
The teacher focuses the students’ attention on the relative
clause construction used in the text (e.g. ‘I’m the type of person
who always burns’ and ‘I’m the type of person who burns
easily’). The use of the ‘who’ clause is discussed and students
practice sentences, saying things like ‘They’re the kind of
people who enjoy movies’, etc.
6 Engage
The teacher discusses advertisements with the students. What
are they for? What different ways do they try to achieve their
effect? What are the most effective aids the students can think
of? Perhaps the teacher plays some radio commercials or puts
some striking visual aids on an overhead projector.
7 Activate
The students write a radio commercial for a sunscreen. The
teacher lets them record it, using sound effects and music.
Such classes are very common, especially at intermediate and
advanced levels. Not only do they probably reflect the way we
learn - rather chaotically, not always in a straight line - but they
also provide an appealing balance between study and
activation, and between language and topic.
Engage, Study and Activate are the basic building blocks for
successful language teaching and learning. By using them in
different and varied sequences, teachers will be doing their
best to promote their students’ success since various theories
and procedures which have informed debates about language
learning are reflected in sequences such as straight arrows,
boomerang and patchwork lessons.
Unit Three: Language Teaching Approaches and Methods
3.1 Historical Over the Methods
3.1.1 The grammar Translation Method
The grammar Translation Method (GT Method) of foreign
language teaching is one of the most traditional methods,
dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
It was originally used to teach 'dead' languages (and literatures)
such as Greek and Latin, and this may account for its heavy bias
towards written work to the virtual exclusion of oral
production. Latin has been studies for centuries, with the prime
objectives of learning how to read classical Latin texts,
understanding the fundamentals of grammar and translation,
and gaining insights into some important foreign influences.
This method is also known as classical method. It is now more
commonly known in foreign language teaching circles as the
Grammar Translation Method.
Although, no full and carefully documented history of the GT
Method exists, it was a dominant method during 1840s to
1940s and is still in use in many countries. The Grammar
Translation is mainly based on the ancient literary works of
Romans and Greeks. In the second and third century BC, Roman
poet used advanced translation. There was a tradition of
experimental instruction in third century A.D. In fourteenth
century, there was trend of translation of English into Latin and
vice versa. William Lily's (1513) English Grammar was translated
from Latin. During renaissance English paragraph, which
described every day situation for classroom then translated into
Latin, considered of examining each word and phrase
explaining its grammatical use, and identifying equivalents in
the mother tongue. Publications of phrase (idioms) books,
bilingual dictionaries, and guides on translation and grammars
were continued up to the 17th century. The study of classical
Latin and an analysis of its grammar and rhetoric became the
model for foreign language study from seventeenth century.
Latin Grammar which was taught through rote learning of
grammar rules, concentrated on the study of declensions and
conjugations, translation, and practice in writing sample
sentences sometimes with the use of parallel bilingual texts and
dialogue. During the 18th century, regular combination of
grammar rules with translation into the target language as the
principal technique became popular. One of the best known of
such teaching grammars was Meidinger's 'Praktische
Franzosiche Grammatik (1783). He advocated grammatical
rules and paradigms as the basic for translating native language
sentences into foreign language. German writer Karl Ploetz
(1819 -1881) advocated Grammar Translation Method in the
19th century. Ollendorff's languages courses which came into
popular use around 1840 also used the Grammar Translation
method. Different writers in the text books combined rules,
vocabulary, text, and sentences to be translated as the typical
pattern of this method.
Principal features of GT Method
The principal features or characteristics of GT Method as stated
by the prominent linguists are given to the following points.
1 The goal of language teaching is to enable the learners to
read the literature and benefit from the mental discipline that
result from the foreign language study.
2 Literary language is superior to spoken language.
3 Languages are similar, so it is possible to find target language
equivalents into students' mother tongue.
4 Reading and Writing skills are primarily focused but there is
no systematic attention on developing Reading and Writing
skills.
5 Grammar is taught deductively i.e. rules of the target
language is taught first and the examples are given to clarify the
rules later.
6 Accuracy is emphasized rather than fluency.
7 The sentence is the basic unit of language practice.
8 Teacher is the authority who handles all the activities and
students are the passive learners in the classroom.
9 Little or no attention is given to pronunciation.
10 Language learning is viewed as memorizing rules and facts in
order to understand and manipulate two systems (morphology
and syntax)
11 More focus is given on learning grammar use rather than
their usage in real life situation.
12 Students' mother tongue is the medium of instruction in the
classroom. The given text is translated into students' mother
tongue.
13 Vocabulary selection is based solely on the reading text used
and the words are taught through bilingual word lists,
dictionary study and memorization.
14 The students are expected to attain high standard in
translation because accuracy is a pre - requisite for passing
formal examination.
15 Little chance is given for classroom interaction. (i.e. student-
student or teacher - student interaction)
16 Correct answers are needed in terms of both grammatical
and content point of view. If the students make the errors, the
teachers correct the answers at the very time.
17 A formal written test is the main tool for the evaluation of
students' performance.
18 Translation is regarded as the best technique to learn a
foreign language. So, all the sentences on the given passage are
translated into students' mother tongue by teachers first, then
after by the students.
19 The answer question activities based on the given passage is
conducted through the target language either it is in oral or
written form.
20 Culture is viewed to be consisting of literature and fine arts.
Techniques or classroom procedures
Regarding the techniques of Grammar Translation Method, the
prominent linguist, Larsen- Freeman (2004) has given some
universal language teaching techniques which are explained
below.
1 Translation of a literary passage
It is a pivotal technique used in the classrooms by each
teacher under the Grammar Translation Method. Here, the
teachers translate the literary passage from the target language
into the native language of the students, words by words,
sentences by sentences, paragraphs by paragraphs and at last,
whole passage. The students are to listen carefully and learn
how to translate from the target language into their native
language by reciting the equivalent words meanings of both
languages. But, idioms are not literally translated but they are
translated on the basis of the sense they provide. Likewise, the
grammatical structures in the passage are also taught so that
they can compare those grammatical items with the structures
with their native language and it is easier for the students to
translate. This means; vocabulary and grammatical structures in
the passage are studied in subsequent lessons. The teacher
may select some vocabulary items from the passage carefully
designed to include particular grammar rules and vocabulary.
The translation may be written or spoken or both on the basis
of time and situation.
2 Reading comprehension question
It is also one of the frequently used techniques under Grammar
Translation Method. Here, reading comprehension questions
are listed and students answer the questions in the target
language on the basis on their understanding of the reading
passage. Often, the questions are sequenced in such way that
the first group of questions asks for information, the second
group of questions asks the inferences based on their
understanding and third group of questions asks the students
to relate the passage to their own experience.
3 Antonyms/Synonyms
Students are given one set of words and are asked to find
synonyms of those words in the reading passage. Similarly, the
students are also asked to find antonyms. Sometimes, they
might be asked to define a set of words based on their
understanding of them as they occur in the reading passage.
Other exercises that ask students to work with the vocabulary
of the passage are also possible.
4 Cognates
The term 'cognates' refers to the words or learning the
spelling or sound patterns that correspond between languages.
Students are also asked to memorize words that look like
cognates but have meanings in the target language that are
different from those in the native language. This technique, of
course, would only be useful in languages that share cognates.
5 Deductive application of rules
As its topic says, GT Method focuses on two things; grammar
and translation. Its primary focus goes to the grammar that is
supposed to be mastered first because grammar is taken as the
vertebrate of learning of any language. It is believed that until
and unless the grammar is mastered, translation is impossible.
So, while teaching grammar, the deductive rule is applied. In
deductive rule, the grammatical rules of the target language is
taught and tried to be clarified first by using the mother tongue
of the students and the examples in the target language are
given later. Exceptions to each rule are also noted. Once
students understand a rule, they are asked to apply it to some
different examples. Likewise, the students are to translate the
passages on the basis of the grammatical knowledge they have.
5 Fill in the blanks
It is a universal technique incorporated by Larsen Freeman, not
only used in GT Method but other methods. Here, Students are
given a series of sentences with word missing. They are asked
to fill in the blanks with new vocabulary item or with items of a
particular grammar type, such as preposition or verb with
different tenses.
6 Memorization
Memorization is a most used technique in the classroom under
the GT Method. Here, the students are given the list of target
language vocabulary words and their native language
equivalents and asked to memorize them. They are to recite
the vocabularies of the target language in isolation. For that,
class-wise dictionaries up to 10 classes seems to have prepared
for the students in the context of Nepal as well as in many more
countries in the world where English language is taught as
second language. Likewise, the students are required to
memorize grammatical rules of the target language and use on
the basis the situation.
7 Using words in sentences
This technique is used to evaluate the students whether they
can use the new words they have known in the sentences
correctly or not. Here, the students are to memorize the
grammatical rules and new vocabularies of each lesson. Then,
they are to use those new vocabularies in the sentences
according to the grammatical rules of the target language with
correct meaning.
8 Composition
This technique seems to have used for the language practice
under the GT Method because there is no face to face
conversation practice in target language among the students. It
doesn't focus on communication directly but compositions are
given to write in the target language on various topics mostly
on the basis of the taught chapters and partially on the
contemporary issues in the national and international context
to check the students whether they have commanded over the
target language or not and how they are progressing in the
target language.
Here, the teacher gives the students a topic to write about in
the target language. The topic is based upon some aspects of
reading passage of the lesson. Sometimes, instead of creating a
composition, students are asked to prepare a précis of the
reading passage. Likewise, the students are to involve on
guided writing where they are to develop the full text on the
basis of the key points given on the passage.
9 Reading aloud
Reading aloud is also one of the crucial techniques used widely
in the classroom under the GT Method though Larsen Freeman
has not talked about it. Here, the students are allowed to read
the taught chapters in loud voice one by one or in group in the
classroom and the teachers seem to be listening carefully and
evaluating whether they can read fluently or not. Those
students who have sound knowledge about the grammatical
rules and vocabularies of the taught chapters can read well. The
unable students are given feedback by the teachers
accordingly.
10 Answer and question
Answer and question is a popular technique used under the GT
Method. Here, the teacher mostly asks the readymade
questions based on the taught lesson and the students are to
reply on the basis of their understanding of the very lesson in
the target language. Sometimes, the teachers themselves seem
to be asking the questions based on the taught chapter.
Advantages of GT Method
GT Method has many advantages. Due to that, it was too much
prevalent in past in the fiend of teaching and is still in use.
Some of the advantages of GT Method are given below.
1 The students feel less threatened in the classroom due to the
use of mother tongue of the students.
2 There is no essential of additional teaching materials in the
classroom except the text books. So, it is easier for the teachers
to teach.
3 This method is useful and applicable to teach large classes.
4 Even the teachers who are not fluent in the target language
can also teach the language using a dictionary and translating
the words into mother tongue.
5 The teachers who are not trained can also apply it.
6 This method is easier to apply for all teachers.
7 Little preparation by the teachers is enough to teach in the
classroom.
8 Lots of subject matters can be taught in short time.
9 This method is suitable to teach intellectual learners.
10 There is well development on writing skill in the students
due to the excessive focus on writing skill.
11 The students can develop their understanding capacity due
to the focus on reading skill.
12 Students can develop their translation skills which is useful
for various purposes.
13 Students learn accurate rules of language. So, there is
accuracy on their language.
14 It helped in emerging the bilingual dictionaries.
15 This method helps in contrastive analysis between two
different languages due the focus on accurate grammar.
Weakness of GT Method
There is proverb in English, "There is no sun without shadow."
Although Grammar Translation Method is widely used in the
world, it has many cons. Some of them are mentioned below.
1 This method teaches about the language but not the
language. This means, it only teaches about the rules of the
target language in detail and accurately but it doesn't teach
how language is used in real life situation like the native
speakers.
2 Non-communicative skills like Reading and Writing are
focused rather than the communicative skills like Listening and
Speaking. As a result, the students are poor in communication.
3 This method emphasizes on grammar rather than usage of
the target language. So, the students are well in operation of
the target language but don't know how to use the very rules
on the basis of the situation.
4 This method is difficult to apply for lower levels of the
learners because they feel difficult to understand the rules.
5 It just focuses on accuracy and neglects on fluency. As a
result, the students are not fluent in the target language.
6 It focuses on writing skill which is the manifestation of speech
and used by only educated people but neglects on speech
which is real language and used by all people whether they are
educated or uneducated. As a result, the learners can't develop
their communicative ability.
7 It gives no proper attention on pronunciation of the target
language. It doesn't teach the phonetic transcription of the
target language. So, the students neither have correct
pronunciation in speaking nor have well comprehensibility in
listening.
8 Literal translation is not possible in all types of text.
9 In this method, the teachers are active and the students are
passive. So, there is no well development of the target
language in the students due to the lack of exposure. Most of
time, they seem to be listening whatever told by the teachers.
10 The students are unnecessarily dominated by the teachers.
As a result, they lack creativity and logical capacity.
11 The students are to read and write under the command of
the teachers. So, the students are dependent though they are
in upper level.
12 The natural order of language learning i.e. Listening,
Speaking, Reading and Writing is neglected.
13 This method is completely impractical to teach linguistically
heterogeneous students i.e. belonging to different mother
tongue.
14 The students may feel boring when they are to recite the
unusable grammatical rules and vocabularies of the target
language and memorize those items only for translation of the
literary passages given on the text books.
15 Selection and gradation are unknown to this method.
3.1.2 Direct Method
Towards the end of the late 1800s, a revolution in English
language teaching philosophy took place that is seen by many
as the 'dawn' of modern foreign language teaching. Teachers,
frustrated by the limits of the Grammar Translation Method in
terms of its inability to create 'communicative' competence in
students, began to experiment with new ways of teaching
language. Basically, teachers began attempting to teach foreign
languages in a way that was more similar to first language
acquisition. Direct Method incorporated techniques designed
to address all the areas that the Grammar Translation did not -
namely oral communication, more spontaneous use of the
language, and developing the ability to think in the target
language. The appearance of the Direct Method (DM) thus
coincided with new school of thinking that dictated that all
foreign language teaching should occur in the target language
only, with no translation and an emphasis on linking meaning to
the language being learned. The method became very popular
during the first quarter of the 20th century, especially in private
language schools in Europe where highly motivated students
could study new languages and not need to travel far in order
to try them out and apply them communicatively.
Gouin's theory 'L'art d'enseigner les langues' (1880) is a good
example of fundamental reform in theory. Henry Sweet's 'The
Practical Study of Languages (1899) illustrates the criticisms and
radicalism of contemporary reform movements. The proposed
reforms went under a variety of names: 'reform method',
'natural method', psychological method', 'phonetic method',
etc.; but the most persistent term is 'Direct Method' (Stern,
1983:457). This method was partly attributed to practical
language learning in a new world of industry and international
trade and travel. It was partly also stimulated by linguistic
scholarship, linguistic theory, philology, and phonetics.
Historically, the development of the Direct Method is closely
linked with the introduction of phonetics into language
pedagogy (ibid.). Both phonetics and the Direct Method
emphasized the use of the spoken language.
One of the most famous advocates of the direct method was
Charles Berlitz, whose schools and 'Berlitz Method' are now
world - renowned. In 19th century, L. Sauveur, (1826 - 1907)
used intensive oral interaction in the target language employing
questions as a way of presenting and eliciting language. His
method was known as 'natural method' (Richards and Rodgers,
2001:11). Sauveur and other believers of natural method
argued that a foreign language could be taught without
translation or the use of the learner's native language if
meaning was conveyed directly through demonstration and
action.
German scholar F. Franke (1884) wrote on the psychological
principles of direct association between forms and meanings in
the target language and provided a theoretical justification for
a monolingual approach to teaching. According to Franke,
language could best be taught by using it actively in the
classroom. In the U.S.A. 'Cleveland Plan' (1919) consisted
principally of a carefully devised scheme of graded instruction
of French and other languages over a period of years in
elementary and high schools. An essential feature of the plan
was the use of the second language as a medium of instruction
in the language class and the avoidance of translation as a
technique of teaching.
In Britain, also, this method had great impact on language
teaching. The language teachers adopted it and its techniques.
They gave emphasis on spoken language, but not translation
and grammatical explanation in the first language. Collins, the
author of one of the most widely used French coursed, also
advocated this approach; he coined the slogan to teach French
an 'Frechly as possible' (Collins, 1934 in Stern,1983). In several
European educational systems the translation of texts was
totally replaced by the direct study of oral and printed texts, re
- narration, and writing of composition; based on pictures
episodes told by the teacher.
By the late 1920s, the method was starting to go into its
decline and there was even a return to the grammar
Translation method; which guaranteed more in the way of
'scholastic' language learning oriented around reading and
grammar skills. But the Direct Method continues to enjoy a
popular following in private language school circles, and it was
one of the foundations upon which the well- known 'Audio-
lingual Method' expanded from starting half way through the
20th century.
Principles of the Direct Method
According to Richards and Rodgers (1986) and Larsen Freeman
(2004), the principles of Direct method are as follows.
1 Classroom instruction should be exclusively in the target
language.
2 Everyday vocabulary and sentences should be taught.
3 Reading in the target language should be taught from the
beginning of language instruction, however the reading skill will
be developed through practice with speaking language is
primarily speech.
4 Objects present in the classroom environment should be used
to help students understand the meaning.
5 The native language should not be used in the classroom.
6 The teacher should demonstrate not explain or translate. It is
desirable that students make a direct association between the
target language and meaning.
7 Students should learn to think in the target language as soon
as possible.
8 The purpose of language learning is communication.
9 Pronunciation should be worked on right from the beginning
of language instruction.
10 Self correction facilitates language learning.
11 Lesson should contain some conversational activity.
12 Grammar should be taught inductively.
13 Writing is an important skill to be developed from the
beginning of language instruction.
14 The syllabus is based on situations or topics not usually on
linguistic structures.
15 Learning another language also involves learning how
speakers of that language live.
16 New teaching points should be introduced orally.
17 Concrete vocabularies should be taught through
demonstration, objects and pictures. Abstract vocabulary
should be taught by association of ideas.
18 Both speech and listening comprehension should be
focused.
Techniques or Classroom Procedures
There are some useful techniques under the Direct Method
given by Freeman Larsen (2008) which are as follows:

1 Reading aloud
When the students are instructed by the teachers, Students
take turns reading sections of a passage, play, or dialogue out
loud. At the end of each student’s turn, the teacher uses
gestures, pictures, realia, examples, or other means to make
the meaning of the section clear.
2 Question and Answer Exercise
This exercise is conducted only in the target language.
Students are asked questions and answer infull sentences so
that they practice new words and grammatical structures. They
have the opportunity to ask questions as well as
answer them.
3 Getting Students to Self-correct
The teacher of this class has the students self-correct by asking
them to make a choice between what they said and an
alternative answer the teacher supplied. There are, however,
other ways of getting students to self-correct. For example, a
teacher might simply repeat what a student has just said; using
a questioning voice to signal to the student that something
was wrong with it. Another possibility is for the teacher to
repeat what the student said, stopping just before the error.
The student then knows that the next word waswrong.
4 Conversation Practice
The teacher asks a number of questions in the target language
based on the lesson mostly and out of the lesson partially.
Students answer those questions. He questions contain a
particular grammar structure. Later, the students also ask each
other their own questions using the same grammatical
structure.
5 Fill-in-the-blanks Exercise
This technique has already been discussed in the Grammar-
Translation Method, but differs in its application in the Direct
Method. All the items are in the target language;
furthermore, no explicit grammar rule would be applied.
The students would have induced the grammar rule they
need to fill in the blanks from examples and practice with
earlier parts of the lesson.
6 Dictation
The teacher reads the passage three times.The first time the
teacher reads it at a normal speed, while the students just
listen. The second time he reads the passage phrase by phrase,
pausing long enough to allow students to write downwhat
they have heard. The last time the teacher again reads at a
normal speed, and students check their work.
7 Map drawing
This is one of the crucial techniques used under the Direct
Method. Here, the teacher gives instruction about a map very
clearly. The students listen the instructions carefully given by
the teachers and draw that map accordingly. Sometimes,
students give the information about a particular map and it’s
the teacher who is to draw the map. Likewise, the same activity
can be conducted among the students as well.
8 Paragraph writing
In this technique, the teacher gives students a topic and asks
them to write a paragraph on the same. They write paragraph
in their own words. They can do this from memory or they can
use the reading passage as a model.
Assessment
It is the fact thing that Direct Method was, of course, better
than Grammar Translation Method. It tried its best to teach the
target language to the learners by creating the target language
environment. It mainly tried to avoid the drawbacks of GT
Method and helped the learners to use the target language as
much as possible in real life situation. But it is not also perfect
in itself. It has own advantages and disadvantages which are as
follows;
Advantages of Direct Method
1 It emphasizes on language use.
2 Lively classroom procedures are followed.
3 It focuses on communicative proficiency of the learners.
4 The learners get ample opportunity to practice target
language.
5 Correct pronunciation, practical grammar and adequate
vocabulary knowledge are emphasized.
6 Adequate use of the target language helps in language
learning.
7 Students become very active in the classroom which helps
them to learn more.
8 Practical knowledge and skills of the language can be
achieved.
9 Teaching speech before writing is focused.
10 It focuses on learning through doing.
11 It focuses on every day language use.
Disadvantages of Direct Method
1 It neglects systematic structural practice.
2 It is not applicable in lower classes.
3 It doesn't give much emphasis on writing skill.
4 There is absence of rule learning.
5 It is difficult in teaching abstract vocabulary item.
6 It is very difficult to create the real environment of target
language in the classroom.
7 Monolingual technique will not be suitable in all types of
classroom.
8 Untrained teachers can't teach the target language.
9 The teachers must have well command over target language.
10 The weak students may remain silent in the classroom.
11 The teacher may have difficult in clarifying the abstract
things.

