TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN

KHOA NGOẠI NGỮ

TÀI LIỆU HỌC TẬP

TÀI LIỆU HỌC TẬP CHO HỌC PHẦN

LÝ LUẬN DẠY HỌC TIẾNG ANH 2 (Phần 1)

Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, tháng 5 năm 2021

INTRODUCTION
 Most experienced English teachers who became good at their job say that what helps
them improve their teaching knowledge and skills definitely comes from their actual
classroom experience. The more lessons they teach, the more experience they gain. However,
this way of career improving is not very helpful to a new or a trainee teacher, who have not
yet had much experience in the field. These are the ones who urgently need to acquire the
basic professional competence with a view to providing a good lesson from the very early step
of their teaching career. How can they gain teaching knowledge and skills in such a shortage
of reality like this?
One of the solutions to help students approach an enormous source of knowledge and
skill in language teaching is to design some courses focusing on this field. Among the
mentioned courses, “Theory of English Language Teaching 2” (TELT2), which accounts
for three credits (taking place in 45 periods of teaching), is a compulsory course for students
majoring in English Language Teaching. The overall objectives of the course TELT2 is to
help the students - teachers-to-be, with some knowledge on both theory and practice in
language teaching and learning, including some key terms in teaching language materials
(vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar) and developing language skills (listening,
speaking, reading and writing). This document is designed as a learning material for the
students majoring in English Language Teaching with the view of making a framework to
achieve the objective of the course TELT2 as well as fulfilling the needs of professional
learning from trainee teachers.
The document provides the basis for professional learning both before and during
classroom experience in the following ways:
 In terms of teaching knowledge, the course can help provide some basic theories in
teaching language materials and developing language skills. It can also present some steps in
presenting language materials and developing language skills. In addition, this course can also
supply students with some techniques in organizing and managing classroom activities in a
teaching period.
 In terms of teaching skills, this course helps students identify each step in the teaching
process of a lesson. Students can be provided with the way to assess, choose, alter and add
some activities for a lesson available in the textbooks, from which they can design a lesson
plan oriented towards positive, creative and innovative teaching.
The document includes two parts, each of which focuses on one main area in language
teaching. In the set of this two-part document, Part 1 comprises three chapters as follows:

1
  Chapter I, focusing on information related to teaching Pronunciation, is an all-
embracing section of the key terms such as the importance, the content, the method of
teaching pronunciation and some important points to bear in mind in teaching pronunciation
in language teaching and learning.
 Chapter II, comprising information related to teaching Vocabulary, from which the
importance, the content, the techniques of teaching vocabulary and also some important points
to bear in mind in teaching vocabulary are included with the aim of giving some useful
instructions in presenting vocabulary in an English lesson.
 Chapter III, presenting some grammar-teaching-related information consisting of
approaches in teaching grammar and some rules to take into consideration in providing a
grammar lesson.
 An Appendix section is also attached in the documents. This aims at introducing some
suggested templates to help students designing activities in teaching language materials. The
lecturers can also be benefit from these templates because they can give feedback more easily
for each student’s work. Beside that, there is an attachment of two lesson plans, one of which
serves as an example of designing a Language Focus lesson (which is hardly found from
other books in the same field) and another as an example of presenting new words in a full
lesson plan. It is recommended to use internally.
The aim of this document is to equip teachers-to-be with the knowledge and skills
needed to perform competently as a real English teacher from the beginning: to plan and run
interesting and learning-rich lessons professionally, use language materials in the textbooks
effectively, and so on. On the long run, both their knowledge and skills will be increasingly
improved, the nicest things in their profession, as time goes on.
It is expected that by the end of the course, the students - teachers-to-be will have built
their confidence, knowledge and classroom abilities in the field of language teaching. It is
hoped that they will also have been inspired to try out new ideas in English language teaching.
The document is a collection from the works of some authors and some experts of the
field with the intention of the writer, which may have some inevitable shortcomings. I am
looking forward to the valuable advice from all colleagues, specialists in the field so that this
can be improved in the best way possible.
I would appreciate your advice very much.

2
 CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Table of contents 3
CHAPTER I: TEACHING PRONUNCIATION 5
I. The importance of teaching pronunciation 5
II. The reasons for making pronunciation errors in Vietnamese learners 5
III. The content of teaching pronunciation 6
IV. How to teach pronunciation 7
1. Individual sounds 7
2. Stress 9
3. Intonation 10
V. Points to bear in mind in teaching pronunciation 13
CHAPTER II: TEACHING VOCABULARY17
I. The importance of teaching vocabulary 17
II. The content of teaching vocabulary 17
III. Techniques for conveying meanings of words 19
IV. Learning about form and meaning 20
V. Teaching steps 21
VI. Teaching Vocabulary in the English textbook 22
VII. Revision activities 22
VII. Points to bear in mind in Teaching Vocabulary 25
CHAPTER III: TEACHING GRAMMAR 33
I. What is grammar? 33
II The importance of teaching grammar 33
III. Deductive and inductive approaches in teaching grammar 33
1. Deductive approach 33
2. Inductive approach 34
IV. How to show the meaning and form of new structures 36
1. How to present meaning 36

3
 2. How to present the form 37
3. The steps for presenting structure 38
V. Types of practice 39
1. Mechanical practice 39
2. Meaningful practice 40
3. Free practice 41
V. Things to bear in mind in teaching grammar 41
Appendix 50
Appendix A: Suggested template for teaching pronunciation 51
Appendix B: Suggested template for teaching vocabulary 52
Appendix C: Suggested template for teaching grammar 53
Appendix D: An example lesson plan designed for a language focus lesson 54
Appendix E: An example lesson plan with the process of presenting vocabulary 58
Reference 63

4
 CHAPTER I: TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

Pronunciation plays an important role in language learning because wrong pronunciation often
leads to misunderstanding. For example, when a speaker or reader replaces one phoneme with
another, he unintentionally uses quite a different word, hence altering the sense of what he
wants to say.
“I don’t know how to sew / show it.” (/səʊ/ - /ʃəʊ/)

The same is true for the wrong use of stress patterns.

“Do you have a tall boy / tallboy in your house?” (tall’boy / ’tallboy)

For this reason, teaching pronunciation is of great importance in developing learners’ listening
and speaking skills. When a learner has an inaccurate pronunciation, he has difficulties not
only in understanding what other people say but also in making himself understood.