3.1.3Audio-lingual Method
The next 'revolution' in language teaching methodology
coincided with 'World War II, when America became aware that
it needed people to learn foreign languages very quickly as part
of its overall military operations. The Army Method was
suddenly developed to build language competence in
translators through over intensive language courses focusing on
aural/oral skills. This is combination with some new ideas about
language learning coming from the disciplines of descriptive
linguistics and behavioral psychology went on to become what
is known as the Audio-lingual Method (ALM). This new method
incorporated many of the features typical of the earlier Direct
Method, but the disciplines mentioned above added the
concepts of teaching 'linguistic patterns' in combination with
'habit forming'. This Method was one of the first to have its rots
firmly grounded in linguistic and psychological theory (Brown,
1994:57), which apparently added to its credibility and
probably had done influence in the popularity it enjoyed over a
long period of time.
A distinct Audio-lingual method can hardly be identified until
the late fifties. In the fifties it was most frequently referred to
as the aural - oral method. The term Audiolingualism was
proposed by Brooks (1964:263 in Stern 1938). This method was
also called new key, audio-lingual habit theory, functional skills
strategy, etc. As mentioned above,, this method was
introduced in the USA as an 'army method' during World War II.
It was necessary to produce such army personnel who could
speak foreign language. Thus, the government of the USA
commissioned American universities to develop foreign
language program for military personnel - Army Specialized
Training Program (1942) - fifty five American universities were
involved in this program by the beginning of 1943. The
objective of the army program was for students to attain
conversational proficiency in a variety of foreign languages.
The Army Specialized Training Program lasted only about two
years.
Leonard Bloomfield and his colleagues developed a technique
for foreign language teaching which was called 'informant
method'-native speaker as a source of learning Linguists and
applied linguists during this period were becoming increasingly
involved in the teaching of English as a foreign language.
Thousands of foreign students entered in the United States to
study English. So, they needed training which led to emergence
of the American approach to English as a Second Language
(ESL), which by the mid-1950s had become Audio- Lingualism.
The writings and teaching of C.C. Fries and R. Lado at the
English Language Institute of the University of Michigan, the
development of contrastive linguistics, the new technology of
the language laboratory, and the generous financial support for
language research and development in the USA, resulting from
the National Defense Education Act (NDEA, 1957), were factors
contributing to the development of audio-lingualism. Charles
Fries applied the principles of structural linguistics to language
teaching. For Fries, grammar or 'structure' was the starting
point in the study of language. The language was taught by
systematic attention to pronunciation and by intensive oral
drilling of its basic sentence patterns.
Audiolingualism claimed to have transformed language
teaching from an art into a science, which would enable
learners to achieve mastery of a foreign language effectively
and efficiently.
Principles of the Audio- Lingual Method
According to Larsen-Freeman (2008), the principles features of
the audio-lingual method are as follows:
1 Two different languages have separate linguistic systems.
They should be kept apart so that the students' native language
can't interfere much to acquire target language.
2 Language forms do not occur by themselves, they occur most
naturally with in a context.
3 One of the language teachers' major roles is that of a model
of the target language.
4 Language learning is a process of habit formation.
5 It is important to prevent learners from making errors since
errors lead to the formation of bad habits. Therefore, if the
students commit errors, those errors should be immediately
corrected.
6 The purpose of language learning is to learn how to use the
language to communicate.
7 Particular parts of speech occupy particular 'slots' in
sentences. In order to create new sentences, students must
learn which part of speech occupies which slot.
8 Positive reinforcement helps the students to develop correct
habits.
9 Students should learn to respond to both verbal and non
verbal stimuli.
10 Each language has a finite number of patterns. Pattern
practice helps students to form habits which enable the
students to use the patterns.
11 Students should 'over learn' i.e. learn to answer
automatically without stopping to think.
12 Teacher should be like an Orchestra leader - conducting,
guiding and controlling the students' behavior in the target
language.
13 The major objective of language teaching should be for
students to acquire the structural patterns, students will learn
vocabulary afterward.
14 The learning of a foreign language should be the same as the
acquisition of the native language. We do not need to
memorize rules in order to use our native language.
15 The major challenge of foreign language teaching is getting
students to overcome the habits of their native language.
16 Speech is more basic to language than the written form.
17 Language cannot be separated from culture.
18 This is a teacher dominated method.
19 Various types of drill are used to form the habit of the
learners.
20 Grammar is taught inductively. There is little grammatical
explanation.
21 This approach believes in the learning theory of behaviorist
psychology.
22 Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context.
23 The use of mother tongue is discouraged.
24 Mistakes and errors of the learners are directly and
immediately corrected.
25 Language is believed to be a living phenomenon i.e. dynamic
not static.
Techniques or Classroom procedures
According to Larsen-Freeman (2008), the techniques of
classroom procedures in Audio-Lingual Method are as follows:
1 Dialogue Memorization
Dialogues or short conversations between two people are often
used to begin a new lesson. Students memorize the
dialogue through mimicry; students usually take the role
of one person in the dialogue, and the teacher the other. After
the students have learned the first person’s lines, they
switch roles and memorize the other person’s part. Another
way of practicing the two roles is for half of the class to
take one role and the other half to take the other. After the
dialogue has been memorized, pairs of individual students
might performthe dialogue for the rest of the class.

In the Audio-Lingual Method, certain sentence patterns

and grammar points are included within the dialogue. These
patterns and points are later practiced in drills based on the
lines of the dialogue.
2 Backward Build-up (Expansion) Drill
This drill is used when along line of a dialogue is giving
students trouble. The teacher breaks down the line
into several parts. The students repeat a part of the sentence,
usually the last phrase of the line. Then, following the teacher’s
cue, the students expand what they are repeating part by part
until they are able to repeat the entire line. The teacher begins
with the part at the end of the sentence (and works
backward from there) to keep the intonation of the line as
natural as possible. This also directs more student
attention to the end of the sentence, where new information
typically occurs.
3 Repetition Drill
Students are asked to repeat the teacher’s model as accurately
and as quickly as possible. This drill is often used to teach
the lines of the dialogue.
4 Chain Drill
A chain drill gets its name from the chain of conversation that
forms around the room as students, one by one, ask and
answer questions of each other. The teacher begins the chain
by greeting a particular student, or asking him a question. That
student responds, then, turns to the student sitting next to him.
The first student greets or asks a question of the second
student and the chain continues. A chain drill allows some
controlled communication, even though it is limited. A
chain drill also gives the teacher an opportunity to check
each student’s speech.
5 Single-slot Substitution Drill
The teacher says a line, usually from the dialogue. Next, the
teacher says a word or aphrase (called the cue). The students
repeat the line the teacher has given them, substituting the
cue into the line in its proper place. The major purpose of this
drill is to give the students practice in finding and filling in
the slots of a sentence.
6 Multiple-slot Substitution Drill
This drill is similar to the single-slot substitution drill. The
difference is that the teacher gives cue phrases, one at a
time that fit into different slots in the dialogue line. The
students must recognize what part of speech each cue is, or
at least, where it fits into thesentence,and make any
other changes, such as subject–verb agreement. They,
then, say the line, fitting the cue phrase into the line where it
belongs.
7 Transformation Drill
The teacher gives students a certain kind of sentence pattern,
an affirmative sentence for example. Students are asked
to transform thissentence into a negative sentence. Other
examples of transformations to ask of students are:
changing a statement into a question, an active sentence into
a passive one, or direct speech into reported speech.
8 Question-and-answer Drill
This drill gives students practice with answering questions.
The students should answer the teacher’s questions very
quickly. Although we did not see it in our lesson here, it is
also possible for the teacher to cue the students to ask
questions as well. This gives students practice with the
question pattern.
9 Use of Minimal Pairs
The teacher works with pairs of words which differ in only one
sound; for example, ‘ship/sheep.’ Students are first
asked to perceive the difference between the two
words and later to be able to say the two words. The
teacher selects the sounds to work on after she has done a
contrastive analysis, a comparison between the students’
native language and the languagethey are studying.
10 Complete the Dialogue
Selected words are erased from adialogue students have
learned. Students complete the dialogue by filling the
blanks with the missing words.
11 Grammar Game
Grammar Game is one of the effective techniques by using
which the language can be taught. Different games are used in
the Audio- Lingual Method. The games are designed to get
students to practice a grammar point within a context. Students
are able to express themselves by involving in different games.
It can be sentence pattern, an affirmative sentence for
example. Students are asked to transform this sentence into
a negative sentence. Other examples of transformations to ask
of students are: changing a statement into a question, an
active sentence into a passive one, or direct speech
into reported speech.
Advantages of Audio-lingual Method
1 Dialogue, imitation and drills enable to develop speech
proficiency.
2 The learners get target language exposure.
3 The learners get a lot of opportunity to practice the materials.
4 Four language skills are taught and learnt naturally.
5 Errors are directly and immediately corrected. So, there is no
chance of continuing errors.
6 Various types of drills are useful to form the habits in
producing and using the structures.
7 This method seems to be useful especially teaching small
children.
8 Language is taught in the context, not in isolation. So,
language knowledge is useful to use in real-life situation.
9 Great importance is given to pronunciation and pattern
practice from which the accuracy of speech and grammar is
achieved by the students.
10 Students are easily motivated because they have to practice
the material actively.
Disadvantages of Audio-lingual Method
1 It is boring and monotonous for the students.
2 Reading and writing skills are not adequately emphasized.
3 Language learning is not only the process of habit formation
that is focused by this method.
4 This method is perhaps inappropriate to teach higher and
advanced level students.
5 It is a teacher-dominated method. There is no room for the
students' creation.
6 This method seems to be inappropriate to teach abstract
vocabulary items.
7 The learners are likely to be discouraged when their errors
are directly and immediately corrected.
8 The creativity and intuition may not be fostered.
9 The generative capacity of the learner is not appropriately
encouraged.
10 This is perhaps a time - consuming method.
11 It over emphasizes the forms rather than functions.
3.1.4 The Silent way
Although people did learn languages through the Audio-
Lingual Method, and indeed the method is still practiced
today, one problem with it was students’ inability to readily
transfer the habits they had mastered in the
classroom to communicative use outside it. Furthermore,
the idea that learning a language meant forming a
set of habits was seriously challenged in the early 1960s.
Linguist, Noam Chomsky argued that language acquisition
could not possibly take place through habitformation
since people create and understand utterances they have
never heard before. Chomsky proposed instead that
speakers have knowledge of underlying abstract rules, which
allow them to understand and create novel utterances.
Thus, Chomsky reasoned, language must not be
considered a product of habit formation, but rather of rule
formation. Accordingly, language acquisition must bea
procedure whereby people use their own thinking
processes, or cognition, to discover the rules of the language
they are acquiring. The emphasis on human cognition led
to the establishment of the Cognitive Code Approach.
Rather than simply being responsive to stimuli in
the environment, learners were seen to be much more
actively responsible for their own learning, engaged in
formulating hypotheses in order to discover the rules of the
target language. Errors were inevitable andwere signs that
learners were actively testing their hypotheses. For a while
in the early 1970s, there was great interest in
applying this new Cognitive Code Approach to language
teaching. Materials were developed with deductive (learners
 are given the rule and asked to apply it) and inductive
(learners discover the rule fromthe examples and then
practice it) grammar exercises. However, no language
teaching method ever really developed directly from the
approach; instead, a number of ‘innovative methods’ emerged.
In the next few chapters we will take a look at these.
Although Caleb Gattegno’s Silent Way did not stem directly
from the Cognitive Code Approach, it shares certain principles
with it. For example, one of the basic principles of the
Silent Way is that ‘Teaching should be subordinated to
learning.’ In other words, Gattegno believed that to
teach means to serve the learning process rather than to
dominate it. This principle is in keeping with the active
search for rules ascribed to the learner in the Cognitive
Code Approach. Gattegno looked at language
learning from the perspective of the learner by
studying the way babies and young children learn. He
concluded that learning is a process which we initiate by
ourselves by mobilizing our inner resources (our
perception, awareness, cognition, imagination, intuition,
creativity, etc.) to meet the challenge at hand. In the
course ofour learning, we integrate into ourselves
whatever ‘new’ that we create, and use it as a stepping stone
for further learning.
The Principles of Silent way
According to the Larsen-Freeman (2008), the principles
associated with the Silent Way Method are as follows:
1 The teacher should start with something the students
already know and build from that to the unknown. Languages
share a number of features, sounds being the most basic.
2 Language learners are intelligent and bring with them the
experience of already learning a language. The teacher
should give only what help is necessary.
3 Language is not learned by repeating after a model. Students
need to develop their own ‘inner criteria’ for correctness
—to trust and to be responsible for their own production
in the target language.
4 Students’ actions can tell the teacher whether or not they
have learned.
5 Students should learn to rely on each other and themselves.
6 The teacher works with the students while the students work
on the language.
7 The teacher makes use of what students already know. The
more theteacher does for the students what they can do
for themselves, the less they will do for themselves.
8 Learning involves transferring what one knows to new
contexts.
9 Reading is worked on from the beginning but follows from
what students have learned to say.
10 Silence is a tool. It helps to foster autonomy, or the
exercise of initiative. It also removes the teacher fromthe
center of attention so he can listen to and work with students.
The teacher speaks, but only when necessary. Otherwise,
the teacher gets out of the way so that it is the students
who receive the practice in using the language.
11 Meaning is made clear by focusing students’ perceptions,
not through translation.
12 Students can learn from one another. The teacher’s
silence encourages group cooperation.
13 If the teacher praises (or criticizes) students, they will
be less self-reliant. The teacher’s actions can interfere
with students’ developing their own criteria.
14 Errors are important and necessary to learning. They
show the teacher where things are unclear.
15 If students are simply given answers, rather than being
allowed to self-correct, they will not retain them.
16 Students need to learn to listen to themselves.
17 At the beginning, the teacher needs to look for progress,
not perfection. Learning takes place in time. Students
learn at different rates.
18 A teacher’s silence frees the teacher to closely observe the
students’ behavior.
19 Students learn they must give the teacher their attention
in order not to miss what he says. Student attention
is a key to learning.
20 Students should engage in a great deal of meaningful
practice without repetition.
21 The elements of the language are introduced logically,
expanding upon what students already know.
22 Students gain autonomy in the language by exploring it
and by making choices.
23 Language is for self-expression.
24 The teacher can gain valuable information from student
feedback; for example, he can learn what to work on next.
Students learn how to accept responsibility for their own
learning.
25 Some learning takes place naturally as we sleep. Students
will naturally work on the day’s lesson then.
26 The syllabus is composed of linguistic structures.
27 The structures of the syllabus are not arranged in a
linear fashion, but rather are constantly being recycled.
28 The skills of speaking, reading, and writing reinforce one
another.
Techniques or classroom procedures
Many of the ideas in this chapter may be new to you. Some
of these ideas may be immediately attractive to you,
whereas others may not. Give yourself time to think
about all of them before you decidetheir value to you. In
the review that follows, the materials surveyed in this
chapter (the charts and rods) have been included. While
you may not have access to the actual materials
discussed here, the materials may give you other ideas of
what you can use.
1 Sound – Color Chart
The chart contains blocks of color, each one representing a
sound in the target language. The teacher, and later the
students, points to blocks of color on the chart to form
syllables, words, and even sentences. Although we did not see
it in this lesson, sometimes the teacher will tap a
particular block of color very hard when forming a word. In this
way the teacher can introduce the stress pattern forthe
word. The chart allows students toproduce sound
combinations in the target language without doing so
through repetition. The chart draws the students’ attention
and allows them to concentrate on the language, not on
the teacher. When a particular sound contrast is new
for students, and they are unable to perceive which sound
of the two they are producing, the sound–color
chart can be used to give them feedbackon which
sound they are making.
Finally, since the sound–color chart presents all of the sounds
of the target language at once, students know what they
have learned and what they yet need to learn. This relates to
the issue of learner autonomy.
2 Teacher’s Silence
The teacher gives just as much help as is necessary and then is
silent. Orthe teacher sets up an unambiguous situation,
puts a language structure into circulation (for example, ‘Take a
____ rod’), and then is silent. Even in error correction, the
teacher will only supply a verbal answer as a last resort.
3 Peer Correction
Students are encouraged to help another student when he
or she is experiencing difficulty. It is important that any
help be offered in a cooperative manner, not a competitive
one. The teacher monitors the aid so that it is helpful, not
interfering.
4 Rods
Rods can be used to provide visible actions or situations for
any language structure, to introduce it, or to enable
students to practice using it. The rods trigger meaning:
Situations with the rods can be created in such a way that
the meaning is made clear; then the language is connected
to the meaning. At the beginning level, the rods can be
used to teach colors and numbers. Later on they can be
used for more complicated structures; for example,
statements with prepositions (‘The blue rod is
between the green one and the yellow one’) and
conditionals (‘If you give me a blue rod, then I’ll give you two
green ones’). They can be used abstractly as well; for
instance, for students to make a clock whenlearning to
tell time in the target language, to create a family tree, or
to make a floor plan of their house, which they later
describe to their classmates. Sometimes, teachers will put
the rods down on the desk in a line, using a different
rod to represent each word in a sentence.By pointing to
each rod in turn, while remaining silent, the teacher can
elicitthe sentence from the students. He can also make
concrete for students aspects of the structure, for example, the
need to invert the subject and auxiliary verb in order to
form questions. The rods are therefore very versatile. They
can be used as rods or more abstractly to represent other
realities. They allow students to be creative and imaginative,
and they allow for action to accompany language.
4 Self-correction Gestures
We already examined some self-correctiontechniques in the
chapter on the Direct Method. Some of the particular
gestures of the Silent Way could be added to this list. For
example, in the class observed, the teacher put his
palms together and then moved them outwards to signal to
students the need to lengthen the particular vowel they
were working on. In another instance, the teacher indicated
that each of his fingers represented aword in a sentence and
used this to locate the trouble spot for the
student.
5 Word Chart
The teacher, and later the students, points to words on the
wall charts in a sequence so that students can read aloud
the sentences they have spoken.The way the letters are
colored (the colors from the sound–color chart are
used) helps the students with their pronunciation.
There are twelve English charts containing about 500
words. The charts contain the functional vocabulary
of English. There are others available for other languages.
Although we did not see them in this lesson, students also
work with Silent Way wall pictures and books to further
expand their vocabularies and facility with the
language.
6 Fidel Charts
The teacher, and later the students, points to the color-coded
Fidel Charts in order that students associate the sounds of
the language with their spelling. For example, listed
together and colored the same as the color block for the
sound /ei/ are ‘ay,’ ‘ea,’ ‘ei,’ ‘eigh,’ etc. showing that these are
all ways of spelling the /ei/ sound in English (as in the
words ‘say,’ ‘steak,’ ‘veil,’ ‘weigh’). Because of the
large number of ways sounds in English can be
spelled, there are eight Fidel Charts in all. There are
a numberof charts available for other languages as well.
7 Structured Feedback
Students are invited to make observations about theday’s
lesson and what they have learned. The teacher accepts
the students’ comments in a non-defensive manner,
hearing things that will help give him direction for where
he should work when the class meets again. The
students learn to take responsibility for their own
learning by becoming aware of and controlling how they
use certain learning strategies in class. The length and
frequency of feedback sessions vary depending on the
teacher and the class.
The advantages of The Silent Way Method
1 Learning through problem solving looks attractive especially
because it fosters:
- Creativity
- Discovery
- Increase in intelligent potency and
- Long term memory
2 The indirect role of the teacher highlights the importance
and the centrality of the learner.
3 Students interact not only with teachers but also with each
other.
4 Students correct the errors themselves and teacher view
these errors as the responses to the teaching the errors as
the responses to the teaching and give students some hints
and help.
5 In Silent Way, teachers speak so little, they are free to
observe their students carefully and be available to them.
6 This method makes students feel comfortable.
7 The students can be active in the class.
 8 Students can improve their vocabulary from their speaking.
9 Students become independent and develop confidence in
their study.
The disadvantages of The Silent Way Method
1 The Silent Way is often criticized of being a harsh method.
2 The materials (the rods and the charts) used in this method
will certainly fail to introduce all aspects of language.
3 Teachers must know their teaching objectives clearly and
make use of the teaching aids effectively.
4 It is difficult for teachers to evaluate students' progress in
their learning process.
5 Students may be confused with the symbols of the colored
wooden rods.
6 Students waste too much time struggling with a concept that
would be easily clarified by the teachers.
7 It is criticized as being too focused on building structure, and
misses out on cultural input through the language.
8 The silence of the teacher can prevent students from hearing
many active models of correct usage that they may find useful.
9 In trying to create a less teacher- oriented classroom, many
people say that the Silent Way goes too far to the opposite
extreme.
10 Students feel difficult to understand the materials and
commands given to them because the teacher doesn't explain
things in detail.
3.1.5 Total Physical Response
There is another general approach to foreign language
instruction which has been named 'the comprehension
approach'. It is called this because of the importance it gives to
listening comprehension. It refers to several different
comprehension based language teaching proposals which share
the belief that (a) comprehension abilities precede productive
skills in learning a language. (b) The teaching of speaking should
be delayed until comprehension skills are established. (c) skills
acquired through listening transfer to other skills (d) teaching
should emphasize meaning rather than form and (e) teaching
should minimize learner stress.
Most of the methods we have discussed above have students
speaking the target language from the first day. But in the
1960s and 1970s research gave rise to the hypothesis that
language learning should start first with understanding and
later proceed to production. (Winitz 1981, mentioned in
Harmer, 2008). After the learner internalizes an extensive map
of how the target language works, speaking will appear
spontaneously. Of course, the student's speech will not be
perfect, but gradually speech will become more target like.
Notice that this is exactly how an infant acquires his native
language. A baby spends many months listening to the people
around him long before it ever says words. The child has the
time to try to make sense out of the sounds he hears. The child
speaks himself when he is able to produce. He does not need
any encouragement to speak and gets mastery over his
language within a very short period of time.
The method Total Physical Response (TPR) is based on the
principles of 'comprehension Approach'. TPR was developed by
James Asher a professor of psychology at San Jose State
University, California. TPR is also linked to the 'trace theory' of
memory in psychology which holds that the more often or the
more intensively a memory connection is traced the stronger
the memory association will be and the more likely it will be
recalled. Retracing can be done verbally (e.g.by rote repetition)
and/or in association with motor activity. Combined tracing
activities, such as verbal rehearsal accompanied by motor
activity, hence increase the probability of successful recall.
Asher claims that speech directed to young children consists
primarily of commands which children respond to physically
before they begin to produce verbal responses. He feels adults
should recapitulate the processes by which children acquire
their mother tongue. Asher also shares with the school of
humanistic psychology a concern for the role of affective
(emotional) factors in language learning. A method that is
undemanding in terms of linguistic production and that involves
games like movements reduces learner stress, he believes, and
creates a positive mood in the learner which facilitates learning.
All this show that in TPR, the emphasis is given on
comprehension and the use of physical actions to teach and
learn a language. It believes that the fastest and the least
stressful way o achieve understanding of any target language is
to follow directions uttered by the instructor (without native
language translation). Therefore in TPR, the learners have the
primary roles of listener and performer. They listen attentively
and respond physically to commands given by the teacher.
Learners are required to respond both individually and
collectively.
Principles of Total Physical Response
According to Larsen-Freeman (2008), the principles of Total
Physical Response are as follows:
1 Meaning in the target language can often be conveyed
through 'actions.'
2 Correction should be carried out in an unobtrusive manner.
3 Memory is activated through learner response. Beginning
foreign language instruction should address the right the
hemisphere of the brain, the part which controls non verbal
behavior. The target language should be presented in chunks,
not just work by word.
4 The students' understanding of the target language should be
developed before speaking.
5 Students can initially learn one part of the language rapidly by
moving their bodies.
6 The imperative is a powerful linguistic device through which
the teacher can direct student behavior
7 Students can learn through observing actions as well as by
performing the actions themselves.
8 It is very important that students feel successful. Feeling of
success and low anxiety facilitate learning.
9 Students should not be made to memorize fixed routines.
10 Students must develop flexibility out in understanding novel
combinations of target chunks. They need to understand more
than the exact sentences used in training. Novelty is also
motivating.
11 Spoken language is emphasized over written language.
12 Students will begin to speak when they are ready.
13 Students are expected to make errors when they first begin
speaking. Teachers should be tolerant to them. Work on the
fine details of the language should be postponed until students
have become somewhat proficient.
Techniques or classroom Procedures
Some useful techniques given by the prominent linguist Larsen-
Freeman (2008) associated with the Total Physical Response
Method are as follows;
1 Using command to direct behavior
This is the pivotal technique used in target language teaching
under the Total Physical Response to direct the behavior by
using the commands. The commands are given to get students
to perform an action; the action makes the meaning of the
command clear. At first, to clarify meaning, the teacher
performs the actions with students- later the teacher directs
the students alone. The students' actions tell the teacher
whether or not the students understand. Here, the teacher
should be very careful. He should not introduce new commands
without making them familiar with those commands. Let's look
at an example where the teacher gives commands and students
follow their teacher.
Teacher: Bimochan, walk to the blackboard (Bimochan gets up
and walks to the blackboard)
Teacher: Class, if Bimochan walked to the blackboard, stand up
(the class stands up)
Teacher: Bimochan, write your name on the board (Bimochan
writes his name on the board)
Teacher: Class, sit down (class sits down)
2 Role Reversal
Students command their teacher and classmates to perform
some actions. Asher says that studentswill want to speak
after 10–20 hours of instruction, although some students
may take longer. Students should not be encouraged to speak
until they are ready.
3 Action Sequence
At one point we saw the teacher give three connected
commands. For example, the teacher told the students to:
point to the door, walk to the door, and touch the door. As
the students learn more and more of the target
language,a longer series of connected commands can be
given, which together comprise a whole procedure. While we
did not see a long action sequence in this very first
class, a little later on students might receive the following
instructions, which they act out:
Take out a pen.
Takeout a piece ofpaper.
Write a letter
(imaginary) Fold the letter
Put it in an envelope.
Seal the envelope.
Write the address on the envelope.
Put a stamp on the envelope.
Mail the letter.
This series of commands is called an action sequence, or an
‘operation.’ Many everyday activities, like writing a letter,
can be broken down into an action sequence that
students can be asked to perform.
Advantages of Total Physical Response
1 Speech is primarily focused which is the manifestation of
language.
2 Language is learnt through 'actions' that makes language
learning permanent.
3 Children get enough time to listen to the language which
helps them to develop comprehension skills.
4 Children get chance to learn language with a great fun.
5 'Meaning' is focused to convey from one to another rather
than its 'forms.'
6 It is very much effective for lower level students.
7 There is direct association between language and action. So,
it is easier for other students to understand the language about
what is he/she informed.
8 It is a good tool for learning vocabulary.
9 It does not require a great deal of preparation on the part of
the teacher.
10 It helps immediately understand the target language.
11 It helps learners achieve fluency faster in learning language.
12 TPR is inclusive and works well a class with mixed ability
levels.
13 It can facilitate students with the meaning in real context.
Disadvantages of Total Physical Response
1 TPR is not suitable for higher level students.
2 It is very much difficult to teach the abstracts ideas.
3 The classroom is noisy and the students may be out of
discipline if they are not well handled.
4 It neglects on writing skills. So, the students may be poor in
writing.
5 All the time it may not be possible to ask the children to
response physically.
6 It may be very difficult for the teachers to handle the
activities.
7 It is not a very creative method. Students are not given the
opportunity to express their own views and thoughts in a
creative way.