It is also worth noting that the aim of pronunciation improvement is not to achieve a perfect
imitation of a native accent, but simply to get the learner to pronounce accurately enough to
be easily and comfortably comprehensible to other speakers. “Perfect” accents are difficult, if
not impossible, for most non-native speakers of English to achieve, and may not even be
desirable.

II. THE REASONS FOR MAKING PRONUNCIATION ERRORS IN

VIETNAMESE LEARNERS

Vietnamese learners’ pronunciation errors derive from various sources:

1. A particular English sound may not exist in the mother tongue, so the learner is not used to
forming it and therefore, tend to use the nearest equivalent he/she knows, e.g. the substitution
of /d/ or /z/ for the English consonant /ð/, as in brother - /ˈbrʌðə(r)/
This is also the case of English short-long vowels which are replaced by the near equivalent
vowels, e.g. one single Vietnamese sound /u/ is used for both /ʊ/ (pull) and /uː/ (pool).

2. An English sound is somewhat (but not exactly) similar to a particular sound in

Vietnamese, and the learners tend to pronounce the English sounds like the ones in

5
Vietnamese, e.g. the short, lax Vietnamese vowel / ɑ/ (as in “ca hát”) is used to replace the

long, tense vowel /ɑː/ or /ɑ(r)/ (as in “a car”).

3. “Difficult” sounds (e.g. final consonants, consonant clusters) and unfamiliar phonetic
phenomena (e.g. weak forms, linking, elision, assimilation) are usually skipped or avoided, as
they are not found in the Vietnamese language. For example, Vietnamese learners tend to drop
the final consonants (for plural forms of nouns, or past tense form of regular verbs), avoid
making proper linking (e.g. four apples), or utter words in connected speech like words in
isolation (e.g. television broadcast).

Below are some common pronunciation errors made by Vietnamese learners:

Examples Errors
Unfamiliar sounds θ, ð, ʒ, dʒ, tʃ, p, æ using nearest equivalent
Consonant sp_, spr_, st_, _st, _ts, _sts, _ks, uttering single sounds, or skipping
clusters _sks, br_ one consonant
skipping, or uttering plosives
Final sounds have, cars, meet, hope, path,…
without aspiration
Long – short
ɪ-iː, ɒ-ɔː, ʊ-uː, ə-ɜː using a medium sound (ɪ, ɒ, ʊ, ə)
vowels
B.E. eə, ɪə, ʊə, aʊ, əʊ, ɔɪ, eɪ, aɪ using nearest equivalents or single
Diphthongs
A.E. aʊ, əʊ, ɔɪ, eɪ, aɪ sounds
əm (am), ə(r) (are), kən (can), ʃəd using strong forms in all situations
Weak forms
(should) (æm, ɑr, kæn, ʃʊd)
My ‘sister is a ,university giving same stress (force, strength)
Sentence stress
‘student. to every syllable
Is she a student?
Using falling tune where a rising
Intonation Although he was very tired, he tune or fall-rise is required.
decided to go to work.

III. THE CONTENT OF TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

In teaching pronunciation, the teacher should teach his students:
 “receive pronunciation” (R.P.) or the literary pronunciation, e.g. the language used in the
radio or TV broadcasts, or at schools and universities,
 the way to utter the sounds both in isolation and in connected speech,
 how to produce speech with proper stresses and intonation.
If necessary, the analysis of the differences between English and MT pronunciations can be
provided.

6
IV. HOW TO TEACH PRONUNCIATION
1. INDIVIDUAL SOUNDS
a. Focusing on a difficult sound
In teaching pronunciation, the teacher has to determine the cases where conscious
manipulation of the speech organs is required, and the cases where simple imitation can or
must be used. There is normally no need to teach the sounds of English individually; students
are able to ‘pick up’ the sound system of the language by listening to the teacher and by
practising words and structures. However, there may be particular sounds or sound
combinations which students find difficult, or students may simply make mistakes in
pronunciation without being aware of it. In such cases, it is useful to focus on the sound which
causes the difficulty.

b. When is individual sound taught?

 Whole lesson: spending the whole lesson on pronunciation
 Discrete slots: spending some portion of the lesson on pronunciation
 Integrated phases: teaching as an integral part of the teaching of skills
 Opportunistic teaching: teaching when pronunciation becomes a problem to learning

c. Presenting sounds

In terms of teaching process, there are generally two phases in teaching pronunciation.
a. Recognition phase: This phase helps the students identify sounds and sound sequences.
Students listen to sounds pronounced by the teacher in isolation, and in one or two words so
that they can discriminate sounds and sound sequences. Then, students repeat the sound(s)
chorally and individually. If students confuse two similar sounds, it is obviously useful to
contrast them so that students can hear the difference clearly

b. Production phase: This phase helps the students produce sounds and sound sequences
accurately. Students imitate the teacher as closely as possible. First, they repeat after the
teacher, and then they say the words or sentences by themselves. If students have difficulty in
producing a particular sound (usually because it does not exist in their own language), it is
often very useful to describe how it is pronounced, as long as this can be done in a way that
students understand (using simple English or their own language).
Remember that writing words on the board is not necessary, and could confuse the students.
In pronunciation teaching, the focus should be on pronunciation, not on spelling.

7
d. Practising sounds

 Minimal pairs
Minimal pairs are pairs of words which only differ in one feature (or phoneme), e.g: sing-
song; park-bark; ship-sheep... They can be used to focus on differences in vowel or
consonant sounds.

 Minimal pair drill

i) Say the word ‘will’ and ‘well’ in random order, and ask students to tell the number of the
word each time (aural practice).
If you hear the sound /i/, say one. If you hear the sound/e/, say two.
T: well Ss: two
T: will Ss: one
T: will Ss: one
ii) Say other words which have either the sound /i/ or /e/. Students say which number fits the
word
T: bell Ss: two
T: fill Ss: one
T: win Ss: one

 Missing words: The teacher says short sentences or phrases in which one word is missing.
The students guess the word, which contains the sound that the teacher wishes to practise
(the sentences do not of course need to be written)
Ex: Say the sentence and ask the students to give the missing word
Children love to .............games.
Black and white together make.............
After April comes ..................

8
2. STRESS
Stress refers to the amount of force with which a sound or syllable is uttered. Most words with
two or three syllables have one stressed (or ‘strong’) syllable and two or more unstressed (or
‘weak’) syllables. The vowel in the unstressed syllables is often pronounced as /ə/ or /i/,
which is called reduced vowels.
a. Teaching stress:
Teaching stress can be divided into two categories: word stress and sentence stress.
i) Word stress
Stress in an English word can be one of these three cases. First of all, primary stress can fall
on a syllable which is longer, louder and said with more breath effort. The second case is
determined as “unstressed” syllable when it is said very quickly, lightly and with very little
breath effort. Another case called secondary stress is when this syllable is said with more
breath effort than two but less than one.
ii) Sentence stress
In a normal English sentence, certain words are stressed and certain words are unstressed.
Normally the stressed words are content words – the words that are essential for conveying a
message. These are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and demonstratives. The unstressed
words are form words, the grammatical or structure words. These words are not essential to
the communication of a message.
Ex: I ‘saw your ‘brother ‘yesterday.
Would you ‘like a ‘glass of ‘beer?
Can I ‘carry your ‘suitcase?
I must be ‘going.
My ‘wife’s ‘waiting for me at the ‘corner of the ‘street.

b. Techniques for teaching stress

i) Using your voice

- Say the sentence, exaggerating the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables.
- Representing each syllable with a sound, e.g: a kilo of sugar = de-DA-de-de-DA-de.

ii) Using gestures

- Thump the air when saying the stressed syllable
- Make a downward stroke of the hand – marking the beat like a conductor
- Punch the palm of the hand.
9
 - Clap your hands
- Bang your hand against something

iii) Using blackboard

- Underline the stressed syllables: a kilo of sugar
- Write the stressed syllables in heavier letters: a KIlo of Sugar

3. INTONATION
a. Functions of intonation: Basically there are different functions of intonation:
i) It indicates grammatical meaning.

He lives in London. Do you come from London?

He lives in London? You come from London?

ii) It indicates functions

Sorry! (Apology) Sorry? (Please repeat)

iii) It can change meaning

I want to see your son ‘Harry’.
I want to see your son Harry.
Mary said her mother had gone to the cinema. (Mary’s words are being reported. It is
her mother who has gone to the cinema)
Mary, said the mother, had gone to the cinema.
iv) It indicates the speaker’s attitude
Ex: Really? → an expression of great surprise or merely a polite conversation oilier,
depending on the intonation pattern.

b. Intonation patterns
For teaching oral English at a fairly low level, teachers need to be aware of two basic
intonation patterns.
i) Rising tone: used in asking Yes/No questions, and to express surprise, disbelief, etc. The
voice rises sharply on the stressed syllable

Really? Is he your friend? Do you want some tea?

10
ii) Falling tone: used for normal statements, commands, and for WH-questions. The voice
rises slightly earlier in the sentence, and then falls on the key word being stressed.

Open your book, please How long have you been learning English?

c. Practising stress and intonation

i) Mood and attitude

The teaching of intonation in the early stages should concentrate on the grammatical and not
the attitudinal function. We do not accept a dull, monotonous disinterested tone. We do want
the learners to sound polite, friendly, and interested. However, students are often shy and
embarrassed rather than unable to produce the required pattern. The teacher needs to create
the right atmosphere in the classroom to overcome the students’ reticence.
Mood cards consisting of two different mood, one of which indicates bored, uninterested
mood and the other is bright, lively, enthusiastic mood. These act as aids to correction
whenever the dull intonation pattern is produced.

Mr Grumpy Mr Happy

For more advanced level, a more sophisticated contrast can be set up, using mood card. These
two examples can be seen as illustrations.
Ex: A bored, overworked immigration officer at an airport (role A - ) and a tired, hungry,
bad tempered traveler (role B- )
A handsome, young man (role A- ) and an attractive girl in a disco (role B- )

ii) Back chaining can be used as a part of repetition drill.

- Say the whole sentence. Show the stress and intonation using gestures. Students listen.
T: listen. How long have you been living here?
- Students repeat, starting from the end
T: living here. Living here. Everybody
Ss: living here
T: been living here.
Ss: been living here.
11
 T: have you been living here.
Ss: have you been living here.
T: how long have you been living here?
Ss: how long have you been living here?

iii) Groups of students repeat the whole sentence, then individual students.
T: (gesture to indicate a group)
G: How long have you been living here?

To conclude, the easiest way for students to practise stress and intonation is by repetition. If
the focus is on pronunciation, traditional ‘repetition drills’, which are often boring for students
to do, should be made interesting and challenging. Students are not asked simply to repeat a
sentence, but to repeat it using a ‘particular stress and intonation pattern’. It is the teachers
who play an important role in designing the activities so that students can get involved in the
repetition drill in an active way.

12
V. POINTS TO BEAR IN MIND IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

1. Do not distort when giving a model

Teachers frequently try too hard to help students with pronunciation – they slow down to such
an extent when giving the model to the students to imitate that it is distorted. While few
teachers would pronounce the last part of comfortable as if it was table, it is very common in
other words to give the neutral vowel its full value instead of reducing its value.

In the stress patterns of normal speech weak forms and contractions occur frequently. The
danger in slowing down is that weak forms will be stressed and contractions strengthened. If
students have difficulty, for example, with a phrase like they mustn’t’ve is not helpful to slow
it down to the point where it becomes they must not have which is totally unnatural.

Distortion usually results from speaking in a slow, exaggerated fashion. It is better to give
students a model at a natural speed, using natural pronunciation and if necessary, repeat it
several times, rather than slow down.

2. The model must remain the same

Exact repetition (the same words, the same structures, the same stress patterns and the same
pronunciation) is extremely rare. The very act of repeating usually means that alternative
stress pattern is appropriate. When repeating a model for a student two or three times it is
important for the teacher to maintain absolute consistency. This is particularly difficult in
giving examples of stress or intonation. The best way to acquire the skill of being able to
repeat the same sentence is practice but if you find it difficult to repeat the same sentence
identically several times in quick succession, it is useful to remember that if you say
something else between – a simple comment will do, (I’ll say that again) – it is easier to
produce an identical repeat. The interpolated comment should be short enough to distract you,
but not long enough to distract the students.