3.1.6 Community language learning

The method 'Community Language Learning' (CLL) was
developed by Charles A Curran and his associates. Curran was a
specialist in counseling and a professor of psychology at Loyola
University, Chicago. His application of psychological counseling
techniques to learning is known as counseling learning.
Community Language Learning represents the use of
counseling. Learning theory is to teach languages. In other
words, Community Language Learning Method takes its
principles from general Counseling learning approach
developed by Curran.
In lay terms, counseling is one person giving advice,
assistance and support to another who has a problem or is in
some way in need. This means, there are at least two persons
i.e. the one who can understand others' feelings or problems
and is able to help or support them to overcome the problems
(the counselor) and learners (the clients) in the Language
classroom. The basic procedures of CLL can thus be seen as
derived from the counselor client relationship. Consider the
following CLL procedures: A group of learners sit in a circle with
the teacher standing outsides the circle a student whispers a
message in the native language (L1), the teacher translates it
into the foreign language (L2); the students repeat the message
in the foreign language into a cassette, students compose
further messages in the foreign language with the teacher's
help, students reflect about their feelings. (Richards and
Rodgers, 1986)
Curran studied adult learning for many years. He discovered
that adults often feel threatened by a new learning situation.
They are threatened by the change inherent in learning and by
the fear that they will appear foolish. Curran believed that a
way to deal with the fears of students is for teachers to become
'language counselor'. The teacher can understand the feelings
of the students. He can understand students' fears and he can
help students overcome their negative feelings and turn them
into positive energy to further learning.
 CLL techniques also belong to a larger set of foreign language
teaching practices sometimes described as humanistic
technique. Humanistic techniques engage the whole person,
including the emotion and feelings as well as linguistic
knowledge and behavioral skills. Therefore, CLL also advices
teachers to consider their students as 'whole person'. Whole -
person learning means that teachers consider not only their
students' feelings and intellect but also have some
understanding of the relationship among students' physical
reactions their instinctive protective reactions and their desire
to learn.
CLL is also linked with a set of practices used in certain kinds of
bilingual education programs and referred to by Mackey (1972
as cited in Larsen-Freeman, 2008) as language alternation. In
language alternation, a message/lesson/class is presented first
in the native tongue and then again in the second language.
Students know the meaning and flow of an L2 message from
their recall of the parallel meaning and flow of an L1 message.
As it is mentioned above in CLL also, a student presents
message in his mother tongue and the teacher translates the
message into target language. The student then repeats the
message in the target language.

Principles or characteristic features of CLL

1 Building a relationship with and among students is very
important.
2 Any new learning experience can be threatening. When
students have an idea of what will happen an each activity, they
often feel more secure. People learn non- defensively when
they feel secure.
3 Language is for communication.
4 The superior knowledge and power of the teacher can be
threatening. If the teacher does not remain in front of the
classroom, the threat is reduced and the students' learning
facilitated. Also this fosters interaction among students, rather
than from student to teacher.
5 The teacher should be sensitive to students' level of
confidence and give them just what they need to be successful.
6 Students feel more secure when they know the limits of an
activity.
7 Teachers and students are whole persons. Sharing about their
learning experience allows learners to get to know one another
and to build community
8 Guided by the knowledge that each learner is unique, the
teacher creates an accepting atmosphere. Learners feel free to
lower their defenses and the learning experience become less
threatening.
9 The teacher 'counsels' the students. He does not offer advice,
but rather shows them that he is really listening to them and
understands what they are saying. By understanding how
students feel, the teacher can help students gain insights into
their own learning process as well as transform their negative
feelings which might otherwise block their learning.
10 The students' native language is used to make the meaning
clear and to build a bridge from the known to the unknown.
Students feel more secure when they understand everything.
11 The teacher should take the responsibility for clearly
structuring activity in the most appropriate way possible for
successful completion of an activity.
12 Learning at the beginning stages is facilitated if students
attend to one task at a time.
13 The teacher encourages student initiative and
independence, but does not let students flounder in
uncomfortable silences.
14 Students need quiet reflection time in order to learn.
15 Students learn best when they have a choice in what they
practice. Students develop an inner wisdom about where they
need to work. If students feel in control, they can take more
responsibility for their own learning.
16 Students need to learn to discriminate, for example, in
perceiving the similarities and differences among the target
language forms.
17 In groups, students can begin to feel a sense of community
and can learn from each other as well as the teacher.
Cooperation, not competition, is encouraged.
18 The teacher should work in a non - threatening way with
what the learner has produced.
19 Developing a community among the class members build
trust and can help to reduce the threat of the new learning
situation.
20 In addition to reflecting on the language, students reflect on
what they have experienced. In this way, they have an
opportunity to learn about the language, their own learning
and how to learn from one another in community.
21 In the beginning stages, the 'syllabus' is generated primarily
by willing to learn when they have created the material
themselves.
22 Personal commitments is essential including psycholinguistic
and cognitive processes involved in second language
acquisition.

Techniques or classroom Procedures

Some useful techniques given by Larsen Freeman (2008)
associated with Community language learning are given below.
1 Recording Student Conversation
This is a technique used to record student-generated language
as well as to give the opportunity for community
learning to come about. By giving students the choice
about what to say and when to say it,students are in a
good position to take responsibility for their own learning.
Students are asked to have a conversation using their native
language or a language common to the group. In
multilingual groups with no common language, other
means will have to be employed. For instance, students can
use gestures to get their meaning across. After each
native language utterance or use of a gesture, the teacher
translates what the student says or acts out into the
target language. The teacher gives the students the
target language translation in appropriate-sized chunks. Each
chunk is recorded, giving students a final recording with only
the target language on it. In the lesson , Larsen - Freeman at el.
observed, a tape recorder was used; however, these
days, other teachers might use a digital voice-recording
device, such as an MP3 player, a cell phone, or a
computer. Such recording technology allows for instant
‘repeats’ without rewinding. Also, a teacher can burn a CD or
sendan MP3 (or other) file to students electronically, which
allows students to listen to the recording in their own time.
After a conversationhas been recorded,it can be
replayed. Since the students have a choice in what they
want to say in the original conversation, it is easier for
them to associate meaning with a particular target
language utterance. Being able to recall themeaning of
almost everything said in a first conversation is
motivating for learners. The recording can also be used to
simply listen to other voices in the target language. Recording
student conversation works best with 12 or fewer
students. In a larger class, students can taketurns being
the ones to have the conversation. 2 Transcription

The teacher transcribes the students’ recorded target language

conversation. Each student is given the opportunity to
translate his or her utterances and the teacher writes the
native language equivalent beneath the target language words.
Students can copy the transcript after it has been
completely written up on the board or on large, poster-
sized paper, or the teacher may provide them with
a copy. The transcript provides a basis for future
activities. If poster-sized paper is used, the transcript
can be put upin the classroom for later reference
and for the purpose of increasing student security.
Thinking about theExperience The teacher takes time
during and/or after the various activities to give the students
the opportunity to reflect onhow they feel about thelanguage
learning experience, themselves as learners, and their
relationship with one another. As students give their
reactions, the teacher understands them—shows that he
has listened carefully by giving an appropriate understanding
response to what the student has said. He does not
repeat what the learner says,but rather shows
that he understands its essence. You may wish to
return to the lesson Larsen-Freeman at el. observed
where the teacher understood the students’ reactions to
their conversation. Such responses canencourage students to
think about their unique engagement with the language,
the activities, the teacher, and the other students, thus
strengthening their independent learning.
3 Reflective Listening
The students relax and listen to their own voices speaking
the target language on the recording. Another
possible technique is for the teacher to read the
transcript while the students simply listen, with their eyes
open or shut. A third possibility is for the students
to mouth the words as the teacher reads the transcript.
4 Human Computer™
A student chooses some part of the transcript to practice
pronouncing. She is‘in control’ of the teacher when she tries to
say the word or phrase. The teacher, following the
student’s lead, repeats the phrase as often as the student
wants to practice it. The teacher does not correct the
student’s mispronunciation in any way. It is through
the teacher’s consistent manner of repeating the word or
phrase clearly that the student self-corrects as she
tries to imitate the teacher’s model.
5 Small Group Tasks
Here, there teacher divides his students into small groups and
asks them to work in group. They work in group and complete
their task. After work, they share their tasks with the rest of the
class. There are a lot of different activities that could occur with
students working in small groups. Teachers believe that
students can learn from each other and can get more practice
with the target language by working in small groups. Also, small
groups allow students to get to know each other. This can lead
to the development of a community among class members.
Advantages of Community Language Learning
1 Communal environment is established among the students
because communication happens in the community in real life
situation.
2 Speech is primarily focused to develop communicative skills in
the learners.
3 'Learning by doing' environment is created so that their
learning of the learners would be permanent.
4 The learners are highly motivated to learn.
5 The learners feel free to share their experience.
6 The learners generate their syllabus themselves so that they
are highly interested to learn.
7 Students are psychologically treated by the teacher.
8 Students will achieve practical skills in the target language.
9 It focuses on the humanistic side of the language learning.
Disadvantages of Communicative Language learning
1 Much focus is not given on writing.
2 It is time consuming. The teachers have difficult to manage
the time.
3 It is not applicable in all levels.
4 There may be problem of classroom discipline.
5 There may be problem of noise in the classroom.
6 Students do not get high exposure to use the target language
because they are allowed to use their mother tongue also.
7 It is difficult to manage teachers, who can provide both
psychological counseling and language.
8 It does not have a specific syllabus and prescribed textbooks.
Therefore,, it makes the goal unclear.
9 It doesn't have even specific objectives. Therefore, it is
difficult to evaluate the students.
10 It focuses on fluency rather than fluency which may lead to
inadequate control of the grammatical system of the target
language.
11 This method cannot be used in linguistically heterogeneous
classes i.e. students not sharing the same mother tongue.
12 It is not easy to get the teachers who are proficient at both
L1 and L2.
13 It is difficult to make the language class systematic due to
the lack of specific objectives, syllabus and textbooks.
3.2 Recent trends of the methods
3.2.1 Communicative language teaching
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to
second or foreign language teaching which emphasizes that the
goal of language learning is communicative competence. When
the other methods like Audio lingual method were questioned
CLT was introduced to teach language more effectively. A
prominent American linguist rejected the principle of structural
linguistics on which other methods like Audio- lingual method
were theoretically based. Chomsky demonstrated that the
current standard structural theories of language were in
capable of accounting for the fundamental characteristics of
language the creativity and uniqueness of the individual
sentences. Richards and Rodgers, 1995) similarly, some other
linguists like Wilkins and Widdowson brought the idea of CLT. In
other methods the goal of CLT was for students to learn to
communicate in the target language. But the reality was that
students could produce sentences accurately in a lesson, but
could not use them appropriately when genuinely
communicating outside of the classroom. The linguists noted
that being able to communicate required more than mastering
linguistic structures. Students may know the rules of linguistics
usage but be unable to use the language (Widdowson, 1978). It
becomes clear that communication required that students
perform certain functions as well, such as promising inviting
and declining invitations with in a social context. Therefore
being able to communicate requires more than linguistic
competence; it requires communicative competence. Such
observations contributed to a shift in the field n the late 1970s
and early 1980s from a linguistic structure - centered approach
to a communicative approach. The supporter of CLT believe
that if students are involved in meaning focused
communication tasks then language learning will take care of
itself. Plentiful exposure to language in use and plenty of
opportunities to use it are vitally important for development of
student's knowledge and skill. Activities in CLT typically involve
students in real or realistic communication, performing is at
least as important as the accuracy of their language use.
The principles of Communicative Language Teaching
The principles of CLT, according to Larsen-Freeman (2008) are
as follows:
1 Whenever possible, 'authentic language' - language as it is
used in a real context -should be introduced.
2 Being able to figure out the speaker's or writer's intentions is
part of being communicatively competent.
3 The Target language is a vehicle for classroom
communications, not just the object of study.
4 One function can have many different linguistic forms. Since
the focusof the course is on real language use, a variety of
linguistic forms arepresented together. The emphasisis on
the process of communication rather than just mastery
of language forms.
5 Students should work with language at the discourse or
suprasentential (above the sentence) level. They must learn
about cohesion and coherence, those properties of language
which bind the sentences together.
6 Games are important because they have certain features
in common with real communicative events—there isa
purpose to the exchange. Also, the speaker receives immediate
feedback fromthe listener onwhether or not she has
successfully communicated. Having students work in small
groups maximizes the amount of communicative practice they
receive.
7 Students should be given an opportunity to express their
ideas and opinions.
8 Errors are tolerated and seen as a natural outcome of the
development of communication skills. Since this activity
was working on fluency, the teacher did not correct the
 student, but simply noted the error, which he will return
to at later point.
9 One of the teacher’s major responsibilities is to establish
situations likely to promote communication.
10 Communicative interaction encourages cooperative
relationships among students. It gives students an
opportunity towork on negotiating meaning.
11 The social context of the communicative event is essential in
giving meaning to the utterances.
12 Learning to use language forms appropriately is an
important part of communicative competence.
13 The teacher acts as a facilitatorin setting up communicative
activities and as an advisor during the activities.
14 In communicating, a speaker has a choice not only about
what to say, but also how to say it.
15 The grammar and vocabulary that the students learn
follow from the function, situational context, and the roles of
the interlocutors.
16 Students should be given opportunities to work on language
as it is used in authentic communication. They may be
coached on strategies for how to improve their
comprehension.
17 Students' mother tongue is used judiciously but not
frequently. It is the target language that is used all the time in
the classroom.
According to Richards and Rodgers (1995), the principles
Communicative Language Teaching are as follows.
The views of Richard and Rodgers (1995) and Chomsky
(Transformational Generative Grammar) regarding the
principles of Communicative Language are given below in grief.
1 Communication Principle
Activities that involve real communication promote learning. It
means the conversational activities that take lave in real life
situation are one of the determining factors to promote
learning. The term 'communication' refers to the exchange of
ideas, information or message etc. between two or more
participants involved. In order to have real communications,
there are three required. They order to have real
communications, there are three elements.
1 The speaker: the sender of the message,
2 The message: the subject matter which the communication is
related with and
3 The hearer: the receiver of the message
2 Task Principle
Activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful
task promote learning. It is a 'task based' principle. Language is
used as the means of performing task such as making requests,
giving commands, etc. for practical purposes in real -life
situations, through which language learning is automatically
promoted.
3 Meaningfulness Principle
Language that is meaningful to the learner supports the
learning process. The learning activities that engage the
learners in meaningful and authentic language use promote
language learning. The mechanical and planned practice of
language patterns does not play the prime role in language
learning. The Learners are expected to perceive the meaning of
the structures consciously.
4 Chomsky's principle
As Chomsky views language is an abstract entity, language
learning is viewed as 'the mental process.' He believes that
language learning is the process of mental intuition. Language is
automatically learnt/acquired in the presence of the exposure.
The exposure activates the innate linguistic principles equipped
in the mind. The LAD; and consequently language is acquired.
He believes that extra conscious effort of the learner/acquirer
is not required for language development. Only exposure is the
determining factor to trigger the LAD for Language acquisition.
We can sum up the principles/characteristics of the
Communicative Language Teaching in the following way.
1 The Communicative Approach is theoretically based on the
principles of cognitive psychology and influenced by the
principles of the mentalist theory of language learning.
2 This approach was developed in order to remove the
drawbacks of the structural approach.
3 The goal of language learning-teaching is the attainment of
communicative competence in the learners.
4 The functions of language are emphasized rather than the
forms though forms are also taught simultaneously.
5 Language is viewed to be the means of communication and
interaction for sending and receiving messages.
6 Fluency is viewed to be more important than grammatical
and structural accuracy.
7 Meaning is Paramount or most important.
8 Listening and Speaking skills are much more emphasized
rather than Reading and Writing skills.
9 Language is learnt by performing meaningful tasks.
10 It is a learner-oriented approach.
11 Leaner is viewed to be an active participant in
communication and interaction.
12 More use of oral presentation and practice is emphasized.
Dialogues are centered on the functions.
13 The teacher is a facilitator, co-communicator, manager,
monitor, counselor, guide, need analyst, resource person,
researcher and organizer.
14 Communicative activities are designed along the lines of
natural communication.
15 Language is taught and learnt contextually by the maximum
use of visual aids and realia. Contextualization is a basic
premise.
16 Only comprehensible pronunciation of the second language
learners is sought.
17 The syllabuses associated to CLT are notional-functional.
Techniques or Classroom procedures
Some of useful techniques associated with Communicative
Language Teaching given by Larsen-Freeman (2008) are as
follows:

1 Authentic Materials
According to Larsen-Freeman (2008), the following techniques
are used under the Communicative Language Teaching.
To overcome the typical problems that students cannot
transfer what they learn in the classroom to the outside world
and to expose students to natural language in a variety of
situations, adherents of CLT advocate the use of language
materials authentic to native speakers of the target language.
For the lower level students we can use very simple authentic
materials. The possibility for the use of authentic materials with
a lower level class is to use realia that do not contain a lot of
language. Menus in the target language are an example, time
tables are another.
2 Scrambled Sentences
The students are given a passage(a text) in which the
sentences are in a scrambled order. This may be a passage
they haveworked with or one they havenot seen
before. They are told to unscramble the sentences so
that the sentences are restored to their original order. This
type of exercise teaches students about the cohesion and
coherence properties of language. They learn how
sentences are bound together at the supra-sentential level
through formal linguistic devices such as pronouns,
which make a text cohesive, and semantic propositions,
which unify a text and make it coherent. In addition
 to written passages, students might also be asked to
unscramble the lines of a mixed-up dialogue.Or they might
be asked to put the pictures of a picture strip story
in order and write lines to accompany the pictures.
2 Language Games
Games are used frequently in CLT.The students find them
enjoyable, and if they are properly designed, they
give students valuable communicative practice.Games that
are truly communicative, according to Morrow (ibid.
1981), have the three features of communication:
information gap, choice, and feedback.
3 Picture Strip Story
Many activities can be done with picture strip stories. In this
technique, in the picture strip activity one student in a small
group is given a strip story. She shows the first picture of the
story to the other members of her group and asks then to
predict what the second picture would look like. An
information gap exists- the students in the groups do not know
that the pictures contain. They have a choice as to what their
prediction will be and how they would word it. They receive
feedback, not on the form but on the content of the prediction,
by being able to view the picture and compare it with their
prediction.
 Likewise, sometimes the students can be provided with many
pictures and asked to arrange them in right order and write a
story. This means, in this technique, pictures area the main
teaching material to teach. This technique helps to develop
their power to think critically and also develops their speaking
and writing skills.
4 Role-play
Role-plays are very important in CLT because they give
students an opportunity to practice communicating in
different social contexts and in different social roles. Role-
plays can be set up so that they are very structured (for
example, the teacher tells the students who they are and
what they should say) orin a less structured way (for example,
the teacher tells the students who they are, what the
situation is, and what they are talking about, but the
students determine what they will say). The latter is more
in keeping with CLT, of course, because it gives
the students more of a choice. Notice that role-plays
structured like this also provide information gaps since
students cannot be sure (as with most forms of
communication) what the other person or people willsay
(there is a natural unpredictability). Students also receive
feedback on whether or not they have communicated
effectively.
Advantages of Communicative Language Teaching
1 The main goal of CLT is communication. It mainly focuses on
how to use the target language in real life situation.
2 It is a student centered learning. Here, the students are active
in language learning activities.
3 Student get opportunities to communicate by involving in a
real communication.
4 This method equally focuses on forms, meaning and function.
5 It is applicable to all levels in target language teaching.
6 It is suitable for heterogeneous and large classes.
7 The knowledge of language functions enables the students to
use the language functionally in their real life situation.
8 It focuses on speech which is the primary manifestation of
language.
Disadvantages of Communicative Language Teaching
1 The highly target language competent teachers are needed
but non- native teachers may or may not be competent in
target language.
2 It does not give much emphasis on writing skill. So, the
students may be weak in writing.
3 It is time consuming.
4 There may be a problem of discipline in the classroom.
5 The classroom is noisy.
6 The knowledge of grammatical structure, one of the most
important aspects, is not adequately emphasized.
7 The errors of the students are regarded natural and are
normally left uncorrected, it may lead the learners to failures.
8 The use of authentic language may make it difficult for the
teacher and learner.
9 Accuracy is neglected for the sake of fluency.
10 The learners' performance is evaluated orally, which is not
perhaps appropriate to evaluate them properly.
3.2.2 Content-based, task based and participatory Approaches
All these three approaches make communication centre. The
difference between these approaches is a matter of their focus.
These approaches give priority to process over predetermined
linguistic content. In these approaches, rather than learning to
use English, students use English to learn it (Howatt, 1984 as
mentioned in Larsen-Freeman (2008). While the three
approaches may seem different at first glance, they have in
common teaching through communication rather than for it.
1 Content Based Approach
Saint Augustine was an early proponent of Content-Based
Language Teaching (CBLT). He recommended it focusing on
meaningful content in language teaching. L.G. Kelley (1969) also
proposed meaning -based language teaching. Content- Based
Instruction draws on the principles of Communicative Language
Teaching which emerged in 1980s. Classroom should focus on
real communication about the subject matter from outside the
domain of language. The language being taught and learnt
would be used to present the subject matter, and the students
would learn the language as a by-product of learning about
real-world content.
While designing a language course, the content should be
selected from the other subjects such s physics, chemistry,
biological processes in plants and animals, map drawing,
descriptions of historical events and so on. He claimed that if
such subjects were adopted in the language course, the
difficulties associated with the presentation of language use in
the classrooms would, to a considerable degree, disappear.
In addition to the aforementioned contributions of different
personalities, there were other educational initiatives since the
late 1970s. They were Language Across the Curriculum,
Immersion Education, Immigrant On - Arrival Program,
Programs for Students with Limited English Proficiency, and
Language for Specific Purposes. The CBI Approach draws some
of its theory and practice from these curriculum approaches.
The role of the content in curriculum designs can be stated as
below:
1 Language Across the Curriculum
This curriculum emerged as the proposal for native-language
education in Britain in the mid- 1970. It focused on reading and
writing in all subject areas. It believed that language skills
should also be taught in the content subjects, and not left
exclusively for the English teacher to deal with. This curriculum
influenced American education, too: there emerged a slogan
'Every teacher, an English teacher.' Then, the materials were
produced integrating subject matter from other areas and
language teaching goals.
2 Immersion Education
This is a type of foreign language instruction in which all the
subject area taught and learnt in the foreign language. The first
immersion programs were designed in Canada in the 1970s. It
provided English- speaking students with the opportunity to
learn French. Gradually, this program spread to many countries
in the world and it also had a strong influence on the theory of
CBI.
3 Immigrant ON-ARRIVAL Program
 This is the language program designed for newly arrived
immigrants in a country. They need it for their survival. They
have to learn different kinds of real-world contents to survive in
different situations. In Australia, that course as first designed
integrating notional, functional, grammatical and lexical
specifications built around particular themes and situations: it
was based on the Direct Method.
4 Programs for Students With Limited English Proficiency
These are language designed for the children whose parents
might be served by the 'On -arrival programs'. These programs
supported the children to carry out academic tasks and
understand academic content through a second language.
5 The Language for Specific Purpose (LSP)
The LSP course were designed for the learners who need a
second language in order to carry out specific role such as
doctors, pilots, ;engineers, technicians, nurses, etc. The
students acquire the content of these respective areas and real-
world skills through the medium of a second language. These
programs are:
1 English for Science and Technology(EST)
2 English for Specific Purposes (ESP)
3 English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)
4 English for Academic Purposes
Principles of Content Based Approach
According to Larsen-Freeman (2008), the principles of the
Content Based Approach are as follows:
1 Both the content and the language are targets for learn.
2 Teaching should build on students’ previous experience.
3 The teacher scaffolds the linguistic content, i.e. helps
learners say what itis they want to say by building a complete
utterancetogether with the students.
4 When learners perceive the relevance of their language use,
they are motivated to learn. They know that it is a
means to an end, rather than an end in itself.
5 Language is learned most effectively when it is used as a
medium to convey content of interest to the students.
6 Vocabulary is easier to acquire when there are contextual
clues to help convey meaning. It is important to integrate
all the skills, as well as vocabulary and grammar in an
authentic context.
7 When they work with authentic subject matter, students
need language support. For instance, the teacher may provide a
number of examples, build in some use redundancy
comprehension checks, etc.
8 Learners work with meaningful, cognitively demanding
language and content within the context of authentic material
and tasks.
9 It is important for students to learn the discourse organization
of academic texts.
10 Graphic organizers help students develop the skills that they
need to learn academic content.
Techniques or Classroom procedures
The Techniques associated with Content Based Approach given
by Larsen-Freeman as follows:
1 Dictogloss
In adictogloss (Wajnryb 1990), students listen twice to a
short talk or a reading on appropriate content. The first time
through, students listenfor the main idea, and then the
second time they listen for details. Next, students write
down what they have remembered from the talk or
reading. Some teachers have their students take notes while
listening. The students then use their notes to reformulate
what has been read. Students get practice in note-taking in this
way. Next, they work with a partner or in a small group to
construct together the best version of what they have heard.
What they write is shared with the whole class for a
peer-editing session. Through these processes, students
become familiar with the organization of a variety of
texts within a content area.
2 Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers are visual displays that help
students to organize and remember new information. They
involve drawing or writing down ideas and making
connections. They combine words and phrases, symbols, and
arrows to map knowledge. They include diagrams,
tables, columns, and webs. Through the use of graphic
organizers, students can understand text
organization, which helps them learn to read academic texts
and to complete academic tasks, such as writing a
summary of what they have read. A key rationale for the
use of graphic organizers in CBI is that they facilitate
recall of cognitively demanding content, enabling
students to process the content material at a deeper
level and then be able to use it forlanguage practice.
3 Language Experience Approach
Students take turns dictating a story about their life
experiences to the teacher who writes it down in the target
language. Eachstudent then practices reading his or
her story with the teacher’s assistance.The Language
Experience Approach applies the principles of WL: The
text is about content that is significant to the students, it
 is collaboratively produced, it is whole, and since it
is the student’s story, the link between text and meaning is
facilitated.
4 Process Writing
Traditionally, when teachers teach writing, they assign topics
for students to write on;perhaps they do a bit of brainstorming
about the topic during a pre-writing phase, and then
have students write about the topic without interruption.
Subsequently, teachers collect and evaluate what students
have written. Such instruction is very ‘product-
oriented;’ there is no involvement of the teacher in the act
or ‘process’ of writing. In process writing, on the
other hand, students may initially brainstorm ideas about a
topic and begin writing, but then they have repeated
conferences with the teacher and the other
students, during which they receive feedback on their
writing up to that point, make revisions, based on the
feedback they receive, and carry on writing. In this way,
students learn to view their writing as someone else’s reading
and to improve both the expression of meaning and the form
of their writing as they draft and redraft. Process writing shifts
the emphasis in teaching writing from evaluation to revision.
5 Dialogue Journals
 Another way to work on literacy skills is to have students keep
dialogue journals. The particularway that journals are
used varies, but it essentially involves students writing in
their journals in class or for homework regularly, perhaps after
each class or once a week. There may be a particular focus
for the writing, such as the students’ expressing
their feelings toward howand what they are learning, or
the writing focus could be on anything that the student
wishes to communicate to the teacher. Usually it is the
teacher who ‘dialogues’ with the student i.e. is the
audience for the journal. The teacher reads the student’s
journal entry and writes a response to it, but does not
correct its form.
Advantages of CBI