3. Use choral pronunciation

The technique of choral pronunciation is much under-used. Teachers feel they cannot do
pronunciation with students who are not beginners, or that they cannot use it with particular
classes because of the type of students involved. The technique is useful with all students, at
all levels, and save for classes containing only two or three students, for all class sizes.

13
It is true that it is of particularly use with large classes, with younger students, and with
students at lower levels. This does not mean, however, that it should not be used with other
classes. It can also be a useful classroom technique even if its main objective is not always
only improved pronunciation.

Choral pronunciation serves to bring the class together and to re-focus students’ attention on
the teacher after some activities where their attention has been elsewhere – perhaps private
study of a text, or pair work. The manner in which the choral pronunciation is done can ensure
that the students’ attention is focused on the teacher.

The technique is useful not only in bringing a class together, but in taking the pressure off the
individuals.

4. Move around the room when doing choral pronunciation

There are some advantages of moving around the room when doing oral pronunciation.
- possible to note which individual students are not speaking or need helps with a particular
problem.
- keep the students’ concentration on the teacher.
- keep everyone involved.
- help to ensure that the individuals you ask after the choral repetition change from one
practice to another as you inevitably tend to ask students near you.

5. Keep your language to a minimum in pronunciation practices

- To comment on the standard of pronunciation: a smile or a slight shake of the head is

sufficient.
- To invite students to speak: again a gesture is sufficient
- To say Good or something longer: a smile and a nod, a slight shake of the head followed by
an immediate new model from the teacher to be repeated immediately by the student who
made the mistake, is quick, sufficient, amusing and avoids inhibiting students.

6. Vary your criterion of ‘good’ in pronunciation practices

While it is true that a consistent accent is easier to listen to, it is certainly neither necessary
nor desirable that many learners should achieve native speaker pronunciation. Some students
find pronunciation particularly difficult, e.g. to hear distinction clearly or to mimic accurately.
This does not mean that they will not reasonably successful in other areas of language
14
learning. It is psychologically important not to discourage those who find pronunciation
difficult in the early stages of learning. As different students progress at different rates, it is
wise to accept different degrees of variation from the “ideal” target. It will help nobody if
particular students have their confidence undermined and are constantly being asked to repeat
because their pronunciation is less good than the rest of the class. A positive atmosphere, an
encouraging teacher, and time, will probably do more than over-insistent teacher correction.

The implication is that Good is to be used differently to different students; and differently at
different stages of each student’s learning.

7. Articulation is an important first step in practice

Presenting language to the students does not guarantee that they will be able to use it and, of
course, what they are unable to pronounce is useless to them. Students will frequently need to
practice the articulation of new languages before moving to more meaningful practices. To
practice “If I were you, I’d…”, for example, begin with choral and individual pronunciation of
a number of sentences using the structure:

If I were you, I’d wait / phone her / ask him / do it / try

Time spent here will be more than saved in later practices which will not need to be
interrupted so often to correct pronunciation.

8. It is helpful to do articulation practices more than once

You cannot communicate anything unless you can say the world in a way which the hearer
can understand the ability to articulate particular sounds or groups of sounds will frequently
more effective if the students do them more than once. They need to repeat articulation
practices several times in order to gain control over their pronunciation. If you explain why
you are doing such practices again and if they are done briskly, no one will mind. Students
never resent and are never bored by practices which they see are helping them.

9. Bring variety to ‘say after me’

Pronunciation is much more than ‘Say after me’. In real life we use language in a wide variety
of ways on different occasions – sometimes we shout, sometimes we whisper. This can be
introduced to the classroom. There are many techniques for bringing variety to the simple
‘Say after me’: teacher-model followed by CIP (choral and individual pronunciation). The

15
class can be divided into halves and speak alternately; into lines or rows which speak
consecutively. With some more complicated pronunciation work pairs can ask and respond
simultaneously, or consecutively.

10. Don’t explain intonation, demonstrate

Although students may find intonation difficult, the teaching of intonation is usually most
effective when the teacher uses the simplest methods of presentation. These involve giving an
exaggerated model and indicating the pitch movement of the hand, or by simple arrow
drawings on the blackboard. The principle is clear from the two different intonations of the
single word ‘sorry’:

Sorry! (Apology) Sorry? (Please repeat)

11. Refer to stress and intonation even when not specifically teaching it

If students do not have reasonable control of pronunciation, stress and intonation, they will be
both difficult to listen to, and easily misunderstood. For this reason, it is important that the
teacher bears in mind that stress and intonation are important, even if doing comprehension
questions after a text or the example from a grammar practice. If students deliver the answer
to the questions in a dull, monotonous or mechanical way, that is as much a ‘mistake’ as a
pronunciation or grammatical error and should come under consideration as one of the
mistakes worth correcting. If students are to use the spoken language effectively, stress and
intonation need to be given their real place in the teaching at all times.

The impression people form each other is frequently more independent on intonation than
grammar, and this should be a constant reminder of the important role it should play in
teaching.

16
 CHAPTER II: TEACHING VOCABULARY

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING VOCABULARY

To know a language means to master its sound system, structure and words. It is, however,
evident that no one knows all the words of the major language of the world, but only its
limited vocabulary. That is minimum vocabulary.

The vocabulary, therefore, must be carefully selected in accordance with the principles of
selecting linguistic material and the conditions of teaching and learning a foreign language in
school. The words selected may be grouped under the following classes:

1. Content words and structure words

 Content words are words that we talk about. They are nouns, adjectives, verbs and
adverbs.
 Structure words are words that we talk with or words which make up the form of the
language. They are conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, …

2. Active and passive vocabulary

 Active vocabulary includes the content and structure words of a language which are
learned so thoroughly that they become a part of the learner’s understanding, speaking,
reading and writing activities.
 Passive vocabulary includes the words of the language which the learner understands,
but he has not yet learned to use in speaking or writing.

II. THE CONTENT OF TEACHING VOCABULARY

When a new word is taught, we need to consider different aspects related to this word:

1. Form (pronunciation and spelling): The leaner has to know what a word sounds like (e.g.
its pronunciation) and what it looks like (i.e. its spelling). In teaching, teachers need to make
sure both aspects are accurately presented and learned.