 1 It can make learning a language more interesting and

motivating. Students can use the language to fulfill a real
purpose, which can make students both more independent and
confident.

 2 Students can also develop a much wider knowledge of

the world through CBI which can feed back into improving and
supporting their general educational needs.

 3 CBI is very popular among EAP (English for Academic

Purposes) teachers as it helps students to develop valuable
 study skills such as note taking, summarizing and extracting key
information from texts.

 4 Taking information from different sources, re-evaluating

and restructuring that information can help students to develop
very valuable thinking skills that can then be transferred to
other subjects.

 5 The inclusion of a group work element within the

framework given above can also help students to develop their
collaborative skills, which can have great social value.
Disadvantage of CBI

 1 CBI isn't explicitly focused on language learning, some

students may feel confused or may even feel that they aren't
improving their language skills. Deal with this by including some
form of language focused follow-up exercises to help draw
attention to linguistic features within the materials and
consolidate any difficult vocabulary or grammar points.

 2 Particularly in monolingual classes, the overuse of the

students' native language during parts of the lesson can be a
problem. Because the lesson isn't explicitly focused on
language practice students find it much easier and quicker to
use their mother tongue. Try sharing your rationale with
students and explain the benefits of using the target language
rather than their mother tongue.

 3 It can be hard to find information sources and texts that

lower levels can understand. Also the sharing of information in
 the target language may cause great difficulties. A possible way
around this at lower levels is either to use texts in the students'
native language and then get them to use the target language
for the sharing of information and end product, or to have texts
in the target language, but allow the students to present the
end product in their native language. These options should
reduce the level of challenge.

 4 Some students may copy directly from the source texts

they use to get their information. Avoid this by designing tasks
that demand students evaluate the information in some way, to
draw conclusions or actually to put it to some practical use.
Having information sources that have conflicting information
can also be helpful as students have to decide which
information they agree with or most believe.
2 Task based approach
In this approach, the natural context is created for the learners
to use the target language. It makes the performance of
meaningful tasks central to the learning process. It is believed
that if students are focused on the completion of a task, they
are just as likely to learn language as they are if they are
focusing on language forms. Instead of a language structure or
function to be learnt, students are presented with a task they
have to perform or a problem they have to solve. This means
students are given tasks to perform and the teacher gives them
feedback. Wills (1994, mentioned in Harmer) suggests three
basic sages: the pre-task, the task cycle and the language focus.
 In the pre-task stage, the teacher explores the topic with the
class and may highlight useful words and phrases, helping
students to understand the task instructions. The students may
hear a recording of other people doing the same task. During
the Task cycle stage, the students perform the task in pairs or
small groups while the teacher monitors from a distance. The
students then plan how they will tell the rest of the class what
they did and how it went, and they then report on task either
orally or in writing, and or compare cotes on what has
happened. In the language focus stage, the students examine
and discuss specific features of any listening or reading text
which they have looked at the task and or the teacher may
conduct some forms of practice of specific language features
which the task has provoked.
One of the examples that Jane Willis gives of such a procedure
concerns a woman's phobia about spiders (Wills, 1996). The
woman lived with her husband but could never be left alone
because of her fear of spiders. Part of the procedures (which I
have shortened and slightly amended) goes like this:
Pre-task
The teacher explains the woman's situation and asks students,
in pairs, to brainstorm three consecutive steps they might take
to help cure the woman of her phobia.
Task
Pairs list possible was to help the woman get over phobias.
Planning
Pairs rehearse how to explain the steps they recommended,
and justify the order they are in.
Report and reading
The pairs tell the class their proposals and justify them. The
class listens and count how many ideas they come up with.
The teacher lets the class decide and vote on which three steps
might be similar or those in a newspaper report about the
phobia woman's dilemma. She writes on board.
The teacher gives out the text, she asks students to read to see
whether their three steps were in the report. Finally, she asks
which pair had the most steps that were similar.
Language focus
The teacher helps students with any mistakes she heard during
the task. She them directs students back to the article and they
analyze it for topic vocabulary, time expressions, syntax
elements, etc. A great ELT export Prabhu (mentioned in Larsen-
Freeman, 2008) has pointed out three types of tasks: an
information gap activity (which involves the exchange of
information among participants in order to complete a task), an
opinion gap activity (which requires that students give their
personal preferences or attitude to perform a task) and a
reasoning- gap activity (which requires students to derive some
new information by inferring it from information they have
been given).

Principles of Task Based Approach

The principles associated with the Task Based Approach given
by Larsen- Freeman are as follows:
1 The class activities have a perceived purpose and a clear
outcome.
2 A pre-task, in which students work through a task that they
will later do individually, is a helpful way to have students see
the logic involved in what they are being asked to do. It
will also allow the language necessary to complete the task to
come into play.
3 The teacher breaks down into smaller steps the logical
thinking process necessary tocomplete the task. The demand
on thinking made by the activity should be just above the level
which learners can meet without help.
4 The teacher needs to seek ways of knowing how involved
the students are in the process,so he can make
adjustments in light of the learners’ perceptions of relevance
and their readiness to learn. Such teacher–class
negotiation ensures that as many students as possiblein a
mixed-ability class grasp the nature ofthe activity.
5 The teacher doesn’t consciously simplify his language; heuses
whatever language is necessary to have students
comprehend the current step in the pre-task. Here, he
switched from an abbreviated W/h question to a yes/no
question. This switch is a natural strategy that proficient
speakers use when interacting with less proficient speakers
inside and outside of the classroom.
6 The teacher supplies the correct target form by reformulating
or recasting what the students have said.
7 The teacher provides good models of the target language.
8 This jigsaw task, where students have to piece together
information they need to complete a task, gives them an
opportunity for interaction.
9 The teacher should not necessarily interrupt the students
when they are focused on meaning.
10 Students should receive feedback on their level of success
in completing the task. The need to achieve an outcome
makes students pay attention.
12 A public presentation encourages students to work on
accuracy and organization, as well as meaning.
13 Repeating the language that they have been working on
shows learners what they can and what they cannot yet do.
14 ‘Listen-and-do’ tasks promote acquisition of new
vocabulary and provide a good model for grammatical form.
This task follow-up can enhance the learning that has taken
place earlier.
Techniques or classroom procedures
According to Larsen-Freeman (2008), the techniques of Task
Based Language Teaching are as follows:
1 Information-gap Task
An information-gapactivity, which we(Larsen-Freeman) saw
used previously in CLT and now in TBLT, involves
the exchange of information among participants in order
to complete a task. In the TBLT lesson, students had to
exchange information within their groups in order to
complete the schedule. Other examples might be where one
student is given a picture and describes the picture for
another student to draw, or where students draw each other’s
family trees.
2 Opinion-gap Task
An opinion-gap task requires that students express their
personal preferences, feelings, or attitudes in order to
complete the task. For instance, students might be given a
social problem, such as high unemployment, and be asked to
come up with a series of possible solutions, or they might
be asked to compose a letter of advice to a friend who
has sought their counsel about a dilemma. In our lesson,
the students were only at the advanced-beginning level.
Their opinion-gap task was a rather simple one, which
involved students’ surveying their classmates about their
most and least favorite subjects.
3 Reasoning-gap Task
A reasoning-gap activity requires that students derive some
newinformation by inferring it from information they have
already been given. For example, students might be
given a railroad schedule and asked to work out the
best route to get from oneparticularcity to another, or they
might be asked to solve a riddle. In the lesson we
observed, students were asked to use the results of their
surveys or interviews to find out which were the three
most popular and the least popular subjects. Prabhu (1987)
feels that reasoning-gap tasks work best since information-gap
tasks often require a single step transfer of
information, rather than sustained negotiation, and
opinion-gap tasks tend to be rather open-ended. Reasoning-
gap tasks, on the other hand, encourage a more
sustained engagement with meaning, though they are still
characterized by a somewhatpredictable use of language.
According to Ellis (2009), TBLT tasks can be unfocused or
focused:
4 Unfocused Tasks
Unfocused tasks are tasks designed to provide learners with
opportunities for communicating generally.The task
described in the introduction to this chapter, where
students have to planan itinerary for a train trip, is an
example. Students draw on their own language resources to
fulfill the task.
5 Focused Tasks
Focused tasks are tasks designed to provide opportunities for
communicating using some specific linguistic item,
typically a grammarstructure.The task of trying to identify
the owner of a briefcase left in a taxi is an example.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the task will elicit
the grammar structure that the task designers intended
(Loschky and Bley-Vroman 1993). As with all tasks,
focused tasks should be meaningful. For this reason, the
target linguistic feature of a focused task is ‘hidden’ (the
learners are not told explicitly what the feature is) (Ellis
2009). One other distinction that Ellis (2009)
makes is between input-providing and output-prompting
tasks:
6 Input-providing Tasks
Input-providing tasks engage learners with the receptive skills
of listening and reading. We saw in the lesson in this
chapter that the students completed a schedule with
the content that the teacher provided. Input-providing (e.g.
‘listen and do’ tasks) not only work on the
receptive skills, but also give teachers an opportunity
to introduce new language.
7 Output-prompting Tasks
Output-prompting tasks stimulate the students to write or
speak meaningfully. In our lesson, there was an output-
prompting task when students had to share the information on
their cards so that their group members could
complete a schedule.