2. Grammar: The grammar of a new item will need to be taught when it may hinder students’
comprehension or practice. An item (e.g. a mouse) may have an unpredictable change of form
(e.g. plural form ‘mice’). Hence, it is important to provide students with this kind of
information at the same time as the item is taught.

17
3. Collocation: The collocations typical of particular items are another factor that makes a
particular combination sound ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in a given context. For this reason, such
combinations may be worth teaching. When introducing words like vacation or bored, for
example, teachers may need to introduce them in expressions: on vacation, (be) bored with. In
this way, students learn to use them in context as well.

4. Aspect of meaning (denotation, connotation): The meaning of a word is primarily what it

refers to in the real world – its denotation. This is also the sort of definition given in a
dictionary. For example, Hello and Hi are used as a greeting when you meet someone.
A less obvious component of the meaning is its connotation; the associations, evaluation,
style, or emotions – which may or may not be indicated in a dictionary definition. For
example, the connotation found in Hi helps to distinguish it from Hello in terms of styles. This
kind of information will help students choose the correct words when talking to their friends,
elderly people or strangers.

5. Semantic relationships: How the meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others can
also be useful in teaching. This may help students expand the vocabulary stock and express
themselves in different ways. For example, students may learn to say “I like small puppies.”
or “I don’t like big dogs.” In this case, small and big are antonyms, and puppy is a hyponym
of dog.

Below are some examples of meaning relationship:

Meaning relationships Examples
Synonyms intelligent smart, clever
Antonyms rich poor
Hyponyms green color
Co-hyponyms green red, yellow, white
Super-ordinates color green, red, yellow
vegetables carrot, lettuce, cabbage

6. Word formation: Vocabulary items, whether one-word or multi-word, can be broken

down into their component “bits”. In this sense, teacher may find analyzing words into roots
and affixes or bases necessary, as this may help their students to grasp the word meanings
more easily (e.g. UN-clean, RE-play, care-LES, FOOT-BALL). In the long run, students may
also make use of this kind of knowledge to guess the meanings of complex or compound
words in a reading passage.

18
III. TECHNIQUES FOR CONVEYING MEANINGS OF WORDS
1. Visual techniques involve the use of visual aids. There might be real objects (or realias),
drawings or pictures, movements, gestures and facial expressions. For example, teachers may
use school things available in the classroom to teach words such as a book, a pen, a pencil, or
a ruler. Things that cannot be brought into the classroom can be drawn on the board, or
pictures of them can be shown to students. Teachers can also use gestures and movements to
teach action verbs (e.g. to read books, to write, to drive a car,…), or facial expressions to
teach adjectives showing emotions (e.g. angry, happy,…).

2. Verbal techniques involve the use of verbal means of conveying the meanings of
unfamiliar words. These may include giving definitions, contexts or simple English,
opposites, synonyms, enumeration, and parts of words.
Below are some examples:
Words to be
Techniques Examples
taught
A kimono is traditional clothing of the Japanese
kimono definition
people.
Farmers may have a buffalo or a tractor plow the
context, simple
to plow soil. This makes the soil soft and ready for their
English
growing rice.
cold opposite / antonyms cold ≠ hot
to call synonyms call someone = telephone someone
enumeration / super-
fruit Fruit includes apples, bananas, oranges and so on.
ordinates
parts of words /
unhappy unhappy → UN + happy = not happy, sad
word formation

In reality, teacher rarely use just one technique. A combination of a visual technique with a
verbal one is more common. For example, while teaching the word “fruit”, teachers may use
pictures and enumeration at the same time.
3. Translation or the use of the mother tongue is used to explain abstract notions which
have equivalents in the native language. Translation-interpretation can also be used to explain
the words that do not have equivalents in the native language. This facilitates students’
immediate understanding and helps teacher check students’ comprehension, leaving more
time for practice.
Ex: endangered (TA10, Unit 10) → có nguy cơ tuyệt chủng (Translation)
the food pyramid (TA10, Unit 2) → tháp dinh dưỡng (Translation – Interpretation)

19
IV. LEARNING ABOUT FORM AND MEANING

Dictionaries are an effective way of learning vocabulary, particularly when learners are
working outside the class, but there are many other ways that teachers can teach words and
phrases. The following lessons transcripts can be used as illustrations for different ways of
presenting form and meaning in different levels of learners.

a. Beginners’class (1)
[Teacher holds up a picture of a doctor]
T: Listen: doctor-doctor. Say it.
Class: doctor
[Teacher holds up a picture of a nurse]
T: Listen: nurse – nurse. Now you say it for me.
Class: nurse
[T writes doctor and nurse on the board]
b. Beginners’ class (2)
T: [T points to the door] look- the door is open – open. [T closes the door]. Now the
door is shut – shut. [T opens the door]. Open. [T closes the door]. Shut. Now you say
it.
S1: Open
T: No-look. Shut.
S1: Shut
T: Good – everyone
Class: Shut
[T opens the door]
T: Now
Class: Open
[T writes shut and open on the board]
c. Beginners’ class (3)
[T holds up a picture of a pilot]
T: do you know what job this is? What does this person do?
S1: in a plane
T: yeah, good, he flies a plane, but what is the word for his job?
S2: driver
T: We can say that for a car or a train, but for a plane?
20
 S2: pilot
T: Good – that’s right – he’s a pilot
d. Elementary class
S1: what means fruit /fru:t/
T: pronunciation /fru:t/ - like boot – can you say it?
S1: Fruit /fru:t/
T: Good – apples, oranges, bananas are types of fruit.
S1: Oh, yeah, OK- thank you.
e. Intermediate class
S1: Sorry, what does enormous mean?
T: does anyone know that word – enormous?
S2: Big
T: Yeah. OK. Just big? Or very big?
S3: Very big
T: That’s right – very big
[T writes enormous on the board]
f. Advanced class
S1: It says flattery here. What’s that?
T: It’s when you say nice things to someone, but not in a sincere way, especially in
order to obtain something from them.