3 Participatory Approach
Participatory Approach was developed by Paulo Freire in early
sixties. But, it was being widely discussed only after the 1980s
in the language teaching literature. In some way, participatory
approach is similar approach is similar to content based
approach in that it begins with content that is meaningful to
the students and any forms that are worked upon emerge from
that content what is strikingly different though is the nature of
the content. It is not the content of subject matter texts, but
rather content that is based on issues of concern to students.
In the early 1960s, Freire developed a native- language
literacy program for slum dwellers and peasants in Brazil. Freire
engaged learners in dialogues about problems in their lives.
These dialogues not only became the basis for literacy
development, but also for reflection and action to improve
students' lives. Freire believed that 'education is meaningful to
the extent that it engages learners in reflecting on their
relationship to the world they live in and provides them with a
means to shape their world (Freeman and Macedo, in Larsen-
Freeman,2008). The goal of the participatory approach is to
help students to understand the social, historical or cultural
forces that affect their lives and then to help empower students
to take action and make decisions in order to gain control over
their lives (Wallerstein, 1983, in Larsen-Freeman, 2008)
The principles of Participatory Approach given by Larsen-
Freeman (2008) are as follows:
1 What happens in the classroom should be connected with
what happensoutside. The teacher listens for themes in
what students say that will provide the content for future
lessons.
2 The curriculum is not a predetermined product, but the
result of an ongoing context-specific problem-posing process.
3 Education is most effective when it is experience-centered—
when it relates to students’ real needs. Students are motivated
by their personal involvement. Teachers are co-
learners, asking questions of the students, who are the
experts on their own lives.
4 When knowledge is jointly constructed, it becomes a tool to
help students find a voice; and by finding their
voices, students can act in the world. Students learn to see
themselves associal and political beings.
5 Language teaching occurs with texts that the students have
co-constructed.
6 Focus on linguistic form occurs within a focus on content.
Language skills are taught in service of action for
change, rather than in isolation.
7 Students can create their own materials, which, in turn, can
become texts for other students.
8 A goal of the Participatory Approach is for students to
evaluate theirown learning and to increasingly direct it
themselves. This is one way that they can feel empowered.
Techniques or Classroom Procedures
The techniques of Participatory Approach given by Larsen-
Freeman are as follows:
1 Dialoguing
In the Participatory Approach, teacher and students dialogue
about issues in the students’ lives that relate to their
power and the power of others. Students are
encouraged to ‘perceivecritically the way they exist in the
world with which and in which they find themselves’
(Freire1970: 64).
2 Problem Posing
The teacher poses a problem that she has identified from
dialoguing with students. Students are encouraged toexamine
their own practices and beliefs and to engage in
collaborative planning and problem solving aroundthe
problem that has been posed. Problem posing helps students
to understand the social, historical, and cultural
forces that shaped the context in which they live, and then
helps empower them to take action and make decisions in
 order to gain control over their lives in that
context.
3.2.3 Learning strategy training, cooperative learning and
multiple intelligences
Introduction
In this chapter, we discuss three methodological innovations:
learning strategy training, cooperative learning, and
multiple intelligences. What these three have in
common differs from the approaches in the previous
chapters in that they are not full blown methods, and
their main concernis the language learner. Because
of their different focus, they complement, rather than
challenge, language teaching methods. While these
innovations are not comprehensive methods of language
teaching, they reflect interesting and enduring methodological
practices, and thus are presented here.
Learning Strategy Training
Principles of Learning Strategy Training
Learning Strategy Training is a learner oriented methodological
practice. This concept seems to have been developed by the
prominent linguist, Rubin. It mainly focuses on what are the
techniques or strategies to be adopted by the learners so that
they can learn language themselves. This means the teacher is
not teach only the content of language learning but at the same
time, he/she is to focus on teaching how language is learnt. The
teacher is to tell clearly about the ways or techniques of
learning different aspects of language daily so that learners can
learn the language themselves by applying the various
techniques they have gained. The learners are independent and
have full of confidence in language leaning. The learners start
learning the language in their own pace on the basis of the
situation and time they have. The language learning of them
becomes permanent.
Rubin (1975), investigated what 'good language learners' did
to facilitate their learning. From this investigation, she
identified some of their learning strategy 'the techniques or
devices which learner may use to acquire knowledge. Good
language learners, according to Rubin, are willing to
communicate and will attempt to do so even at the risk of
appearing foolish. They attend to both the meaning and the
form of their message.
Here, the learners are responsible themselves in language
learning. But what is concluded from the research was that the
contribution given by the learners only is not sufficient in
language learning. Language learners are to be given training in
learning strategies to maximize their potential and contribute
to their autonomy.
The principles of Learning Strategy Training given by Larsen-
Freeman (2008) are as follows:
1 The students’ prior knowledge and learning experiences
should be valued and built upon.
2 Studying certain learning strategies will contribute to
academic success.
3 The teacher’s job is not only to teach language,but to teach
learning.
4 For many students, strategies have to be learned. The best
way to do this is with ‘hands-on’ experience.
5 Students need to become independent, self-regulated
learners. Self-assessment contributes to learner autonomy.
7 An important part of learning a strategy is being able to
transfer it, i.e. use it in a different situation.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative Learning and Learning strategy are similar in the
sense that both require language to teach other skills in
addition to teaching language. Cooperative learning which is
sometimes called collaborative learning, essentially involves
students learning from each other in groups. But it is notthe
group configuration that makes cooperative learning
distinctive; it is the way that students and teachers work
together that is important. As we have just seen, with learning
strategy training, the teacher helps students learn
how to learn more effectively. In cooperative learning,
teachers teach students collaborative or social skills so that
they can work together more effectively. Indeed, cooperation is
not only a way of learning, but also a theme to be
communicated about and studied (Jacobs 1998 in Larsen-
Freeman).
Principles of Cooperative Learning
The principles of Cooperative Learning given by Larsen-
Freeman (2008) are as follows:
1 Students are encouraged to think in terms of ‘positive
interdependence,’ which means that the students are not
thinking competitively and individualistically, but rather
cooperatively and in terms of the group.
2 In cooperative learning, students often stay together in the
same groups for a period of time so they can learn how to work
better together. The teacher usually assigns students to the
groups sothat the groups aremixed—males and females,
different ethnic groups, different proficiency levels,
etc. This allows students to learn from each other and also
gives them practice in how to get along with people different
from themselves.
3 The efforts of an individual help not only the individual to be
rewarded, but also others in the class.
4 Social skills such as acknowledging another’s contribution,
asking others to contribute, and keeping the conversation
calm need to be explicitly taught.
5 Language acquisition is facilitated by students’ interacting in
the target language.
6 Although students work together, each student is
individually accountable.
7 Responsibility and accountability for each other’s learning is
shared. Each group member should be encouraged to feel
responsible for participating and for learning.
8 Leadership is ‘distributed.’ Teachers not only teach
language;they teach cooperation as well. Of course, since
social skills involve the use of language, cooperative learning
teaches language for both academic and social purposes.
Multiple Intelligence
Teachers have always known that their students have different
strengths. In the language teaching field, some of the
differences among students have been attributed to students’
having different learning or cognitive styles. For instances
some students are better visual learners than aural learners.
They learn better when they are able to read new
material rather than simply listen to it. Of course, many
learners can learn equally well either way; however,
it has been estimated that for up to 25 percent of the
population, the mode of instruction does make a
difference in their success as learners (Levin et al. 1974,
cited in Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991). Hatch (1974)
further distinguishes between learners who are data-
gatherers and those who are rule-formers. Data-gatherers are
fluent but inaccurate; rule-formers are more accurate, but
often speak haltingly. Related work by psychologist
Howard Gardner (1983, 1993, 1999, 2006) on multiple
intelligences has been influential in language teaching
circles. Teachers who recognize the multiple intelligences of
their students acknowledge that students bring with them
specific and unique strengths, which are often not taken into
account in classroom situations. Gardner has theorized that
individuals have at least eight distinct intelligences that
can be developed over a lifetime. The eight are:
1 Logical/mathematical—the ability to use numbers effectively,
to see abstract patterns, and to reason well
2Visual/spatial—the ability to orient oneself in the
environment, to create mental images, and a sensitivity to
shape, size, color
3 Body/kinesthetic—the ability to use one’s body to
express oneself and to solve problems
4 Musical/rhythmic—the ability to recognize tonal patterns
and a sensitivity to rhythm, pitch, melody
5 Interpersonal—the ability to understand another person’s
moods, feelings, motivations, andintentions
6 Intrapersonal—the ability to understand oneself and to
practice self-discipline
7 Verbal/linguistic—the ability to use language effectively and
creatively
8 Naturalist—the ability to relate to nature and to classify
what is observed.
While everyone might possess these eight intelligences, they
are not equally developed in any one individual. Some
teachers feel that they need to createactivities that draw on
all eight, not only to facilitate language acquisition
among diverse students, but also to help them realize their
full potential with all of the intelligences. One way of
doing so is to think about the activities that are
frequently used in the classroom and to categorize them
according to intelligence type. By beingaware of which
type of intelligence is being tapped by a particular
activity, teachers can keep track of which type they are
emphasizing or neglecting in the classroom and aim for a
different representation if they so choose. Christison (1996,
2005) and Armstrong (1994) give us examples of
activities that fit each type of intelligence:
1 Logical/mathematical—puzzles and games, logical,
sequential presentations, classifications and categorizations
2 Visual/spatial—charts and grids, videos, drawing
3 Body/kinesthetic—hands-on activities, field trips pantomime
4 Musical/rhythmic—singing, playing music, jazz chants
5 Interpersonal—pair work, project work, group problem
solving
6 Intrapersonal—self-evaluation, journal keeping, options
for homework
7 Verbal/linguistic—note-taking, storytelling, debates
8 Naturalist—collecting objects from the natural world;
learning their names and about them.
A second way to teach from a multiple intelligence
perspective is to deliberately plan lessons so that the
different intelligences are represented. Here is one lesson
plan, adapted and expanded from Emanuela Agostini, which
addresses all of the intelligences:
Step 1—Give students a riddle and ask them to solve it in
pairs: I have eyes, but I see nothing. I have ears, but I hear
nothing. I have a mouth, but I cannot speak. If I am young, I
stay young; if I am old, I stay old. What am I? Answer: A
person in a painting or photograph. (Intelligences:
interpersonal,verbal/linguistic)
Step 2—Guided imagery: Tell students to close their eyes and
to relax; then describe a picture of a scene or a
portrait. Ask them to imagine it.Play music while you are
giving the students the description. (Intelligences:
spatial/visual intelligence, musical)
Step 3—Distribute to each person in a small group a written
description of the same picture they have just heard
described. Each description is incomplete, however, and no
two in the group are quite the same. For example, one
description has certain words missing; the othershave
d different words missing. Thestudents work together
with the other members of their group to fill in the missing
words so that they all end up with a complete
description of the picture. (Intelligences: interpersonal,
verbal/linguistic)
Step 4— Ask the groups to create a tableau of the picture by
acting out the description they have just completed.
(Intelligence: body/kinesthetic)
Step 5—Show the students the picture. Ask them to find five
things about it that differ from their tableau or from how
they imagined the painting tolook. (Intelligence: logical/
mathematical)
Step 6—Ask students to identify the tree in the painting.
(Intelligence: naturalist)
Step 7—Reflection: Ask students if they have learned anything
about how to look at a picture. Ask them ifthey have
learned anything new about the target language.
(Intelligence: intrapersonal)
Unit four: Beginning Teaching
4.1 The subject matter of language teaching
Jim Scrivener (2011, pg. 24) raises very crucial questions
regarding the 'The subject matter of ELT, "What exactly are we
teaching? What is the subject matter of language teaching?"
These are, in fact, very much pivotal questions for the language
teachers to be known clearly before teaching language. Until
and unless the language teachers are clear about these things,
neither they can teach language confidently nor is language
teaching successful.
In traditional methods and some parts of the world at present,
it is the vocabulary and grammar that are only focused while
teaching English language. They think that a language is the
combination of vocabulary and grammar and these are the
subject matters of ELT as well. They believe that, if grammar
and vocabulary are taught properly, English language can be
mastered. But, this is not so in reality though these are
important elements of ELT. There are other important elements
or subjects matters to be considered while teaching English
language. Jim Scrivener (2011) is of the opinion that, "An
outsider might imagine that the content would comprise two
major elements, namely knowledge of the language's grammar
and knowledge of lots of vocabulary. Of course, these do form
an important part of what is taught/ learned, but it is important
to realize that someone learning a language needs far more
than 'in-the-head' knowledge of grammar and vocabulary in
order to be able to use language successfully. In staff rooms,
you'll find that teachers typically classify the key subject matter
of language teaching into 'language systems' and 'language
skills.' "This reveals that there are mainly two subject matter of
ELT in general; language systems and language skills. The brief
information of them has been given below.
Language System
It is the fact thing that language is a system of communication
in speech and writing which is used by people of a particular
place or country. It is a means of communication through which
we can communicate our ideas feelings emotions, desire,
thought and so on. Human beings have a unique place in the
universe due to the possession of language. Linguists have
defined the term language differently but the ideas to be
understood are the same. Sapir (1921) defines language as, "A
purely human and non human instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of
voluntarily produced symbols'. Similarly, Wardhaugh (2000)
defines language as 'A system of arbitrary vocal symbols used
for human communication. In the same way, Lyons, (1970)
opines "Languages are the principal systems of communications
sued by particular groups of human beings with the particular
society (Linguistic society) of which they are the members."
Thus language is a systematic, purely human and no instinctive
method of communication. Communication is the overall global
function of language. Therefore, we can say that language is a
system of system. The combination of different units makes a
language meaningful. Putting it another way, different
elements are combined together to make a language
meaningful. Language elements, here, refer to pronunciation
and spelling, vocabulary, grammar, communicative function.
According to Jim Scrivener (2011), there are five language
systems which are given below.
1 Pronunciation
2 Lexis
3 Grammar
4 Function
5 Discourse
1 Pronunciation (pronunciation and spelling)
It is the fact thing that every language has its own system of
pronunciation and spelling. So, the learners should know how
the spellings in the words are pronounced in a correct way by
the native speakers of that language to understand the
intended meaning. We all know that, until and unless we have
sound knowledge about the pronunciation, we neither can
understand not speak. Our communication completely breaks
down. Pronunciation, therefore, one of the important element
of a language that is to be taught and learnt from the very
beginning.
In fact, pronunciation refers to the spoken shape of language
and spelling refers to the written shape of language. Simply
speaking, pronunciation refers to the pronunciation of words
and spelling also refers to the spelling of words. But
pronunciation includes the pronunciation of segmental sounds
(vowels, and consonants) and the pronunciation of supra
segmental sounds/ features like stress, intonation, pitch and
length. The two sub branches of linguistics- phonetics and
phonology- deal with pronunciation. Phonetics deals tithe
physical properties of all the human sounds and phonology
deals with the sound system of particular language. Phonetics
and phonology provide information about supra-segmental
features which are significant to bring change in meaning. For
example, stress, intonation, length, pitch etc. are very
important in English, which can change the meaning of
utterance. Similarly, spelling also plays very important role in a
language. Without spelling, the existence of correct language is
almost impossible. English has special spelling system. There is
not one to one correspondence between the letters and
sounds. A sound may in English spelling be represented by
different letters in different words, two sounds may in different
words be represented by the same letter; as single sound may
be represented by a sequence of two letters or two sounds may
be represented by a single letter. The learners can be taught
about the pronunciation through visual representation and
listening activities. Listening activities are very useful for young
learners and both listening activities and visual representation
of phonemic sounds are useful for teenagers as well as matured
learners.
2 Lexis (vocabulary and meaning)
It is said that, 'no vocabulary, no language.' This means;
vocabulary is the crucial element of language which is the
building block of any language. It is the vocabulary with help of
which we seem to be expressing our feelings, ideas, desires etc.
It carries the meaning. The more vocabulary power we have,
the better language we will have. The teachers, therefore, are
to encourage the learners to increase the vocabulary power
from the very beginning as much as possible.
Another crucial matter to be paid attention regarding the
vocabulary is that the different words may have same meaning
(show/ indicate/reveal, father/Dad/Daddy) and same word may
different meaning (they are going to bank of the river. I went to
the bank to take money yesterday. I have a very useful book to
read. I have to book a room today). Likewise wise, different
words have different meanings (cat/dog/pig). Therefore,
increasing the vocabulary power is itself very much crucial task
for the learners but at the same time, they must know how the
words provide the meaning in different context. The learners
should have knowledge and information to play with words.
Similarly, there are different kinds of words meanings. For
example, literal, metaphorical etc. and the words have different
connotations. Therefore, it is very important to be familiar with
such aspects. We need to know the meanings of different
words and their use in different context.
3 Grammar
Grammar is the vertebrate of language in which the words are
arranged systematically in order to convey the meaningful
expressions. It refers to the structure or pattern of language,
rules of language and can be called as the frame or skeleton of
language. Tense, voice, person, number etc. are the aspects of
grammar. Grammar includes sentence grammar (called syntax)
and word grammar (called morphology). Morphology is the
study of words in which the learners are taught how the
spellings are arranged in meaningful order and formed new
words by using different suffixes and prefixes. Likewise it
studies about the nature and types of the words in detail. It is,
in fact, overall study of words. Syntax refers to the meaningful
arrangement of the sentences of a language that should known
by the learners to use that language in real life situation.
Therefore, the sound knowledge of grammar is a must where
English language is used as the second language and there is no
use of English in real life situation. Without sound knowledge of
grammar, we can't communicate effectively in different
context. In fact, the grammar is the fundamental element to be
taught the learners in English language teaching.
4 Function
How language works in a particular situation is simply called
function. In orders words, function refers to the purpose for
which an utterance is used. Greeting, Farewell, Offer, Request,
Promise, Advice, Warning, Explaining, Describing etc, are the
some examples of function which help the learners to use
language properly in different situation. It is the fact thing that,
until and unless the learners have sound knowledge about the
function, they can't use language properly in real life situation
though they may have sound knowledge of vocabulary and
grammar. It teaches us how the language is used properly
according to the culture of that language on the basis of the
time and situation. Therefore, function is one of the pivotal
elements of ELT to be taught the learners form the very
beginning.
5 Discourse
Discourse is one of the pivotal elements of ELT that must be
properly paid attention by the learners. In fact, the term
'Discourse' refers to the properties of communicative events
involving language in context. Originally, the 'discourse' came
from Latin language 'discursus' which means either written or
spoken communication or debate or a formal discussion. It is
crucial to understanding any communication or stretches of
utterance made by the speaker or writer. This term is mainly
used in discourse analysis in which linguistic units are
composed of several sentences. In other words, discourse
refers to larger units of language such as paragraphs,
conversations and interviews, etc.
The term discourse has been defined differently by several
linguists. In the study of language, discourse often refers to the
speech patterns and usage of language, dialects and acceptable
statements within a community. Now, let's see some
definitions of discourse: Crystal, D (1992:25) is of the opinion
that, "Discourse is a continuous stretch of language larger than
a sentence, often consisting of a coherent unit such as sermon,
an argument, a joke or a narrative." Another prominent figure
Nunan, D (1993:25) opines," A discourse refers to the
interpretation of communicative events in context. "from these
definitions, we come to conclusion that the term discourse is
more than the limits of a sentence boundary. It means a
discourse involves a coherent piece of any communicative
event. It is a subject of study of language within context which
is realized by various communicative functions and discourse
markers.
Discourse differs on the basis of the context. The way we talk in
friendly conversation differs from the way we talk while giving
the lectures. The way we use our language in informal situation
differs from the way we use langue in formal situation. The way
of using the language differs from one genre to another genre.
In the same way, the way we talk to familiar people differs from
the way we talk to the strange people and so on. These all
come under the discourse. Therefore, the sound knowledge of
discourse is essential to know that helps the learners how to
use the language properly in real life situation on the basis of
the context.
Language skills
Language skills are the important subject of English language
teaching that are to be mastered by the learners to handle the
language in real life situation. There are mainly four types of
language skills - listening, speaking, reading and writing. We use
language for communication in terms of these four language
skills. In our real life situations, we use them in integrative way
to accomplish certain communicative functions. Regarding this,
Hinkel (2006) points out, in meaningful communication, people
employ incremental language skill not in isolation, but in
tandem. For example, when we are engaged in conversation,
we are ground to listen as well as speak because otherwise we
could not interact with the person we are speaking to
sometimes, though reading is thought of as a private activity, it
actually provokes conversation and comment. Similarly, in
writing also we reply after reading something before. Even
when we are writing on our own, we generally read through
what we have written before we send it off.
This indicates that use f language skill is multi-layered, it would
not make any sense to teach each skill in isolation, therefore,
the skills and language work should be connected properly for
successful language learning. We should provide them
maximum learning opportunities in our classes when the
students are engaged in certain classroom activities like project
work, presentation, report writing etc. An ideal learning
sequence will offer both skill integration and also language
study based around a topic or other thematic thread.
Jim Scrivener (2011) is of the opinion that, "As well as working
with the language systems, we also need to pay attention to
what we do with language. These are the language skills.
Teachers normally think of there being four important macro
language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Listening and reading are called receptive skills; speaking and
writing, on the other hand, are the productive skills. Skill are
commonly used interactively and in combination rather than in
isolation, especially speaking and listening."
Jim Scrivener (2011) further opines that language systems and
language skills are two major subjects of ELT in general to be
taught the learners that help them in using the langue in well
manner in real life situation. He mentions that language
systems belong to the theoretical aspect in which the learners
are to study deeply about the Phonology, Lexis, Grammar,
Function and Discourse and language skills belong to practical
aspect in which the learners are to develop their listening,
speaking, reading and writing skills. If these two general things
are well in the learners, they can easily handle the target
language in real life situation. The points under the language
systems and language skills given by Jim Scrivener (2011) are as
follows;