V. TEACHING STEPS
To present a new word means to introduce to students its forms, meanings and usage. As there
is usually a mismatch between spelling and pronunciation of a word, the following steps are
recommended for teaching.
a. Teacher introduces the word (saying it aloud and explaining its meaning).
b. Students say the word (in phrases or sentences).
If students see the word form before it is uttered, they may adapt its incorrect pronunciation,
as they may associate the sound form of an old word with that of the new one when these
two words have some identical spelling form. (e.g. mime /aɪ/ vs. determine /ɪ/)
c. Teacher writes the word on the board.
d. Students put the new words in sentences.
Students do not need to make sentences with all new words. In this stage, they should
practice with active vocabulary only.

21
VI. TEACHING VOCABULARY IN THE ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS

New words are recommended to be taught with the help of different teaching aids (e.g.
pictures, real objects,…) and along with their spelling forms as well as sound forms. For many
cases, new words and structures are presented in the first activity (or activities) of each section
or in the Reading section (Textbooks Grade 10, 11, 12) or in the Getting Started and
Language section (the new version). This really is when teachers can focus on presenting new
words to their students.

In some situations, students should be encouraged to guess the meanings of words through
context, especially when they have to deal with a reading passage. However, teachers may
decide to pre-teach some key words in the pre-listening, pre-speaking, pre-reading or pre-
writing step, as this will help their students understand the lesson better and more easily. It is
worth noting that teachers should not try to explain all new words to their students at a time.

The next stage is giving students chances to practice the new language items through activities
such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing. In this way, new words can be practiced
together with other grammatical structures to help students learn how to use the new language
for communication.

VII. REVISION ACTIVITIES

1. Matching/Association:

a. Match the word in column A with the meaning in column B

schedule opposite of polite

rude without words

non-verbal program of work to do

b. From the parallel lists of words given, select pairs which have a natural association
Garden Uniform Resort
Students Coach Glass
Holiday Flowers Classrooms

c. Write down as many words as you can think of which have a natural association
with house; sea; fruits
22
2. Odd man out:
table chair desk picture
see smell feel say
windy sunny tidy cloudy
century decade daytime fortnight

3. Word dominoes

a. chair – red – draw – writing – garage – empty – yellow .....

b.

4. Word bingo

23
5. Classification/grouping

Put the words under the right headings: family fruits jobs office facilities
son-in-law, pear, receptionist, peach, cook, grandparents, keyboard, clips, cousin,
architect, grapes, highlighter, corrector, kiwi, niece, mouse...

Countries
Animals
Jobs
milk typist apples pigs shirts
Germany chicken Japan
shoes oranges peaches wine
cows butcher tea driver
Greece socks Turkey
trousers baker dogs sheep
Clothes
coffee plums pears

Fruits
Drinks

Using word network: toothpaste, TV, alarm clock, stove, video, towel, mirror, sofa,
desk, cupboard, fridge, washbasin, sink, slippers...

Bedroom
Kitchen

HOUSE Sitting room

Bathroom

24
6. Crosswords

7. Games: word network, slap the board, rub and remember, guessing, jumbled words...

VII. POINTS TO BEAR IN MIND IN TEACHING VOCABULARY

1. A vocabulary item can be more than one word:

Two speakers of English meeting for the first time will both say: How do you do. How do you
do is a complete phrase with a single meaning – linguists would call it a lexical item. The
meaning of this group of words cannot be deduced from the meaning of the individual words
from the phrase – how, for example, at first suggests that the phrase will be a question but
since both speakers use the same phrase, it is quite clear that neither is a question, each is a
greeting. Such groups of words are common and, rather than keeping a list of ‘words’ in a
‘vocabulary book’, students need to be encouraged to keep list of words and phrases (i.e.
lexical items) with, in some cases, direct equivalents in their own language but in other cases
simply a description of how the phrase is used – in the case above a definition such as ‘a
greeting used by both speakers when meeting for the first time in fairly formal circumstances’.

Such phrases are of great importance in both the written and spoken language and students
should be encouraged to see them as whole items. Further examples are phrases such as:

Cheer up!

25
 if you like
put up with,
I’m afraid not.
Look out for (someone)

Some phrases may be seen as part of the structure of the language, and phrases which can be
learned as single units. An example of such a phrase would be: as soon as possible.

In many cases students can be helped to achieve greater fluency by learning certain phrases as
complete items at a relatively early stage in their learning program, while perhaps, only seeing
or understanding their structure at a later stage.

The important thing is to develop in the students an understanding that languages do not
consist of ‘words’ with equivalents from one language to the other.

2. Do not discuss the structure of the lexical items

Some years ago, teaching was almost entirely based on structural progression. Students learn
“Do you want…?” relatively early in their course, because it was an example of a question
made in the present simple, which comes early in most structural courses. It was relatively late
in their course that they learn “Would you like…?” because this was ‘a conditional’ which, in
turn, came relatively late in structural oriented courses.

One of positive results of the notional functional approach to language teaching has been to
point out that students frequently need certain language items for practical communication
relatively early in their course even if these items may seem structurally quite complex. It is
now quite common for phrases such as “Would you like…?” to appear in Book 1 under a
functional heading. There is no difficulty about this providing teacher explains the phrase by
explaining its function – ‘We use this when we want to offer somebody something – Would
you like to go to the cinema this evening?’ Such explanation is sufficient, and teachers must
resist the temptation to draw attention to the structural features of the phrases which is being
taught as a lexical item at that stage of the course.

3. There is a difference between active and passive vocabulary

Well-educated native speakers ‘know’ many thousands of words in the sense that when they
hear or read them they cause no difficulty in understanding. At the same time, the people
probably use about 2,000 words in normal daily conversations. Somewhat surprisingly, native
26
speakers command of as small a vocabulary as 2,000 words means that you can function quite
happily within an English speaking community – providing the command is comprehensive,
and the 2,000 items are the right 2,000!

‘Learning’ more and more vocabulary items does not necessarily increase a person’s fluency.
By definition, the extra items are less and less useful. Despite this obvious fact, teachers, and
even more students, feel that increasing their vocabulary will increase their fluency – either in
speech or in writing. This is very far from the truth.