Language systems L
anguage
Knowing
skills
Phonology Doing
Productive Speaking Skill
Lexis
Writing Skill
Receptive Reading Skill
Grammar
Listening Skill
Function
Discourse
4.2 First lessons-hints and strategies
It is the fact thing that first lessons may be a bit challenging for
all teachers. It is more challenging especially if he is taking the
class in a strange country. He is to prepare deeply and carefully
about the hints and strategies to be adopted while teaching a
particular topic in the classroom. It is said that, "First
impression is the last impression." If there is positive
impression on the students from his first class, his whole
teaching period in that school or college will be fruitful. There is
rapport between the teacher and the students that makes
teaching learning activities meaningful. Likewise, the teacher is
to study the culture of that country so that he can be aware
what to do and what not to do in the classroom. The teacher is
to teach in well manner according the culture of that country so
that there would no cultural misunderstanding between the
teacher and students. Jim Scrivener (2011) has given first
lessons - hints and strategies to be adopted by the teachers
which are as follows:
1 Key hints when planning your first lessons
Planning is one of the essential and important task for the
teacher that gives clear frame to the teacher what and how to
conduct teaching learning activities in chronological order in
the classroom in time. The following things are to paid
attention while planning first lesson.
a- Use the course book
The course book is the pivotal material to be used in each
classroom by all teachers based on which the different activities
are conducted. While entering into the class for the first time, it
is not necessary to come up with stunning original lesson ideas
and creative new activities. If a teacher has a course book, then,
he has an instant source of material. He is to read the course
book in detail as well as the background of the writer so that he
can talk about the writer in brief. Then, he is to study the lesson
deeply about which he is going to teach and select the different
techniques to run the different activities clearly.
b- A lesson is a sequence of activities
It is the fact thing that a lesson is a sequence of activities about
which the teacher must mention in his lesson plan clearly so
that he can present his activities systematically one by one. If a
teacher does so, the classroom activities go smoothly and the
students feel easier in grasping the meaning without confusion.
But, the activities conducted in classroom are random, there is
question mark on reliability of the teacher's teaching. The
teacher has very difficult to face the questions raised by the
students. There will be no rapport between the teacher and
students and the teaching learning activities may become
failure.
c- learn something about your students
Jim Scrivener (2011) claims that it's good if a teacher gets
information about his students such as educational, cultural
and linguistic background, knowledge, nature, interests etc.
from the other teachers who have been taking the classes for
long time. It gives the teacher hints in some extent how to run
the class effectively creating a good environment in the
classroom.
d- Plan student - focused activities
We all know that the teacher is not to plan his lesson focusing
to the teacher as it was there in traditional methods like
Grammar Translation Method. If the teacher keeps on speaking
and students keep on listening, it creates monotonous feelings
in the students. They can't listen for long time as well. The
teacher, therefore, should plan student - focused activities so
that they are active and participate during the class. Jim
Scrivener (2011) gives the following students focused activities
route map:
1Lead -in (a brief introduction to the topic, eg you show a
picture to the class and invite comments).
2Set up the activity (ie you give instructions, arrange the
seating, etc).
3 Students do the activity in pairs or small groups while you
monitor and help.
4 Close the activity and invite feedback from the students.
E - Make a written plan of the running order of your activities
The teacher should write out a simple list showing the activities
in order. He doesn't need to include a lot of detail, but make
sure he has a clear idea of his intended sequence of stages,
perhaps with estimated timings.
f- Consider aims
We all know that every lesson has own objectives that are to be
told clearly before running the activities that not only motivates
the students to learn but makes them clear what are they going
to learn in that lesson. They are mentally prepared and learn
according to get the very objectives. The teacher, therefore,
should think what students will get from the lesson and tell that
clearly in the in the classroom.
g- Fluency or accuracy
Fluency and accuracy both are very important in
communication and it's beautiful if the students have both
skills. The teachers should try their best to develop both skills
as much possibly balancing them. Certainly, there are activities
in which the teachers are arguably working on both accuracy
and fluency in relatively equal measure, but many everyday
language-teaching lesson stages are focused on one more than
the other, and at any one moment, in anyone activity, it is likely
that the teachers will be aiming to focus on accuracy rather
than any one activity, it is likely that you will be aiming to focus
on accuracy rather than fluency, or fluency rather than
accuracy. The danger of correcting students in the middle of a
mainly fluency task is that the teachers interrupt their flow and
ask the focus off their massage. Students often find it hard to
continue after a correction, whilst others in class may become
more reluctant to speak for fear of similar interruptions. It is
therefore important for the teachers to be clear about what is
involved in accuracy- focused work as compared with fluency -
focused work. And it's especially important to be clear about
the different aims-and consequently different classroom
procedures-of the two. This means, the fluency is more crucial
matter that is focused more by the teachers in the classroom
though accuracy is to be also paid attention on the basis of the
situation without affecting in the psychology of the students.
Especially, accuracy can be focused when grammatical items
are being taught but it should be done in warm environment so
that the students would be interested in learning those items
by heart. In other cases, it is the fluency of the students that is
important to be focused by the teachers in the classroom. Jim
Scrivener (2011) gives some ideas for correction work after
fluency activities which are as follows:
1 Write up a number of sentences used during the activity and
discuss them with the students.
2 Write a number of sentences on the board. Ask the students
to come up to the board and correct the sentences.
3 Invent and write out a story that includes a number of errors
you overheard during the activity. Hand out the story the next
day and the students, in pairs or as a whole group, find the
errors and correct them.
4 Write out to lists headed 'A' and 'B'. On each list, write the
same ten sentences from the activity. On one list, write the
sentence with an error; on the other, write the corrected
version.
h- Scaffolding
Scaffolding is one of the crucial tasks of a teacher to be done in
the classroom that encourages the students to speak fluently.
In fact, the word 'Scaffolding' refers to the way a competent
language speaker helps a less competent one to communicate
by both encouraging and providing possible elements of the
conversation. It is the way a primary -school teacher might help
a young child to communicate, or the way a chat-show host
might draw out a guest. The listener offers support - like
scaffolding round a building- to help the speaker create his own
spoken structure. Scaffolding in class isn't a normal
conversation in the sense that the teacher/listener is not
aiming to contribute any personal stories or opinions of her
own; the aim of her own speaking is solely to help the speaker
tell his story. Jim Scrivener (2011) has given some appropriate
scaffolding techniques to be used by the language teachers
which are as follows:
1 Showing interest and agreeing: nodding, 'uh-huh', 'eye
contact', 'yes' etc.
2 Concisely asking for clarification of unclear information, eg
repeating an unclear word;
3 Encouragement echo: repeating the last work (perhaps with
questioning intonation) in order to encourage the speaker to
continue;
4 Echoing meaning: picking on a key element of meaning and
saying it back to the speaker, eg 'a foreign holiday';
5 Asking conversation - oiling questions (ones that mainly recap
already stated information), eg. Is it? Do you? Where was o?
etc;
6 Asking brief questions (or using sentence heads) that
encourage the speaker to extend the story, eg and then….He
went …..she wanted….etc;
7 Unobtrusively saying the correct form of the an incorrect
word (but only if having the correct word makes a significant
positive contribution to the communication);
8 Giving the correct pronunciation of words in replies without
drawing any particular attention to it;
9 Unobtrusively giving a word or phrase that the speaker is
looking for.
i- Get the room ready; get yourself ready
It is the fact thing that the classroom must be ready where you
are going to teach and you must be aware with the materials
hat you use in the classroom before teaching. If the timetabling
and organization of your school allows it, take time before any
students arrive to make sure everything is ready the class
starts. Make sure the room is set up as you wish. Think how the
seating arrangements will be managed on the basis of the
activities you have designed. Select which locations are well to
show your materials so that they are visible to all students.
Make sure you have everything you need such as chalk, board
pens etc. And most importantly, just feel what it's like to be in
that room. Start to settle into it, to exercise ownership over it.
If all the things are prepared well, it easier for the teachers to
teach well.
j- Have at least one emergency activity
The students feel easy if the emergency activities are added at
the end of the class. Jim Scrivener (2011) opines, " Prepare your
own personal emergency 'Help, I've run out of things to do and
still have five minutes left' activity ( eg. Word game, an extra
photocopied game, etc). Keep this and add more emergency
ideas day by day." It really makes the classroom interesting and
the teaching learning activities becomes fruitful.
2 Key hints when starting to teach
After having prepared all the things, the teacher is to start
teaching in the classroom. But there are some very important
things to be considered by the teachers before teaching. Jim
Scrivener (2011) gives following key hints when starting to
teach. They are as follows;
1 Talk to the students as they come into the room
Talking immediately to the students as they enter into the
classroom is very crucial task to be done by a teacher that
creates the harmonious environment and establishes rapport
with them. If a teacher is silent and becomes more formal, it
increases the distance between the teacher and the students.
So, he is to break the ice with the students by chatting and
sitting with them just for a minute or two. The students are to
be welcomed, asked their names and engaged with them by
talking about some personal matters. It a teacher does so, the
students feel relax and it is easier for the teacher to start
teaching.
2 Learn names as soon as possible
It is the fact thing that calling the students by their names helps
in establishing rapport to each individual in the classroom.
There is huge difference in comfort levels if the teacher knows
the names of the students. They stop being scary anonymous
entities and start to become humans. In everyday life, if we
meet a number of people in one go, say at a party, we are often
a little careless about learning names. But in class, it is a very
important teacher skill, and the teacher should aim to
internalize names as soon as possible. It is a bit embarrassing if
the teacher has to ask people their names over and over again.
The teacher is not say, 'I'm bad at remembering names.' He is
to make leaning names quickly and accurately his first priority.
If for any reason the pronunciation of names is a problem, the
teacher is to take time to get the sounds right. If he is teaching
in another country, he may get help from the local speakers or
local teachers. The following techniques can be adopted to
recall the names of the students;
1 As you ask each student for their name, write it down on a
mini-sketch- map of the classroom. When you have all the
names, test yourself by covering up the map, looking at the
class and saying the names to yourself. Check and repeat any
names you don't yet know.
2 Ask students to make a small place card for themselves by
folding an A5 piece of paper in half. They should write their
names on this so that every name is visible to you at the front.
As the lesson proceeds, turn individual cards around when you
think you know the students' name.
3 If the teacher and the students are very new to each other,
using some of these name- games will definitely be a good idea
that helps to be familiar to each other and learn the names as
well.
3 Be yourself
Don't feel that being a teacher means you have to behave like a
'teacher'. As far as possible, speak in ways you normally speak,
respond as yourself rather than as you think a 'teacher' should
respond. Students, whether children, teens or adults, very
quickly see through someone who is role playing what they
think a teacher should be. Authenticity in you tends to draw the
best out of those you are working with.
4 Teaching doesn't mean 'talking all the time'
Don't feel that when you are 'in the spotlight', you have to keep
filling all the silences. When you are teaching a language, the
priority is for the learners to talk, rather than the teacher. Start
to notice the quantity or your own talk as soon as possible- and
check out how much is really useful. A high level of teacher talk
is a typical problem for new teachers.
5 Teaching doesn't mean 'teaching all the time
Don't feel that being a teacher means that you have to be doing
things all the time. It may feel a little odd, but it really is quite
OK to sit down and do nothing when students are working on a
pair or group task. There are times when our help will actually
be interference. Take the chance to recover from your
exertions, check your notes and enjoy watching class at work.
6 Slow down
It is the fact thing that a large number of new teachers tend to
do things much too fast. They often seriously underestimate
how difficult things are for students, or are responding to a fear
that students will find things boring. Learning to really slow
down takes time- but it's worth bearing in mind from your first
lesson onwards. For example, don't ask a question and then
jump straight in again because you think they can't answer it.
Instead, allow three times the length of time you feel students
need. This is sometimes call 'wait time.
3 Key hints for starting to teach better
Jim Scrivener (2011) gives the following key hints for starting to
teach better.
1 Turn your radar on
You, teachers, are likely to be a little self-focused during your
early lessons, but as soon as you can, start to tune in more to
the students. Start to ask for comments and brief feedback on
things you do. Watch the students at work and learn to notice
what is difficult; what is easy, what seems to engage, what
seems boring. Study your students and teach accordingly.
2 Don't teach and teach ….teach then check
It is the fact thing that practice is more important than input.
Checking what students have understood and testing if they
can use items themselves is usually more important than telling
them more about the new items. Don't do endless inputs.
Teach a very little amount and then check what students have
taken in. Give students the opportunity to try using the items,
eg a little oral practice, a written question or two, or even
simply 'repeat.' (Here's a rule-of -thumb ratio to experiment
with: input 5%, checking and practice 95%).
3 Are you teaching the class…..or one person?
One crucial thing we, teachers are to keep into our mind is
whether we are teaching the whole class or one person.
Certainly, our aim is to teach the whole class but we are
implementing it in our behaviors in real classroom or not that is
very much important question to be considered. Jim Scrivener
(2011) asks the questions to the teachers, "When you ask
questions/check answers, etc, are you really finding out if they
all know the items…or is it just the first person to call out? If
one person says an answer, does that mean they all know?
What about the others? How can you find out?" In fact, these
questions are very important for the teachers with the solution
of which we are to run the various teaching learning activities in
the classroom. In the context of Nepal, the fact thing we are to
mention is that some of the teachers seem to be focusing only
to the talent students; asking the questions, calling by their
names, eye contact, encouraging them etc. and they are
satisfied if well answers are given by them. They do not seem to
be focusing to the weaker ones who need really help, love,
encouragement and accompany from the teacher. Instead of
giving encouragement, they seem to be cursing and blaming
towards the capacity of them. As a result, the talent students
become more talent and the weak students become much
weaker and teaching learning activities become failure.
Therefore, we, teachers, are to build rapport equally to each
individual, focus to all by involving them in various groups on
the basis of the situation, prioritize to weak students in every
activities like conversation, role play, answer questions,
discussion, interaction, different writing activities with help of
the talent students etc. This means, teacher must assure that
he is teaching the whole class, not a person.
3 Method? What Method?
If we study the history of methodology, lots of methods seem
to have developed with the time on the basis of the experience
of the teachers and the various researches carried out by the
different prominent figures. The Grammar Translation Method,
The Direct Method, The Audio- Lingual Method,
Communicative Language Teaching, Total Physical Response,
Communicative Language Learning, The natural Approach, Task
Based Learning, The Silent Way, Person-centered approaches,
Dogme, Personal methodology etc. are the names of some
popular methods that are being used in the field of teaching
learning field with the times and they are helping to teach not
only language but all thing.
In fact, a method is the practical realization of an approach. A
method that is based on an approach is an overall plan for
orderly presentation of language materials. It is concerned with
the classroom procedures. So it is procedural. Anthony (1963) is
of the opinion that, "…Method is an overall plan for the orderly
presentation of language material, no part of which contradicts,
and all of which based upon the selected approach. An
approach is axiomatic, a method is procedural. Within one
approach, there can be many methods"
Another universally accepted thing is that no method is perfect
in itself and no single method is used in classroom all the time.
The teachers seem to be using more than one method in their
classroom. Likewise, it's not necessary to use one
recommended method that may be the latest one. What kind
of method we are to in classroom depends on mainly three
factors; firstly, the learners, their age, cultural and educational
background and previous experience of the target language,
secondly, the teacher's experience and mastery of the target
language and thirdly the aim of the course.
Jim Scrivener (2011) opines about what methods are to be used
by the teachers in the classroom in the following way;
A method is a way of teaching. Your choice of method is
dependent on you approach, ie what you believe about:
1What language is;
2 How people learn;
3 How teaching helps people learn.
Based on such beliefs, you will then make methodological
decisions about:
1 the aims of a course;
2 what to teach;
3 teaching techniques;
4 ways of relating with students;
5 ways of assessing.
These are the important factors based on which the teachers
seem to be using the different methods in their own context.
Personal Methodology
One of the pivotal things I would to mention you here is
personal methodology which is prevalent in the field of
teaching learning at present. Jim Scrivener (2011) opines that,
"Many teachers nowadays would say that they do not follow a
single method. Teachers do not generally want to take
someone else's prescriptions into class and apply them. Rather
they work out for themselves what is effective in their own
classrooms. They may do this in a random manner or in a
principled way, but what they slowly build over the years is a
personal methodology of their own, constructed from their
selection of what they consider to over the best and most
appropriate of what they have learned about. The process of
choosing items from a range of methods and constructing a
collage methodology is sometimes known as principled
eclecticism."
This indicates that the teachers study various methods deeply.
Sometimes, they use one and sometimes, more than one. Not
only that, they seem to be generating the new methods and
applying on the basis of the environment they have. It is the
fact thing that most of the methods and techniques are
developed on the basis of the environment of developed
countries which may be unsuitable on the environment of
developing countries like Nepal because the child psychology of
America vastly differs to the child psychology of Nepal due to
different environment. Then, how the methods and techniques
developed in the American context can be applied exactly in
the context of Nepal. It is not possible because the trees grown
in Tarai region cannot be grown in Hilly region and vice versa.
So is the case regarding the methods as well. The teachers,
therefore, develop their personal methodology that works well
in their classroom and use it properly.
Unit five: Classroom Activities
Classroom activities are important tasks to be conducted in the
classroom by the teachers while teaching the different subject
matters. It is the fact thing that we, teachers are to plan about
the activities and think seriously how they are conducted in the
classroom properly so that teaching learning activities can be
effective. How we design and implement the activities depends
upon whether teaching learning activities become fruitful or
not. We, therefore, are to plan the scientific and the students
oriented activities to make our teaching learning activities
meaningful. The concepts of classroom activities given by Jim
Scrivener (2011) are as follows:
5.1 Planning an activity
It is said that "Well beginning is half done". Certainly, we,
teachers are to plan well about the activities that are being
conducted in the classroom. What kind of activities we conduct
in the classroom depends on how we make the plan. It is the
fact that the basic building block of a lesson is the activity or
task. This is a basic, important and often overlooked
consideration when planning a lesson. As far as possible, make
sure that our learners have some specific thing to do, whatever
the stage of the lesson. Traditional lesson planning has tended
to see the lesson as a series of things that the teacher does. By
turning it around and focusing much more on what the
students do, we are likely to think more about the actual
learning that might arise and create a lesson that is more
genuinely useful. Even for the stages when we are presenting
language, be clear to ourselves what it is that students are
supposed to be doing and what outcome it is leading to. We
should think complete lesson as being a coherent sequence of
such learner- targeted tasks. We are to mention the activities in
our plan clearly so that there will be no difficulty while
implementing them in the classroom. Some examples of
Planning an activity given by Jim Scrivener (2011) are as follows:
1 Learners do a grammar exercise individually then compare
answers with each other in order to better understand hoe a
particular item of language is formed.
2 Learners listen to a recorded conversation in order to answer
some questions so that the learners can become a better
listeners.
3 learners write a formal letter requesting information about a
product.
4 learners discuss and write some questions in order to make a
questionnaire about people's eating habits.
5 learners read a newspaper article to prepare for a discussion.
6 learners play a vocabulary game in order to help learn words
connected with cars and transport.
7 Learners repeat a number of sentences you say in order to
improve their pronunciation of them.
8 learners role play a shop scene where a customer has a
complaint.
In this way, the activities the learners do in the classroom are to
be clearly mentioned in the plan so that the class goes ahead
systematically and smoothly and teaching learning activities
become meaningful one.
5.2 Activity route map
Activity route map is a crucial task to be prepared by the
teachers to run the teaching learning activities in the classroom
effectively. Jim Scrivener (2011) has given the concept of
activity route map which are as follows:
a- Before the lesson
- Familiarize yourself with the material and the activity.
- Read through the material and any teacher's notes.
- Try the activity yourself.
- Imagine how it will look in class.
- Decide how many organizational steps are involved.
- What seating arrangements/rearrangements are needed?
- How long will it probably take?
- Do the learners know enough language to be able to make a
useful attempt at the activity?
- What help might the need?
- What errors are they likely to make?
- What will your role be at each stage?
- What will your role be at each stage?
- what instructions are needed?
- How will they be given (explained, read, demonstrated)?
- Prepare any aids or additional material.
- Arrange seating, visual aids, etc.
- Most importantly, you need to think through any potential
problems or hiccups in the procedures. For example, what will
happen if you plan in pairs, but there is an uneven number of
students? Will this happen if you plan student work alone, or
will you join in, or will you make one of the pairs into a group of
three?
b- Lead-in /Preparation
-Show/draw a picture connected to the topic. Ask questions.
- Write up/read out a sentence stating a viewpoint. Elicit
reactions.
- Tell a short personal anecdote related to the subject.
- Ask students if they have ever been/seen/done, etc.
- Hand out a short text on the topic. Students read the text and
comment.
- Play 'devil's advocate' and make a strong/controversial
statement (eg. I think smoking is very good for people) that
students will be motivated to challenge/argue about.
- Write a key word (maybe the topic name) in the centre of a
word - cloud one the board and elicit vocabulary from students
which is added to the board.
c- Setting up the activity
- Organize the students so that they can do the activity or
section. (This may involve making pairs or groups, moving the
seating, etc.)
- Give clear instructions for the activity. A demonstration or
example is usually much more effective than a long
explanation.
- You may wish to check back that the instructions have been
understood.
- In some activities, it may be useful to allow some individual
work (eg thinking through a problem, listing answers, etc)
before the students get together with others.
d- Running an activity
- Monitor at the start of e activity for section to check that the
task has been understood and that students are doing what
your intended them to do.
- If the material was well prepared and the instructions clear,
then the activity can now largely run itself. Allow the students
to work on the task without too much further interference. Our
role now is often much more low -key, asking a back seat and
monitoring what is happening without getting in the way.
- Beware of the encumbering the students with unnecessary
help. This is their chance to work. If the task is difficult, give
them the chance to rise to that challenge, without learning on
you. Don't rush in to 'save' them too quickly or too eagerly.
(Though, having said that, remain alert to any task that
genuinely proves too hard- and be prepared to help or stop it
early if necessary!)
e- Closing the activity
- Allow the activity or section to close properly. Rather than
suddenly stopping the activity at a random point, try to sense
when the students are ready to more on.
- If different groups are finishing at different times, make a
judgment about when coming together as a whole class would
be useful to most people.
- If you want to close the activity while many students are still
working, give a time warning (eg. Finish the item you are
working on or Two minutes).
f- Post - activity
- Groups meet up with other groups and compare
answers/opinions.
- Students check answers with the printed answers in the
Teacher's Book (which you pass around/leave at the front of
the room/photocopy and hand out, etc.
- Before class, you anticipate what the main language problems
will be and prepare a mini-presentation on these areas.
- During the last few minutes of a long task, go round the
groups and warn them that each group will be asked to 'report
back' to the whole class. Ask them to appoint a spokesperson
and to agree on the main message they want to say. You could
ask them to choose just one point from their discussion that
they think is worth sharing.
- When checking answers, ask for groups to exchange and
compare their answers across the room themselves..
- ..or get a student to come up front and manage the answer-
checking, rather than doing it all yourself( you could give this
student the answer sheet!).
- Collect in all answer sheets then redistribute them for
'correcting' by other students. When everything has been
checked, students pair up with those who marked their paper
and listen/explain/just/argue, etc.
- Correct one student's answers; that students then goes on to
correct other answers, etc.
- Divide the board up into spaces for answers and throw pens
to different students who fill the board up with their answers
(each answer written by a different student). The whole group
looks at the finished board and comments/corrects.
5.2 Exploiting an activity
Exploiting an activity is one of the very important tasks of a
teacher in which good learning environment is created for the
students by providing them activities. In fact, exploitation is the
way a teacher or learner uses resources to meet their learning
aims. A teacher can exploit a native speaker by asking them to
come into the class and talk to learners, asking learners to
prepare interview questions beforehand or by using the native
speaker in a role-play, etc. Sometimes, the students are
allowed to talk about their past experiences to each other.
Sometimes, they may be given the contemporary issues for the
discussion in which they can give their personal opinions and
most of the time; we get the students to exploit the text. Some
exploiting activities in different texts are given below.
 1 Exploiting reading and listening texts for lexical chunks
The following activities can be used after exploiting a text for
meaning, for example, after learners answer comprehension
questions or do a matching exercise based on the text. 

a-Listening text

 Give learners the typescript with some key collocations

blanked out. They listen again and complete the spaces.

 Listening texts can also be used to provide a model for

pronunciation, for example, the stress pattern of chunks. Ask
learners to identify the stress and drill the whole chunk.

 Songs are a useful lexical resource. Before listening, give

learners the words of a song with some collocations blanked
out. Ask them to work in pairs to predict how many words have
been blanked out from each space. They then listen for the
exact words. If there are any patterns in the song (for example,
a number of second conditional sentences), learners can be
asked to identify these sentences, and write more sentences
using the same structure which fit the theme of the song.
 
b-Reading text

 Prepare a table which includes half or part of some of the

multi-word items in a text. Learners then scan the text to
complete the table with the other half of the collocations.
 Short texts can be used to prepare for and practise reading
aloud. Pauses normally come at the end of a chunk, while
content words are stressed. If learners mark pauses and
stressed words, this will improve their reading aloud, as well as
helping them to 'notice' chunks.

 Reading activities can also be used for consciousness-

raising. After answering comprehension questions, learners are
asked to put the original text away, and are given a new version
with some of the key collocations blanked out. Working in
pairs, they have to reconstruct the collocations, before
checking with the original.
 
c-Recycling collocations
Learners are unlikely to remember chunks after seeing them
just once, so it will be necessary to recycle them in subsequent
classes. Most traditional vocabulary-recycling activities can be
adapted for use with multi-word items, but here are a few
ideas:

 Give learners discussion questions including the chunks.

Personalization can make the language more memorable.

 Pelmanism, i.e. the memory game where learners have to

find matching halves of collocations from cards placed face-
down on the table. They turn over two cards, and keep them if
they go together.
 Prepare a list of collocations recently seen in class. Divide
the class into teams of 3-4 students, and give each team a piece
of paper. Write a collocation from the list on the board. The
first team to write a correct sentence including that collocation
gets a point. Continue until you've exhausted the list, or until
one team reaches a specified number of points.

 A few minutes before the end of a class, ask learners

working individually to write down all the new collocations /
chunks they've seen in that class. They can then compare
together, or if there's enough time, give definitions for their
partner to guess the chunks. This could also be done at the
beginning of a class to recycle language from the previous class.

Exploiting a Text

Regarding the exploiting a text, David Mann (TEFL.net

November 2013) opines on the following way:

Pre- reading tasks

a- Vocabulary

We can pre-teach vocabulary in a number of ways:

1. List the key words and tell them what they mean. (We
don’t always have to be fancy)
2. By a process of guided discovery, have students talk about
themselves with questions and prompts skillfully crafted to
lead them to need to use the target words and phrases. As
the lexical items come up in this guided conversation, list
them on the board, preferably in the order they’re going
to appear in the text, checking understanding as you go.
(Sometimes it’s nice to get fancy)
3. Choose the lexical items that you don’t expect the
students to know and create a matching exercise. Students
match the new words and phrases with the definitions.
4. If you have been focusing on affixation, pick out a
collection of words that exemplify various suffixes and
prefixes. Give students the root of the word families these
items belong to and have them scan the text for the word
that is based on this root. (Students who grasp this well
can effectively double or triple their passive vocabulary at
a stroke.
5. If the text has a clear relationship with a visual of some
kind, students can attempt to label the visual with some of
the key items. This could be a picture with words
describing the objects in the picture, but could also be a
process with labels for the steps, a diagram where the
words reveal the connections and relationships between
things and so on.
 6. You could provide a list of the opposites of the target
words and have students scan the text for the related
word.
7. Have students brainstorm the topic area covered by the
text to come up with words related to the topic. If this
goes smoothly, wait for the appropriate lag in the
brainstorm to add a few more of the target words before
moving on the text itself.

b- Other pre-reading tasks

1. Speed reading: make sure the text is formatted in

relatively narrow columns like a newspaper and ensure it’s
not too challenging for the students’ level. Have the
students glide their index finger down the centre of the
columns at a steady pace and avoid reading anything in
detail.  If necessary, set a very strict time limit of mere
seconds.  Students turn over the text, or close the book
and write a short list of any words they can remember
catching a glimpse of – don’t worry about spelling.  Have
the students generate questions about the words they
think they saw.  They then read the text to find the answer
to their own questions. I have seen students gasp in
amazement at this exercise.  They sometimes find they
had no idea they could grasp the key points of a text so
quickly. You can then easily follow up with more
traditional comprehension exercises etc.
 2. Ask students to talk to each other about the topic area
covered in the text. Another twist is to give them the topic
and where the text was published and ask them to guess
what the text might say.

c- Exercises while reading

1. Have students read the text and answer some

comprehension questions. These can be multiple-choice,
true/false, open-ended, prompts for reaction or discussion
and so on.
2. Transfer the information in the text to a visual of some
kind that represents the information in a diagram, chart,
table etc.
3. The classic gap-fill exercise has a number of variants: we
can provide a box of lexical items which the students use
to fill the gaps – the process of elimination eases the
burden. We can simply leave gaps and see if students can
come up with suitable words or phrases. If they can figure
out the general meaning of the missing words, it might
make it easier to absorb the new, specific lexical items that
you’re trying to teach. It can be done in two stages: first
ask students to identify the part of speech of the word in
the gap, then have them supply a word.
4. Scanning can be fun.  Just to ring the changes and
encourage students to exploit a text rather than be
 overwhelmed by it, have the students scan a suitable text
for specific pieces of information. We all have memories of
irrelevant dense texts with pointless comprehension
questions that we did at school. It can be refreshing for
students to approach a text with a more focused, goal-
oriented attitude. And it doesn’t need to just be find-the-
opening-time-of-the-museum type exercises. It could be
pressing questions such as “Is it true Angelina Jolie prefers
Scottish men?” (I’m a Glaswegian). Scanning a longish text
just to get the answer to such a question can be very
satisfying for students and gives them that sense of
empowerment which can help build their confidence.
5. Arrange the text into two or more versions to create an
information gap where different texts have different
information missing. Students work in pairs or groups to
share the information and complete their texts.
6. Present the text as a jigsaw. This depends on the length
and complexity. For instance, if it’s a set of instructions,
have students put the jumbled instructions in the order
that matches a set of visuals.  If you’re focusing on
cohesive devices at the paragraph level, have students put
paragraphs in a sensible order and link them with the
cohesive devices supplied.
7. Present the text with the ends of some sentences missing
where students have a good chance of guessing the overall
 point the writer is about to make. Students attempt to
complete the sentences based on the context. They then
compare the professional writer’s original version with
their own attempt. This may reveal, in a memorable way,
the complexities of relative clauses, verb patterns, non-
finite clauses or other ways of linking ideas.
8. Provide a set of texts that can be categorized in some way.
For instance, as a prelude to teaching students how to
write paragraphs following certain organization patterns,
provide short paragraphs which exemplify these patterns
and have students identify which pattern the paragraph
exemplifies.
9. Reference exercises can be very revealing. Typically, you
would do general comprehension exercises to ensure
students have understood a text before attempting
reference exercises, but it is sometimes interesting to use
reference exercises as a starting point to get students
exploring a text. So, create a set of questions like “What
does it refer to on line 10?” and have students do them as
they read. Encourage them not to read sequentially, but to
simply figure out the references following the order of the
questions. If you pick out the right pronouns and put the
questions in the right order, you can create an exciting
slow-reveal effect that students may appreciate.
10 Perhaps not much more than a grammar exercise to practise
non-defining relative clauses, but it can be fun to give students
a very plain story and a list of sentences with extra information.
Students then attempt to spice up the story by interpolating
these sentences into the text at the right places. This could be
exploited for a range of grammatical or lexical items, such as
adding adjectives in the most suitable places, inserting
adverbials, adding non-defining relative clauses or non-finite
clauses etc.

11 Arrange for the comprehension questions to lead to a

discussion. If the answers to your questions naturally build a
grid of related information, students can discuss their reaction,
or speculate about the causes etc. A text about the famous
Bhutanese notion of Gross National Happiness might include a
definition of the concept then some information about the
comparative GNH of various countries, one of which is the
students’.  The comprehension questions could simply be a
pretext to have students fill in a comparative grid which could
lead to quite fruitful discussions about, for example, the high
GNH of some poor countries and the high level of
dissatisfaction in some rich countries.

d- Post-reading exercises

1. Key lexical items can be highlighted (bold type or

underlined) and students can match the items to their
 definitions. Sometimes students can cope with a text at a
superficial level, answering comprehension questions
successfully, but an exercise like this may give students a
little quiet time for reflection to absorb new lexical items
in a deeper way.
2. Summarize the text with some kind of challenge: write a
headline for the text; write a topic sentence for a given
paragraph; summarize the text in one sentence;
summarize the text in a fixed number of words (or within a
maximum number of words); with a time limit.
3. The text may act as a model for the kind of writing you
want your students to do. Having worked through
comprehension and analysis of the grammar, cohesive
devices or other language features that are crucial to the
text type, then have students write a text using the same
pattern, from their own knowledge and experience or
from prompts. For instance, your engineering students
may need to analyze the cause of a particular technical
problem. Provide a text with a range of examples of cause
and effect language and then have students write a text
using these features to explain the causes of something
they’re working on.
4. The text may lay out the facts of a case and you could have
students speculate about what might have happened,
what might have caused it or, indeed, who might have
 done it.  Obviously detective stories spring to mind, or
lateral thinking puzzles. Level matters here and you should
only attempt this with higher level students who have a
good grasp of modal auxiliary verbs.

e- Grammar

1. Often a text exemplifies an area of grammar. A dramatic

story may reveal the use of the past perfect to give the
readers a flashback. A leaflet on safety may provide good
examples of the use of modal auxiliary verbs to express
obligation and permission. Crafting a text which exemplifies
all the options that you are aiming to teach can provide
excellent support for a grid of these options which the
students create for themselves based on the examples in the
text. For instance, you may want to help the students grasp
the differences between must, mustn’t, have to and don’t
have to.
2. References (both anaphoric and cataphoric) in a text can
obscure meaning and confuse students. I sometimes think
the hardest word in the English language is it. Students also
have difficulty handling references, mixing up it and one or
making mistakes of agreement where, for instance, the
referent is a plural noun but they choose a singular pronoun
to refer to it.  After thorough coverage of a text for
comprehension, vocabulary and the rest, it can be very
helpful for students to go back over a text and analyze more
 closely the references within the text that help to maintain
coherence.

f- Discourse and coherence

It can be useful to raise students’ awareness of discourse to a

slightly more abstract level. Have students analyze a text for
given and new information. Sometimes this doesn’t need to go
much further than helping them to see the connection between
the indefinite article for new information (countable nouns at
least) and the definite article for given information, but can go
deeper for higher level students. One feature of coherence is a
well-maintained balance between given and new information.
If you imagine a text which is a constant stream of new
information, you will immediately see that it is essentially
incoherent because nothing connects with anything else.

It is important to be aware that this kind of development takes

time and you and your students won't see instant results.
However, in the longer term, working in this way can not only
increase your students' vocabulary, and the degree of accuracy
with which they use it, but it can also develop their abilities to
'notice' patterns in language and so become more autonomous
learners.
5.3 Pair work information gaps
Pair work is one of the most important techniques used in the
classroom while teaching the target language. It is a type of
technique in which two students share the ideas to each other
regarding the topic they like and the topic given by the
teachers. It is the fact thing that, when one person knows
something that another person doesn't, we can say there is a
'gap' of information between them. Most real-life
communication comes about because of such gaps of
information. By creating classroom activities that that include
such information gaps, we can provide activities that mimic this
reason for communication, and this may be more motivating
and useful to language learners than speaking without any real
reason for doing so. Lots of activities like role play, answer
questions, discussion, etc. can be conducted to share the
information gaps they have. When the students start sharing
their personal opinion or information to each other, it creates
real life environment that makes them very much activity. Here,
they do not only share the information they have, they, at the
same time, develop their language, logical capacity, creativity
and intuitive knowledge.
a-Activity route map
While lunching the information gap activities, Activity route
map must be clearly designed by the teachers so that it can be
conducted easily in the classrooms. Jim Scrivener (2011) has
given the frame work of activity route map of information gaps
which are as follows:
1 Before the lesson
Before the lesson, the teacher should familiarize with the
materials to be used and activities to be done in the classroom.
He should prepare the essential materials or texts deeply he
needs so that there would be systematic and clarity in
presentation.
2 In class
In this stage, teacher prepares everything that is being
conducted in the classroom. He clearly tells about objectives,
techniques and the materials to be used. He instructs the
students how they are going to involve in various activities to
achieve the desired objectives.
3 set up the activity
After giving clear instructions, he sets up the activities. The
students are divided into different pairs on the basis of rapport
they have to each other. They are to sit facing each other. The
materials are hung on the wall in a suitable place so that all
students could see clearly.
4 Run the activity
It is the stage in which the students involve in real activities.
When the students start doing the activities, the teacher should
walk around unobtrusively, just to check that they are following
the instructions correctly or not. If they are in problem, the
teacher should immediately help so that they can run their
activities smoothly. After that, the teacher could continue with
discreet monitoring or maybe sit down and wait for students to
finish the task. It the teacher monitors, he could collect
overheard examples of good or problematic sentences. But, the
teacher shouldn't feel the need to join in or take an active part
in the work because this stage is for students to work together.
5 Close the activity and invite feedback from the students.
In this stage, the teacher should keep an eye on students as
they finish because the task will take different pairs different
lengths of time. When about half of the pairs have finished, the
teacher should announce that everyone has one or two
minutes to finish. After the teacher stops the activity, he should
ask students whether it was easy or difficult. He should collect
feedback from all students and clarify them one by one with an
eye to satisfy.
6 Post-activity
If the teacher has collected any sentences while monitoring, he
can write them up on the board and ask students to work in
pairs again and decide which sentences from the lists are good
English and which are not. They should also work out
corrections for any errors. Alternatively, the teacher can use
any other follow-on activity.
5.4 Small group discussions
Small group discussion is one of the popular techniques used in
the classroom while teaching a language. Here, the students
are divided into different small groups and the tasks are given
to them for the discussion and take out the solutions by
generating the new ideas, concepts and views. The teacher is to
move from one group to another to know whether the
discussion is going smoothly or not. If some groups are feeling
difficult and demanding the help from the teacher, the duty of
teacher is to help on that situation so that discussion can go
ahead smoothly. But, the teacher should not be unnecessarily
very active to help them from his side that makes the students
be dependent on teacher. The full opportunity is to be given
the students for the discussion so that they could take some
outcomes themselves.
How the activities are conducted in small groups depends on
the plan of the teacher. He plans the activities on the basis of
the topic, time, situation and level of the students and teaches
accordingly. Here, we will discuss about the steps of small
group discussions given by Jim Scrivener (2011) which are as
follows:
1 Before the lesson
In this stage, the teacher does full preparation about what he is
going to teach in the classroom. The subject matter may be the
reading comprehensions, vocabularies, grammatical items etc.
He should be familiar with the materials to be used and
activities to be conducted in the classroom on the basis of the
topic. He should prepare materials accordingly and make the
plan of activities properly on the basis of texts.
2 In class
After entering into a classroom, a teacher should briefly
describe about the topic and objectives so that the students
would be clear what they are going to learn that day. Then, he
should tell what and how the materials are being used by the
different small groups. He, at last, should tell how the activities
will run one after another so that there will be no confusion
while discussing and running the activities in each groups.
3 Set up the activity
The teacher forms the small groups of four or five students and
gives the task to each group. Sometimes, a leader of group is
also selected how tells the views of his group at last.

4 Run the activity

Students involve in discussion and the teacher is to move from
one group to another group to observe whether the discussion
in each group is going on smoothly or not. He is to help them if
the students in a particular group are in confusion and
discussion is not going on smoothly. But, the teacher is not to
dominate on each small thing. The full responsibility is to be
given to the students for the discussion. After the discussion on
each group, each group writes down the answers with their
views.
5 Close the activity and invite feedback from the students
When most of the groups finish the task, the remaining groups
are to be given one or two minutes to complete the task. Then
after, the teacher stops the activities of the students and allows
the leaders of each group to tell the answers taken out after
the great discussion. He takes the feedback from each student
regarding the very topic as well.
6 Post - activity
The teacher collects views from each group and summaries the
topic including his own views. If they are discussing about the
grammatical items, the teacher may write down some
problematic sentences on the board that the students have
created in their discussion. The teacher collects the individual
views and writes the conclusive answers giving the clear
reasons. The same type of activities can be repeated on the
basis of the topic and time.
5.5 Pair work grammar activity
Grammar is the vertebrate of any language that helps the
learners in using the language. Learning the grammar of any
language is fundamental in that situation where the target
language is used as second language and there is no a good
environment of using that language in real life situation. Noam
Chomsky, a prominent American linguist in his
'Transformational Generative Grammar'( ) says that every
language has a finite set of rules with the help of which infinite
numbers of sentences can be produced. The grammar,
therefore, is one of the inherent components of a language that
should be taught to the learners by using the different
techniques in the classroom. Pair work grammar activity is one
of the crucial techniques by using which the grammar can be
taught to the learners. The process of pair work grammar
activities given by Jim Scrivener (2011) are as follows:
1 Before the lesson
Before entering into to the class, the teacher should familiarize
with the materials to be used and activities to be conducted in
the classroom. He should prepare materials or texts deeply he
needs.
2 In class
Here, the teacher should prepare for the activities. He gives
clear instructions about the grammatical items which are going
to be discussed in the classroom. He can write down the
grammatical structures on the board and make the students tell
the sentences or show the pictures and make them generate
the sentences based on the pictures. He writes the sentences
on the board told by students and asks others to check whether
the sentences written there are correct or not. The students, at
least, develop the clear concept about how to do, what to do
and what not to do regarding a particular grammar items.
3 A Set up section 1 of the activity
In this stage, the teacher mainly divides the students into
different pairs and gives them task. The task may vary
according to the topic, situation and the plan of the teacher.
For example, he may give the new structure of grammar or
different pictures to each pairs for the discussion and write
down the sentences based on that. He gives clear instructions
to the students about how to do and what to do.
4 A Run section 1 of the activity
Each pair start discussing about a given item and write down 10
or 15 sentences according to the teacher's instruction. The
teacher moves to each group to check whether they are
discussing and writing down something or not. If a particular
group has understood nothing, the teacher should help on that
condition but the teacher shouldn't be unnecessarily active to
help them. It is the time to work for the students.
5 Close section 1 of the activity
The teacher collects all the sentences from each pairs and
checks. He can collect the incorrect sentences and makes the
list of them for another activity.
3B Set up section 2 of the activity
The students are told to sit in own pair or they may be grouped
into pairs again. Then, the teacher gives the list of incorrect
sentences and tells them to correct those sentences after
discussion.
4B Run section 2 of the activity
The students discuss on those incorrect sentences and correct
them from their side as much as possible. The teacher moves
from one group to another group and helps if the students ask
something.
5B Close section 2 of the activity
When the most of the pairs complete the task, the teacher
warns them that the time is going to be over. He may give one
or two minutes to complete the task for the remaining pairs.
When the time is over, he stops the activity of them.
6 Post-activity
Here, the teacher allows each pair to write down the sentences
on the board and discuss which sentences are correct and why.
The students give their views first why the sentences are
correct. Then after, the teacher gives his conclusion and
satisfies the students or the activity maybe revised as it is done
above on the basis of time and situation.
Unit six: Classroom management
6.1 What is classroom management?
We all know that there must be well management of classroom
if we want to achieve the desired learning outcomes. While
managing the successful classroom, a teacher does everything
in order to make learners achieve that has been desired. Some
problems may occur in the class from students such as
disruptive talking, inaudible responses, sleeping in the class,
tardiness, heating in the tests and unwillingness to speak the
target language. Classroom management involves physical
management and teaching-learning management. Arranging
the furniture, placing the board in suitable situation, proper use
of technological devices such as computer, OHP, Mobile,
Recording materials, painting the different pictures and writing
the inspiring quotations on the wall, making the room neat and
clean etc. belong to physical management. If the classroom is
well managed physically, the environment is favorable for
students and they are interested in teaching leaning activities
by heart.
 Teaching-learning management is also one of the important
aspects of classroom management that should be conducted
properly by a teacher. The use of proper methods and
techniques on basis of topic and situation, teacher's
language( formal/informal), teacher's voice(audibility, variety),
rapport building(calling them by their names, listening them,
respecting them), eye contact, use of body language, proper
movement, seating arrangement, grouping the students on the
basis of the topic, systematic presentation, the suitable
distance between the teacher and students on the basis of the
psychology of them, proper use of mother language of the
students, time talking management giving the instructions
properly etc. are some important variables that come under the
heading of teaching learning management. A good teacher,
therefore, should pay attention on well management of both
physical and teaching-learning management deeply. Jim
Scrivener (2013) says, "Your most important job as a teacher is
perhaps to create the conditions in which learning can take
place. The skills of creating and managing a successful class may
be the key to the whole success of a course. An important part
of this is to do with your attitude, intentions and personality
and your relationships with the learners."
The organizational skills and techniques under the heading of
'classroom management' given by Jim Scrivener (2013) are as
follows.
1 Activities
- Setting up activities
- Giving instructions
- Monitoring activities
- Timing activities
- Bringing activities to an end
2 Grouping and seating
- Forming groupings (singles, pairs, groups, mingle, plenary)
- Arranging and rearranging seating
- Deciding where you will sand or sit
- Reforming class as a whole group after activities
3 Authority
- Gathering and holding attention
- Deciding who dos what (ie answer a question, make a
decision, etc)
- Establishing or relinquishing authority as appropriate
- Getting someone to do something
4 Critical moments
- Starting the lesson
- Dealing with unexpected problems
- Maintaining appropriate discipline
- Finishing the lesson
 5 Tools and techniques
- Using the board and other classroom equipment or aids
- Using gestures to help clarity of instructions and
explanations
- Speaking clearly at an appropriate volume and speed
- use of silence
- grading complexity of language
- Grading quantity of language spreading your attention
evenly and appropriately
6 working with people
- Spreading your attention evenly and appropriately
- Using intuition to gauge what students are feeling
- Eliciting honest feedback from students
- Grading quantity of language
It is the fact thing that classroom management involves both
decisions and actions. The actions are what is done in the
classroom, eg rearranging the chairs. He decisions are about
whether to do these actions, when to do them, how to do them
and who will do them. If these things are properly managed in
the classroom, the teaching learning activity is successful.
6.2 Classroom interaction
Classroom interaction is one of the most important aspects in
language teaching learning activities that are essential to be
conducted in the classroom frequently. We all know that
language is practice. The more we practice, the better
knowledge we will have. The classroom, therefore, should be
more interactive so that the learners can learn the target
language in fast pace.
While creating interactive environment in the classroom, the
teacher, first of all, should tell the objectives in an inspiring way
and give the instructions to the learners clearly so that they
would have no confusion while involving in various tasks given
to them. The learners may involve in individual work, pairs,
small groups, large groups etc. on the basis of the topic and
situation for well interaction. Sometimes, there may be
interaction between students and teacher as well so that the
learners build up their confidence in using the target language.
Simply, we find two types of classroom interaction which has
been discussed below.
1 Teacher-Student interaction
Teacher-Student interaction is one of the crucial tasks that
plays vital role in language learning. It is universally accepted
matter that language is learnt by listening and speaking
naturally. When the learners are capable of listening, only then,
they start speaking. If they are forced to speak without
developing the listening capacity, they are de-motivated to
learn language because listening act is the first and speaking act
is the second.
Jim Scrivener (2013) opines, "The language classroom is rich is
language for learners, quiet apart from the language that is the
supposed focus of the lesson. Students learn a lot of their
language from what they hear you: the instructions, the
discussions, the asides, the jokes, the chit-chat, the comments,
having said that, it would be unsatisfactory if your talk
dominated the lesson to the exclusion of participation from as
many learners as possible." This also shows that enough
exposure in the classroom is essential from the language
teacher that makes the learners learn how the language is used
in a particular situation. They learners seem to be learning
consciously and unconsciously about the usage of different
aspects of language like vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation,
meaning and function when they are listening. It prepares the
ground of language for them to use on the basis of the
situation. But, when the learners are ready for speaking, the
teacher should not dominate by taking maximum time. The
students are given enough time for spoken practice. He should
play the role of facilitator. So, the concept of maximizing the
Student Talking Time in the classroom all the time is the
concept of idealism that always doesn't work properly. We do
not find watertight rule in using the time if we observe the real
language classroom. Even those prominent linguists who
incorporated the concept the maximizing the students taking
time, do not seem to be applying the very concept in real life
situation. So, what is to be prioritized depends on the basis of
the topic and situation. Let's not forget that language begins
with listening. But, when the learners are ready for speaking;
they are to be given the opportunities for language practice.
The teacher should use his language in instructing, facilitating,
summarizing, concluding etc. How to balance the talking time
between the teacher and students properly depends on the
skills, acquired knowledge and inherent talent of the teacher.
Another crucial thing the teacher is to keep into his mind is
that Teacher-student interaction is not possible all the time.
Sometimes, the teacher can ask questions in a whole or
personally and the learners may respond but the teacher
cannot interact to each learners especially in large classes like
in Nepal. The learners do not get enough time for language
practice if each individual is to talk to the teacher. The teacher,
therefore, should focus on student- student interaction where
they can discuss each other openly by heart and get enough
time for language exposure.
2 Student-Student interaction
When the students are ready for speaking in target language,
Student-student interaction is to be focused by dividing them
into different groups like individual work, pair group, small
group or large group on the basis of the topic and situation. The
language is to be used by the teacher in the classroom in
motivating, inspiring, instructing, facilitating, summarizing,
concluding, asking and replying the questions etc. Otherwise,
the learners are to be activated for the classroom interaction as
much as possible. Jim Scrivener (2013) has given some ideas for
maximizing student interaction in the classroom which are as
follows:
1 The teacher should encourage a friendly, relaxed learning
environment. If there is a trusting, positive, supportive rapport
amongst the learners and between learners and teacher, then
there is a much better chance of useful interaction happening.
2 Ask questions rather than giving explanations.
3 Allow time for students to listen, think, process their answer
and speak.
4 Really listen to what they say. Let what they say really affect
what the teacher does next. Work on listening to the person
and the meaning, as well as to the language and the mistakes.
5 Allow thinking time without talking over it. Allow silence.
6 The teacher should make use of pairs and small groups to
maximize opportunities for students to speak. He should do this
even in the middle of longer whole-class stages; he should ask
students to break off for 30 seconds and talk in pairs about
their reactions to what the has just been discussing and also
allow them to check answers to tasks before conducting
feedback.
7 If possible, arrange seating so that students so that students
can all see each other and talk to each other (ie circles, squares
and horseshoes rather than parallel rows).
8 The teacher always needs not to be at the front of the class.
You should try out seating arrangement that allow the whole
class to be the focus.
9 If the students are speaking to quietly and difficult to hear
them, they are to be encouraged to speak louder so that the
others can hear.
10 Encourage interaction between students rather than only
between students and teacher. Get students to ask questions,
give explanations etc. to each other. Use gestures and facial
expressions to encourage them to speak and listen to each
other.
6.3 Seating
Harmer (2008) is of the opinion that, in many classrooms
around the world students sit in orderly rows. Sometimes, their
chairs have little wooden palettes on one of the arms to
provide a surface to write on. Sometimes, the students will
have desks in front of them. At the front of such classrooms,
often on a raised platform (so that all the students can see
them), stands the teacher. In contrast, there are other
institutions where you can find students sitting in a large circle
around the walls of the classroom. Or you may see small groups
of them working in different parts of the room. Sometimes,
they are arranged in a horseshoe shape around the teacher.
Sometimes, in a class of adults, it is not immediately obvious
who the teacher is.
Clearly, the different arrangements of chairs and tables indicate
a number of different approaches and this raises a number of
questions. Are schools which use a variety of seating plans
progressive or merely modish, for example? Is there something
intrinsically superior about rigid seating arrangements - or are
such classrooms the product of a particular methodological
orthodoxy? Is one kind of seating arrangement better than
another? What are the advantages of each? We will look at the
advantages and disadvantages of various seating arrangements.
1 Orderly rows
Having the students sit in rows can appear somewhat
restrictive, but there are advantages to this arrangement. The
teacher has a clear view of all the students and the students
can all see the teacher - in whose direction they are facing. It
makes lecturing easier, enabling the teacher to maintain eye
contact with the people he or she is talking to. If there are
aisles in the classroom, the teacher can easily walk up and
down making more personal contact with individual students
and watching what they are doing.
Orderly rows imply teachers working with the whole class.
Some activities are especially suited to this kind of organization
such as explaining a grammar point, watching a video/ DVD or a
PowerPoint (or other computer-based) presentation, using the
board (whether or not it is interactive) or showing student work
on an overhead transpare. It is also useful when students are
involved in certain kinds of language practice. If all the students
are focused on a task at the same time, the whole class gets the
same messages.
When we are teaching a whole class of students who are sitting
in orderly rows, it is vitally important to make sure that we
keep everyone involved in what we are doing. So, if we are
asking the class questions, we must remember to ask the
students at the back - the quiet ones, perhaps - rather than just
the ones nearest us. We must move round so that we can see
all the students and gauge their reactions to what’s going on.
One trick that many teachers use is to keep their students
guessing. Especially where teachers need to ask individual
students questions, it is important that they do not do so in a
predictable sequence, student after student, line by line. That
way, the procedure becomes very tedious and each student
knows when they are going to be asked and, once this has
happened, that they are not going to be asked again. It is much
better to talk to students from all parts of the room in random
order. It keeps everyone on their toes! In many classrooms
around the world, teachers are faced with classes of anywhere
between 40 and 200 students at a time. In such circumstances,
orderly rows may well be the best or only solution. Pair work
and group work are possible even when the class is seated in
orderly rows; students can work with people next to them or in
front of them or behind them.
2 Circles and horseshoes
In smaller classes, many teachers and students prefer circles or
horseshoes. In a horseshoe, the teacher will probably be at the
open end of the arrangement since that may well be where the
board, overhead projector and/or computer are situated. In a
circle, the teacher’s position - where the board is situated - is
less dominating.
Classes which are arranged in a circle make quite a strong
statement about what the teacher and the students believe in.
The Round Table in the British and French legends about King
Arthur was specially designed so that there would not be
arguments about who was more important than who - and that
included the king himself when they were in a meeting. So it is
in classrooms. With all the people in the room sitting in a circle,
there is a far greater feeling of equality than when the teacher
stays out at the front. This may not be quite so true of the
horseshoe shape where the teacher is often located in a
commanding position but, even here, the rigidity that comes
with orderly rows, for example, is lessened.
If, therefore, teachers believe in lowering the barriers between
themselves and their students, this kind of seating arrangement
will help. There are other advantages too, chief among which is
the fact that all the students can see each other. In an ‘orderly
row’ classroom, you have to turn round - that is, away from the
teacher - if you want to make eye contact with someone behind
you. In a circle or a horseshoe, no such disruption is necessary.
The classroom is thus a more intimate place and the potential
for students to share feelings and information through talking,
eye contact or expressive body movements (eyebrow-raising,
shoulder-shrugging, etc) is far greater.
3 Separate tables
Even circles and horseshoes seem rather formal compared to
classes where students are seated in small groups at individual
tables. In such classrooms, you might see the teacher walking
around checking the students’ work and helping out if they are
having difficulties - prompting the students at this table, or
explaining something to the students at that table in the
corner.
When students sit in small groups at individual tables, it is
much easier for the teacher to work at one table while the
others get on with their own work. This is especially useful in
mixed-ability classes where different groups of students can
benefit from concentrating on different tasks (designed for
different ability levels). Separate table seating is also
appropriate if students are working around a computer screen,
for example where students are engaged in collaborative
writing or where they are listening to different audio tracks in a
jigsaw listening exercise.
However, this arrangement is not without its own problems. In
the first place, students may not always want to be with the
same colleagues; indeed, their preferences may change over
time. Secondly, it makes ‘whole-class’ teaching more difficult,
since the students are more diffuse and separated.
But, the important thing we are to consider in mind is that
there is no fix rule about how we group the students. We are to
group our students on the basis of the topic, the classroom
structure and overall situation. We, teachers can design new
seating arrangement on the basis of our context as well. The
pictures of seating arrangement given by Jim scrivener (2011)
are follows:
Different student groupings
Whatever the seating arrangements in a classroom, students
can be organized in different ways: they can work as a whole
class, in groups, in pairs or individually.
1 Whole class
There are many occasions when the best type of classroom
organization is a teacher working with the class as a whole
group. However, this does not always mean the class sitting in
orderly rows; whatever the seating arrangement, we can have
the students focus on us and the task in hand. This is useful for
presenting information and for controlled practice (such as
repetition and drilling) which is often used, especially at lower
levels.
Whole-class teaching can be dynamic and motivating and, by
treating everyone as part of the same group, we can build a
great sense of belonging - of being part of a team. However,
when a class is working as a whole group, it is necessarily the
case that individual students get fewer individual opportunities
either to speak or to reflect. Whole-class teaching is less
effective if we want to encourage individual contributions and
discussion, since speaking out in front of a whole class is often
more demanding - and therefore more inhibiting - than
speaking in smaller groups.
2 Group work and pair work
Group work and pair work have been popular in language
teaching for many years and have many advantages. They both
foster cooperative activity in that the students involved work
together to complete a task. They may be discussing a topic,
doing a role-play or working at a computer in order to find
information from a website for a web quest or they may be
writing up a report. In pairs and groups, students tend to
participate more actively, and they also have more chance to
experiment with the language than is possible in a whole-class
arrangement.
The moment students get into pairs or groups and start
working on a problem or talking about something, many more
of them will be doing the activity than if the teacher was
working with the whole class, where, in most cases, only one
student can talk at a time.
Both pair work and group work give the students chances for
greater independence. Because the students are working
together without the teacher controlling every move, they take
some of their own learning decisions, they decide what
language to use to complete a certain task and they can work
without the pressure of the whole class listening to what they
are doing.
Another great advantage of group work and pair work (but
especially of group work) is that they give the teacher more
opportunity to focus attention on particular students. While
groups A and C are doing one task, the teacher can spend some
time with group B who need special help.
Neither group work or pair work are without their problems. As
with ‘separate table’ seating, students may not like the people
they are grouped or paired with. Some students are ill-at-ease
with the idea of working without constant teacher supervision,
and may be unconvinced by the student-centered nature of
these groupings. In such situations we may want to discuss the
advantages of pair- and group work with the class, but we
should not insist on endless pair work where students are
seriously opposed to it.
In any one group or pair, one student may dominate while the
others stay silent or engage, in William Littlewood’s wonderful
phrase, in ‘social loafing’. But we can counteract this by
structuring the task so that everyone’s participation is
mandatory or we can employ tricks such as Littlewood’s
numbered heads. Here the teacher asks the groups to number
themselves from 1 to 5 (if there are five-student groups). They
don’t tell the teacher who has which number. At the end of the
activity the teacher can then say, ‘OK, let’s hear from number 3
in group C’, and because the teacher doesn’t know who that
student is, and the students don’t know who the teacher may
call (but do know that the call will, in some senses, be random)
they are all more motivated to take part and don’t leave it all
up to the others.
In difficult classes, group work can sometimes encourage
students to be more disruptive than they would be in a whole-
class setting, and, especially in a class where students share the
same first language, they may revert to that language, rather
than English, when the teacher is not working with them.
Apart from group work and pair work, the other alternative to
whole-class teaching is solo (or individual) work.
3 Solo work
This can have many advantages: it allows students to work at
their own speed, allows them thinking time, and allows them to
be individuals. It often provides welcome relief from the group-
centered nature of much language teaching. For the time that
solo work takes place, students can relax their public faces and
go back to considering their own individual needs and progress.
4 Class-to-class
One last grouping should be mentioned, and that is when we
are able to join two classes so that they can interact with each
other. Where different-level classes are concerned, higher level
students often feel positive about being able to help students
from other classes, just as lower-level students can feel
motivated by being able to engage with people whose language
is better than theirs.
Class-to-class interactions are good for surveys (where students
can work with students they do not normally interact with in
the English lesson), discussions and lectures and presentations.
They can be time-consuming to organize, but, at their best, can
often give students a huge sense of satisfaction.
How much use we make of group work, pair work or solo work
depends to a large extent on our style and on the preferences
of our students. But it also depends to a large extent on what
kind of learning task is involved. Good teachers are able to be
flexible, using different class groupings for different activities.
As they do this, they can assess which ones are the most
successful for which types of activity, so that they can always
seek to use the most effective grouping for the task in hand.
6.4 Giving directions
Harmer(2008) opines that the issue of how to talk to students
becomes crucial when we give them instructions. The best
activity in the world is a waste of time if the students don’t
understand what it is they are supposed to do.
There are two general rules for giving instructions: they must
be kept as simple as possible, and they must be logical. Before
giving instructions, therefore, teachers must ask themselves the
following questions: What is the important information I am
trying to convey? What must the students know if they are to
complete this activity successfully? What information do they
need first? Which should come next? When teachers give
instructions, it is important for them to check that the students
have understood what they are being asked to do. This can be
achieved either by asking a student to explain the activity after
the teacher has given the instruction or by getting someone to
show the other people in the class how the exercise works.
Where students all share the same mother tongue (which the
teacher also understands), a member of the class can be asked
to translate the instructions into their mother tongue as a
check that they have understood them.
Jim Scrivener (2011) says, "In multilingual class you have to use
English for instructions. But, in monolingual classes you have a
choice: English, native language- or some mixture of both."
From above ideas given by different prominent figures, what
we come to conclusion is that, instructions given by the
teachers should be comprehensible for the students. The
instructions are to be given clearly and in simple way with
demonstration through target language if possible but the
mother language of the students can be used if it is helpful and
beneficial for the students. Some important ways of giving the
clear instructions generated by Jim Scrivener (2011) are as
follows:
1 The teacher should be aware of his own instructions being
given in classroom thinking whether these are fruitful or not.
For that, he should listen himself, record himself; ask others to
watch and give him feedback. After that, he should identify the
essential instructions being given in the classroom. He should
delete unnecessary language and write out the instructions in
the right order.
2 For a while, the teacher should pre-plan essential
instructions. He should analyze the instructions beforehand so
as to include only the essential information in simple, clear
language, and sequence it in a sensible order. He should use
short sentences- one sentence for each key piece of
information. He should not give instructions that they don't
need to know at this point.
3 The teacher, in class, should separate instructions clearly
from the other chit-chat, telling off, joking, etc. that goes on. He
should create a silence beforehand, make eye contact with as
many students as possible, find an authoritative tone, and
make sure they are listening before you start. He should use
silence and gestures to pace the instructions and clarify their
meaning.
4 The teacher should demonstrate rather than explain
wherever possible.
5 The teacher should check that students have understood
what to do. He should not assume that everyone will
automatically understand what you have said. He should get
concrete evidence from the students that they know what is
required.
6.5 Participate, monitor or vanish?
It is the fact thing that the role of teacher is not to be same all
the time in the classroom that makes students feel boring and
language learning cannot be fruitful one. He is to participate,
monitor and vanish on the basis of the situation of the
classroom. It has been discussed below in grief.
1 Participate
Participating is one of the impotent roles to be played by a
teacher that not only helps in discussing the subject matter to
reach at the destination but also helps in establishing the
rapport to the students. Jim Scrivener (2011) advices to the
teacher, "You may sit down and join a group (temporarily or for
the whole task) and take part as if you were one of the group,
offering ideas, helping with questions, joining in discussions.
You could quietly move on to another group. By the end of the
task, you might have worked with a number of groups. Of
course, while you are monitoring or working with one group,
you will need to remain alert to what others are dong and if
there are any problems." This shows that a teacher is,
sometimes, to join in different groups as a member and involve
in the discussion in a friendly way so that the students feel very
close to him and share the ideas frankly what they have. But,
while participating, a teacher should not stay in a group for long
time, he is to move from one group to another group to run
their activities smoothly.
2 Monitor
Monitoring is another crucial role that a teacher should play in
the classroom effectively. When a teacher gives the proper
instructions for a task, students start working on it. There is
often an immediate need to check to make sure that students
are doing the activity that the teacher asked them to do and
have understood the basic instructions of the activity. The
teacher could do this by quietly and relatively inconspicuously
wandering around the room listening in briefly to snatches
from many groups and assuring that students are doing what
they are supposed to.
Sometimes, a teacher should monitor very actively so that the
students feel that they are being monitored carefully and do
the tasks honestly. Jim Scrivener (2011) opines that the
teacher, sometimes, should monitor very actively on the
activities of the students. He should be visible and allow
students to be more aware of the presence of the teacher so
that they call the teacher for the help and advice. A teacher
who is actively monitoring will be walking around, viewing and
listening in to many different groups and frequently offering
spontaneous advice and corrections, as well as responding to
requests and questions from students.
Sometimes, a teacher is to monitor discreetly on the activities
of the learners. He is to pay attention on each individual to
know what they are doing and how they are responding. Jim
Scrivener(2011) advices to the teachers, " Discreet monitoring
is when you maintain a presence in the room, but do not
overtly offer help, interfere, correct, etc. your aim is that the
students know you are there, but your watching and listening
does not in any way disturb them. They will not feel tempted to
call on you unless there is a significant problem-and when they
do ask for help, do this swiftly and effectively, then return to
the discreet monitoring role. You are sending a message that
you are interested, but that the main ask is for them to do using
their own resources as much as possible."
3 Vanish
Participating and monitoring the learners all the time in the
classroom is not regarded well that in increases the
dependency and hesitation in them. It may stop in
development of creativity and logical capacity in the learners.
The teacher, therefore, is to vanish from the learners. They are
to be left free to discuss upon the subject matters. At that time,
the teacher can go out of the classroom for tea or office for few
minutes. He may stay at a corner or in the frontline of the
students reading the different news or books. But, the learners
are to be told to beg immediate help if they have problem. Jim
Scrivener (2011) gives his opinion to the teachers," There are
cases when any teacher presence can actually interfere with
and diminish the usefulness of work being done. Sometimes the
best option for you is to vanish, i.e., get out of immediate
eyeshot. You could go into a corner of the room and sit quietly.
It is often an idea to have something concrete to do (eg read
something) in order to prevent yourself from constantly
worrying about how students are doing and getting drawn back
into it. You need to keep a small percentage of attention on the
room, in order to know when the activity is reaching an end or
a crisis point, but otherwise restrain yourself from doing too
much. Relax and stop being a teacher for a while. In specific
cases, you might want to emphasize the point that students
need to work without your help, and in such cases even leaving
the room for a few minutes may be an option." Therefore, it's
better if teacher vanishes form the learners and leaves them
free for self learning and discussing.
6.6 Gestures
Gesture is a type of non-verbal communication that is used
frequently by a good teacher in his classroom. Gesture is used
mostly along with verbal explanation but sometimes, it can be
used in isolation as well on the basis of the situation. Using
gestures along with verbal explanation in the classroom is very
effective skill of a teacher that not only helps in clarifying the
meaning to be conveyed but also helps in avoiding the
monotonous feelings in the students. Jim Scrivener (2011)
opines, "Try to develop a range of gestures (and facial
expressions) to save yourself repeating basic instructions and to
increase opportunities for learner talk." This reveals that using
gestures in the classroom makes the language learning activity
fruitful one.
It is the fact thing that some teachers are inborn talent in using
gestures. They know very well how to use the gestures on the
basis of the situation naturally. They can satisfy the learners by
the gestures they use in the classroom. But the teachers who
are trying to use the gestures, should think to coin the new
gestures for different instructions. They are to think properly
and deeply which gestures are useful for which instructions. Jim
Scrivener (2011) shares his experience that, " I have seen many
teachers using a set of gestures to indicate 'time'. This helps
them quickly correct learners who use tenses inaccurately.
Pointing to the ground indicates the present; pointing ahead is
the future; pointing behind, over the shoulder, indicates the
past." If the students are taught about 'time' by using this
gesture, they are clear and it's not necessary to repeat again.
But while coining and using the new gestures in the classroom,
the students are to be informed clearly for what they are used.
They don't know themselves magically about the gestures the
teacher uses. Jim Scrivener (2011) informs the teachers,
"Remember that learners will need to learn the meanings of
your gestures; they will not magically know that your pointing
means 'Use the past tense' , but if you give the oral instruction
a few times while also gesturing, they will soon associate the
gesture alone with that instruction."
We all know the fact that teacher uses the gestures on the basis
of the culture where he has brought up. Another fact thing is
that the gestures are being used differently in different
countries for different meaning due to variation in cultures
throughout the world. In some cases, the same gesture is being
used to convey different meaning and in some cases, different
gesture is used to convey the same meaning. The teacher,
therefore, is to be very careful how the gestures are used in a
particular society where he is teaching and use the gestures
accordingly in his classroom. Jim Scrivener (2011) says
indicating to the teachers that, "Bear in mind that gestures can
mean different things in different countries. If you are teaching
away from your own culture, lean which gestures to avoid! And
always keep alert to the possibility that you might be giving
offence!"
6.7 Using the board well
Jim Scrivener (2011) is of the opinion that, "One resource that
almost every teacher has is a board, whether it is a small board
on an easel, a wide chalk board, a pen board or an interactive
computer board. Although it is possible to write randomly on
the board as things occur in class, you'll often find that it's
worth paying a little attention to organizing items." This reveals
that the board is a fundamental thing that is found almost in all
classrooms with the help of which teaching learning activities
can be conducted effectively. The board in essential for writing
down the new vocabularies, grammatical structures and
sentences, paragraphs, dialogues, stories, key points, questions
and answers, sticking the varies of pictures and cards, drawing
the different pictures and many more.
But, many prominent linguists like Jim Scrivener think that
using the board in the classroom is not important thing. The
important is how we use the board. The teacher, therefore, is
to know how the board can be used in the classroom properly
to make our teaching effective. According Jim Scrivener (2011),
the board has been divided in to three parts for the better use
of it which is shown below.
The model of Board
Review Scratchpad for drawing, displaying words Key
section as they come up, etc. vocabulary
(for key and
points grammar
from
last
lesson