Knowing a vocabulary item is not a single process – it means much more than simply
memorizing the word. From the receptive (passive) point of view, it means recognizing its
meaning when it occurs in context – a relatively simple process. For students to add the word
to their active vocabularies they need to know the contexts in which it can occur, the possible
and impossible collocations of the word (words it can, or cannot co-occur with) as well as
more details of the connotation meaning of the word. In a very simple sense, little and small
‘mean the same thing’ – most students of English have no difficulty understanding the
sentence: Which would you like – the big one or the small / little one? Even such “simple”
words, however, present difficulties for active use – it is possible to say: What a pretty little
dress, but not What a pretty small dress.

The message for the teacher is that in dealing with ‘new words’, it is helpful to guide students
towards those words which will help them to add to their active vocabularies, and to
distinguish those for students from the much larger number of passive items. At the beginning
of most conventional language courses, all the words which are taught are intended to be
acquired for active use; later, at intermediate and advanced levels, most of the words students
meet will only be needed for passive use. This change in the nature of the vocabulary they are
learning is rarely made clear to students.

In more modern courses, particularly those which emphasize listening skills based on
authentic material even early in courses, a distinction between active and passive language
must be made at a much earlier stage. It is an important part of the listening process that
students learn to understand items which they do not need to add to their active vocabulary.

27
4. Explaining difference of meaning, not meaning.

Understanding or explaining ‘what something means’ is more complicated than teachers or

students sometimes recognize. There is a temptation, for example, for teachers to explain a
word by a direct translation. It is exceptionally rare for a word in one language to have a direct
equivalent in another. Much translation-based teaching ignores this, and encourages the idea
of simple equivalents.

Language is a system and each word has its meaning defined in relation to other words. This
insight leads to an easier, more effective and theoretically sounder way of explaining. It is
always more helpful to explain differences of meaning rather than meaning itself. If the reader
is in any doubt then try to explain the meaning of bush, it is easy if done visually and
contrastively.

tree bush

The principle is that contrastive explanation is easier, more effective, and most importantly of
all, reflects the real nature of language.

4. Words are often best taught in groups.

An individual word in a language frequently acquires a meaning because of the relationship

between it and other words. Awareness of certain kinds of relationship makes explaining
vocabulary easier for the teacher, and learning it simplier for the students. Here are some
important relationships:

a. Synonyms:

Through words may have similar denotative meaning (they represent the same concept) their
connotational meanings often differ. Sometimes, however, it is possible for the teacher simply
to say “enormous” means the same as “very large”.

28
b. Antonyms:

These are often thought of as “opposite” such as hot / cold. It is important for teachers to
remember that not hot does not always mean cold; sometimes it is a question of degree. In
these cases, students usually start by learning the extremes and later learn the intermediate
words: hot – warm, cool – cold.

c. Complements: Here two words exist and one automatically exclude the other – single /
married. In this case, it is possible to explain by saying ‘single’ means ‘not married’.

This idea may be extended to groups of incomplete words – each is defined by being ‘not the
others’: morning / afternoon / evening / night. Obviously, it is best to teach such words in
groups, as the meaning of one depends directly on the meanings of the others.

d. Converses: Each of the pair of words implies the other: parent / child, employer /
employee. Again, such words are best explained together.

e. Hyponyms: Car, van, bus, lorry are hyponyms of vehicle. Often such words are difficult to
handle without translating. It is not much help to be told a carnation is a kind of flower. If you
want to know the meaning of the word, you want to know what kind of flower. In such cases,
translation is often necessary.

These theoretical ideas may often be usefully extended by the idea of an Area of vocabulary.
If, for example, students are to do some work on traffic, does it make sense to pre-teach the
vocabulary and lexis associated with the topic? Because many words are defined by their
relationship to other words, it is easier to teach vocabulary in ‘area’ than through lists of
isolated items.

6. Vary the way you explain.

a. Demonstrate:

There is something ridiculous about providing a translation or explanation of words such as

stagger, chuckle. If the teacher does give a verbal explanation, it should at least be
accompanied by a physical demonstration. The demonstration both helps to make the meaning
clearer, and helps to fix the word in the students’ minds. If every word is ‘explained’ in the
same way – either by translation or verbal explanation, they merge into a sea of language in

29
which it is difficult to distinguish individual items. Demonstration highlights a particular word
and helps associate it in the students’ mind with both visual and aural memories.

b. Use the real things:

Teachers become so pre-occupied with teaching that sometimes they explain or even draw on
the blackboard things which are immediately available in the room. Sometimes the
explanation is no more complicated than pointing!

c. Draw or sketch:

Teachers do not need to be artists to make simple sketches which illustrate meaning.

d. Use the blackboard to show scales or grade: Words like cool, orange (color), or
probably,… may be explained by presenting them with groups of related words.

hot – warm – cool – cold

red – orange – yellow
certainly – definitely
probably – possibly

e. Antonyms: There are two problems for using a synonym to explain a new word – firstly
there are very few exact synonyms within the language and, as mentioned above, it is easy to
give the wrong impression by, for example, equating little and small. secondly, in most cases
it is extremely difficult to find a synonym which is simple enough to help the student – there
is little point in simply providing another new word to explain the one the student does not
understand.

It is usually much easier to offer explanation of the kind rude means not polite. It is worth
mentioning that the explanation given here are not exact definition of the word – the level of
the explanation must be suitable to the students’ level of English at the time so that dictionary-
like accuracy can often be counter-productive.

f. Synonyms: It is still helpful if teachers remember to say it is similar in meaning to…, rather
than it means the same as…, the former phrase helps to build in the students’ mind the idea
that language consists of choice, that words do not mean the same as each other, the second
undermines this important attitude.

30
g. The dictionary: Too often teachers forget that it is the students who are learning and, in
general, the more the students are involved in the process, the more successful that is likely to
be. Texts should not contain very large number of new words so there should not be a great
number of new words at any one time…

h. Verbal explanation: Some language items are best explained by being used in a variety of
contexts, with the teacher commenting on the use. It is important with such explanations to
use more than one context to avoid any incidental features of that particular context.

i. Translation: Although some teachers over-use this technique, it is equally true that others
under-use it. To some, it is seen as boring and traditional. For some words, however, the only
sensible way to explain is by translation. This is often the case with certain types of technical
words – measles – and for words which are ‘a kind of…’ e.g. oak.