The use of the board can be sum up in the following points.

1 First of all, the board is to be divided in to three parts; two
side parts are to be used for key vocabulary, grammar and key
points of that lesson and the middle part is to used for
displaying the words, pictures, cards, drawing the different
picture and many more that helps the learners to learn
specifically.
2 The letters, pictures etc. written or shown on the board must
be visible and clear to all learners in the classroom.
3 The teacher is not to stand in front of the board while writing
or telling something that blocks what he is writing or drawing
on the board and the learners feel boring. Instead, he is to
stand a slightly sideways position so that the learners can see
everything clearly.
4 The teacher is to speak in audible voice while writing
something on the board so that the learners develop the habit
of writing by listening.
5 The teacher is to talk to the learners, ask the questions and
look around, all of which can be very helpful in maintaining a
good working atmosphere.
6 It's good if the teacher makes eye contact with the class in
between while writing or drawing something on the board to
find whether they are paying attention on the subject matter or
not.
7 Try to avoid long teacher -writing times while students are
just watching and waiting. It's good to write the long
paragraphs or pictures when the learners are busy in their task
so that it can be taught when the finish.
8 The students are also to be taught to use the board as the
teacher uses.
6.8 Board drawing
Board drawing is one of the important skills of a good teacher
through which he can clarify the meaning of some words, ask
many questions based on it and conduct discussion activities
among the students. It makes the classroom full of fun and
interesting as well. We have Chinese proverb that, "A picture is
more valuable than thousands of words." But, all teachers may
not be well at drawing the pictures and it is not necessary as
well. Those teachers can't make the pictures well can make the
stick figures. Lots of activities can be done in the classroom
through the stick figures. While drawing the stick men, the
teachers are to pay attention on the facial expression.
Otherwise, it's not necessary to draw the pictures as same as
the real one. It is enough if the pictures can show what is
intended to show in the classroom. Jim Scrivener (2011) shares
his feelings to the teachers that, "Don't say you can't draw! No
matter how un-Monet-like your artistry, one picture is often
worth many unnecessary works. For the quick explanation of
vocabulary items, for setting up a discussion, a dialogue or role
play, for story- building, you need pictures. Clearly the basic
skill is to draw people in some form, and stick people are in
many ways better than detained figures because they're so
quick to do."
If a picture drawn by the teacher is not good, it creates the
laughter in the classroom and the learners get the
opportunities to learn in funny environment but the teacher
should be a bit funny on the basis of the situation. It makes
them active as well.
Jim Scrivener (2011) advices the teachers, "Remember that the
pictures alone are usually only a starting point. They don't need
to do all the work - build from them with questions and
discussion. And even if they end up looking like nothing on
earth, badly drawn pictures can actually be a rich source of
language and humor in the classroom. If they don't understand
what on earth you've drawn, whisper the word to a student
and get them to draw it." This reveals that drawing the pictures
by the teacher on the board is crucial task whether those
pictures are well or not. The teacher can draw stick figures if he
has little practice. But if a teacher feels too much difficult at
drawing the pictures, he can make the students draw the
pictures on the board who can.
6.9 Eliciting
Eliciting is an important technique to be used in the classroom
by all teachers on the basis of the situation. In fact, the word
'Eliciting' means drawing out information, language, ideas, etc
from the students. This means that the teacher should not
share his ideas, feelings, experiences and knowledge he has in
his own pace all the time. It makes the learners passive and
dependent. The teacher should be aware that the students are
creative and capable. They have their own different opinions,
feelings, experiences and linguistic knowledge. They can share
something new ideas to the content. Thinking it seriously, the
teacher, first of all, gives clear instructions to the students
about the content by using pictures, gestures or questions etc.
Secondly, the students supply the appropriate language,
information or ideas they have. And, thirdly, the teacher gives
them feedback on the basis of the response the students.
Eliciting technique can be used in classroom by using three
steps.
Eliciting enables the teacher to start from where the learners
are and then to work forward from there. The learners have a
real effect on the outcomes of the lesson in terms of ideas,
language and pace. With constant learner involvement, the
teacher can work more at their speed rather than his own
speed.
With this technique, there is a reduction in unnecessary
teacher talk and a maximization of student talk. The students
take an active part in the learning, being involved even in the
part of the lesson that might otherwise be only teacher
explanation. The teacher is able to pinpoint precisely what
students know and what they still need to work on. The
language is learned through a process of guided discovery, and
it seems likely that it will be more memorable because of the
degree of student involvement in the learning. Confidence is
built because their use of the language is continuous and does
not have to wait for the end of teacher exposition. Jim
Scrivener (2011) gives some advices which are essential in
eliciting. They are as follows:
1 Give sufficient information about the content they are going
to discuss in the classroom.
2 Use hand gestures to indicate who is being asked to speak,
either a gesture for 'anyone' or to a specific individual. If
everyone speaks at once, it can be hard for students to know
which answer was ok and which not.
3 Give very clear feedback on each student utterance. They
want to know if what they said was acceptable. You could use
simple gestures or facial expressions to register 'ok' or 'not ok'
to students.
4 if someone gives an incorrect answer, get them to repeat it
two or three time and them say the correct answer yourself.
5 If they can't provide an answer, don't stretch the eliciting out
too long. Silence or wrong answers are evidence that they need
your input.
6 when the teacher has an appropriate answer, make sure it is
clearly established as a good answer, perhaps by getting it
repeated by a variety of individuals.
7 Don't use eliciting with monolingual classes.
8 Use eliciting regularly as a basic technique in most lessons for
keeping your class active and involved.
6.10 Students using their own language
In the field of language teaching and learning process, the use
of mother tongue of the students in the classroom has been a
great issue. Some of the linguists say that the mother tongue of
the students should be completely banned and some of the
linguists say that it should be used judiciously. But the fact
thing is that the students would like to use their mother tongue
in the classroom if it is monolingual. They seem to be using
their own language while talking to their classmates. Jim
Scrivener (2011) gives the following reasons why the students
want to use their own language in the class which are as
follows;
1 They feel easy while talking by using their own language.
2 They fear of being of corrected by teacher if they use English
language.
3 They would not like to do mistakes in front of many friends.
This means they are afraid of being sandaled among the
friends.
4 They think that using English language in classroom is not
essential because all problems are being solved through their
own language.
5 They fear that the teacher pretends not have understood the
English language used by them and get to be insulted.
6 Some students blame that the teacher doesn't listen them
properly. So, they would not like to speak in English language.
7 The students would like to use their own language because
they think that all understand it and easier to communicate to
each other.
The teacher, therefore, should try his best to create the English
environment in the classroom so that the students would be
mentally ready to use English language. They are to be well
motivated by talking about its cope in national and
international context frequently. The teacher is not to focus on
the subject all the time that creates boring in the students. He
is to conduct other activities like showing different films,
dramas, stories, playing the music, writing the inspiring slogans
on the wall, allowing them to share their personal feelings
through target language. There should be enough exposure
from the teacher and establish himself as a model so that the
students are interested in using the English language. It's good
if the native speakers are called as the guests teachers. It
encourages them to use the English language. Jim Scrivener
(2011) gives the following suggestions that help in creating a
good English environment in the classroom. They are as
follows;
1 Negotiate the ground rules with the students or - better- let
them set rules completely by themselves.
2 Put English-language posters on the walls.
3 Use lotls of listening material to surround them with the
sound of English.
4 Have shot, clearly demarcated sections of the lesson when
English is the first language; at other times, other languages are
possible.
5 Discuss the point of the activity, lesson, and course. Agree
how it will be done, why using English is important.
6 Respond positively to every effort at using English.
7 don't tell learners off for not using English, but keep operating
in English yourself.
8 only 'hear' English.
9 Spend a lot of time on fluency work without correction.
10 Establish that you are delighted for them to speak anything
at all; communication is your priority, rather than accuracy.
11 create lots of pair and small group activities that require
them to do something with English without the loss of face of
getting it wrong in a bigger group.
12 When it becomes a big problem, stop the activity and
negotiate again: 'I notice that many of you are using your
mother tongue. Is it OK?
13 Be prepared for English use to grow gradually, rather than
be established for a whole lesson at the start of the course.
But most of the prominent linguists claim that completely
prohibition of the mother tongue of the students in the target
language classroom is not a good task. It should be used in the
classroom on the basis of the necessity and situation not in all
the time that used in traditional method like the Grammar
Translation Method. Jim Scrivener is of the opinion that, "Many
teachers feel their training has discouraged them from using it
at all in class. But this supposed prohibition was an over- strong
reaction to some traditional teaching styles in which teachers
used only mother tongue of the students to explain and discuss
language, and learners hardly got to hear or use any English.
Jim Scrivener (2011) says that the mother tongue of the
students can be used in the following situations which are as
follows:
1 When learners read an article or short story,; sometimes ask
them to summarize it orally in L1. This can reveal interesting
insights about what learners have understood or
misunderstood.
2 When a new grammatical item is learned, encourage learners
to think how they would say the same things in their own
language. Don't just ask for a translation, but encourage
learners to consider if there is a direct one to one correlation
with their L1 and to notice differences between the two
languages.
3 When working on pronunciation, explicitly focus on contrasts
between how a sound is formed in L1 and English. Get learners
to work like laboratory scientists, trying out experiments to see
of they can notice and characterize important differences.
4 When watching a DVD film, the availability of switchable
subtitles in L1 and English can be very helpful.
5 Compare three different L1 translation of the same English
sentence and decide which is the best and why. This will help
students to understand that translation is not an exact science
and that one language does not directly convert directly into
another. Word -by- word translation isn't always possible and
frequently misses the message. Frequently, context and style
need to be seriously considered.
6 Compare layout and style between L1 and English
conventions, eg for letters, formal notices, etc.
7 if the teacher feels best, most effective way to explain
something is in L1, go for it.
8 A little teacher translation can bring things to light that would
otherwise remain hidden. But exercise caution - use a little L1
when you have a clear purpose and then return to English. As
the general main aim of your lessons is to get students using
English, avoid the temptation to conduct the rest of the lesson
in L1 just because it's easier! Learners need to hear your
English; it's an important part of their exposure to the
language.
6.11 Intuition
1 Definition of Intuition
The word 'Intuition' refers to the ability to acquire knowledge
without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different writers give
the word "intuition" a great variety of different meanings,
ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge,
unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to
unconscious pattern- recognition and the ability to understand
something instinctively, without the need for conscious
reasoning.
2 Origin of Intuition
It is the fact thing that some people are well in their intuitive
knowledge and some are not. Those people having well
intuitive knowledge seem to be doing well job in their own
sector. Due to the intuitive knowledge, people seem to be
describing, explaining, criticizing and solving the problems they
have on the basis of the situation. They seem to be
incorporating the new theories by analyzing the things in
different perspectives. But, what the origin of the institution is
the crucial thing to be paid attention by everyone. Many
prominent figures claim that 'Intuition' is originated from 'the
experience'. The more experienced a particular person is, the
better intuitive knowledge he has. He knows how to solve the
unpredictable problems by analyzing various previous
experiences he has. He automatically knows what strategies are
to be adopted in a particular situation to solve the problems.
Jim Scrivener (2011) opines, "I think intuition is your ability to
smoothly access the quantity of experience you have stored
inside you to help you interpret what is happening in the
present moment. We can get better at it by gaining more
experience and storing it away."
3 Intuition and teaching
Jim Scrivener (2011) is of the opinion that," Use of intuition is
fundamental to teaching. It is the skill of spontaneously
understanding something, bypassing the supposed
conventional route of thinking carefully and reaching a
considered decision. Although it sounds somewhat 'magical', it
is a quite down-to-earth, if rather unexplored, part of our
teaching work. It is a something that all teachers exercise to a
greater or lesser degree, and it is learnable and improvable.
Intuitive responses are important in teaching because things
happen so fast in lesson time and there is so much to notice,
flying at us all at once: how the activity is proceeding, how each
student is reacting, etc. On-the-spot in class, you don't have
much thinking space. Fluent teaching depends on being able to
quickly read the classroom situation moment-by moment and
respond appropriately."
It is the fact thing that teaching learning process is not as
predictable as in the cookeries; reading the instructions,
collecting all ingredients and cooking the food accordingly. All
the things do not happen in the classroom as we are instructed
in the seminars or workshop. Lots of unexpected things happen
in the classrooms that are to be faced properly by using the
intuitive knowledge the teacher has. Whether a teacher is
successful or not depends how well he can use his intuitive
knowledge in the classroom on the basis of the situation. Jim
Scrivener (2011) opines, "Teaching isn't like that of cookeries.
The instruction book doesn't work, because every teaching
event is significantly different. And it happens too fast before
your eyes. You very quickly find that you have to use something
else, from Lesson one onwards, when the handed-down
guidelines break down in the face of real people with real
unpredicted responses. You are already working on intuition:
taking risks, trying things out learning not to be frightened,
realizing that this is the way to move forward, that the things
that go wrong contribute to you being better able to do it next
time. And recalling and reflecting on what you do after you do it
seems to add to the pool from which this intuition draws. You
don't have to process the learning very deeply to draw specific
conclusions- it may often be enough just to recall, sift through
it." This indicates that, the more experienced a teacher is, the
better intuition he has and can solve all unpredictable the
problems occurs in the classroom.
'The end'
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