7. Allocate specific class time to vocabulary learning

In the hustle and bustle of our interactive classroom, sometimes we get so caught up in lively
group work and meaningful communication that we don’t pause to devote some attention to
words. After all, words are the basic building blocks of language; in fact, survival level
communication can take place quite intelligibly when people simply string words together –
without any grammatical rules applying at all. So if we are interested in being communicative,
words are among the first order of business.

8. Help students learn vocabulary in context

The best internationalization of vocabulary comes from encounters (comprehension or

production) with words within the context of surrounding discourse. Rather than isolating
words and / or focusing on dictionary definitions, attend to vocabulary within a
communicative framework in which items appear. Students will then associate new words
with a meaningful context to which they apply.

9. Play down the role of bilingual dictionaries

A corollary to the above is to help students to resist the temptation to overuse their bilingual
dictionaries. In recent years, with the common availability of electronic pocket dictionaries,
students are even more easily tempted to punch in a word they don’t know and get an instant
response. Unfortunately, such practices rarely help students to internalize the word for later
recall and use.
31
10. Engaged in ‘unplanned’ vocabulary teaching

In all likelihood, most of the attention given to vocabulary learning will be unplanned: those
moments when a student asks about a word or a word has appeared that the teacher feels
deserves some attention. These impromptu moments are very important. Sometimes, they are
simply brief little pointers; for example, the word ‘clumsy’ once appears in a paragraph
students were reading and the teacher volunteered:

T: Okay, ‘clumsy’. Does anyone know what that means? (Write the word on the
board)
Ss: (silence)
T: No one? Okay, well, take a look at the sentence it’s in “His clumsy efforts to
imitate a dancer were almost amusing.” Now, was Bernard a good dancer?
[Mona raises her hand] Okay, Mona?
S1: Well, no. He was a very bad dancer, as we see in the next sentence.
T: Excellent! So, what do you think ‘clumsy’ might mean?
S2: Not graceful.
T: Good, what else? Anyone?
S3: Uncoordinated?
T: Great! Okay, so ‘clumsy’ means awkward, ungraceful, uncoordinated [writes
synonyms on the board]. Is that clear now?
Ss: [Most students nod in agreement]

Sometimes, such impromptu moment may be extended: the teacher gives several examples,
and / or encourages students to use the word in other sentences. Make sure that such
unplanned teaching, however, does not detract from the central focus of activity by going on
and on, ad nauseam.

32
 CHAPTER III: TEACHING GRAMMAR

I. WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

When thinking about teaching the grammar of a foreign language, which of these definitions
of grammar seems most appropriate?

1. Rules about sentence formation, tenses, verb patterns

2. The moment-by-moment structuring of what we say as it is being spoken
3. Exercises (fill in the gap, multiple choice) about tenses
4. Our internal “database” as to what are possible or impossible sentences.

Grammar is the way we put words together to make correct sentences that are meaningful.

II. THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING GRAMMAR

Grammar does not only affect how units of language are combined into phrases, clauses or
sentences, it also affects their meaning. The meaning of a grammatical structure may be quite
difficult to teach. It is rather simple to analyze the form of a structure (e.g. ‘have + past
participle’ to form the present perfect), but it is not easy to explain its use.

As a reaction again the traditional methods, many linguists and teachers suppose students do
not need to learn grammar in order to learn a language. It is the same as when we learn our
mother tongue - grammar is ‘learned’ implicitly and intuitively. This belief is, in some way, a
little misleading. Second language learning is not completely the same as first language
acquisition. In addition, the important question is not whether teaching and learning grammar
is necessary for language learning, but whether it helps or not. In fact, it does help as a means
of improving mastery of the language, not as an end in itself.

III. DEDUCTIVE AND INDUCTIVE APPROACHES IN TEACHING GRAMMAR

1. Deductive approach

a. Deductive approach is a more teacher-centered approach which starts with the presentation
of a rule and is followed by examples in which the rule is applied. This means that the teacher
gives the students a new concept, explains it, and then has the students practice using the
concept.

b. The advantages of deductive approach

33
 - It gets straight to the point, so it can be time-saving. This will allow more time for
practice and application.
- It respects the intelligence and maturity of many students, and acknowledges the role of
cognitive processes in language acquisition.
- It confirms many students’ expectations about classroom learning, particularly for those
learners who have an analytical learning style.
- It allows the teacher to deal with the language points as they come up, rather than have to
anticipate them and prepare for them in advance.

c. The disadvantages of deductive approach

- Starting the lesson with a grammatical presentation may be off-putting for some
students, especially for younger ones. They may not be able to understand the concept
involved.
- Grammar explanation encourages a teacher-fronted, transmission-style classroom;
teacher explanation is often at the expense of student involvement and interaction.
- Explanation is seldom as memorable as other forms of presentation, such as
demonstration.
- Such an approach encourages the belief that learning a language is simply a case of
knowing the rules.

The deductive method is often criticized because a) it teaches grammar in an isolated way; b)
little attention is paid to meaning; c) practice is often mechanical. This method can, however,
be a viable option in certain situations; for example, when dealing with highly motivated
students, teaching a particularly difficult concept, or for preparing students to write exams.

2. Inductive approach

a. Inductive approach, which is less teacher-directed than the deductive approach, starts with
some examples from which a rule is inferred. In contrast with the deductive method, inductive
instruction makes use of student “noticing”. Instead of explaining a given concept and
following this explanation with examples, the teacher presents students with many examples
showing how the concept is used. The intent is for students to “notice”, by way of the
examples, how the concept works.

b. The advantages of inductive approach

34
 - Rules learners discover for themselves are more likely to fit their existing mental
structures that rule they have been presented with. This in turn will make the rules more
meaningful, memorable and serviceable.
- The mental effort involved ensures a greater degree of cognitive depth, which again
ensures greater memorability.
- Students are more actively involved in the learning process, rather than being simply
passive recipients; they are, therefore, likely to be more attentive and more motivated.
- It is an approach which favors pattern-recognition and problem-solving abilities which
suggests that it is particularly suitable for learners who like this kind of challenge.
- If the problem-solving is done collaboratively, and in the target language, learners get
the opportunity for extra language practice.
- Working things out for themselves prepares students for greater self-reliance and is,
therefore, conductive to learner autonomy.

c. The disadvantages of inductive approach

- The time and energy spent in working out rules may mislead students into believing that
rules are the objective of language teaching, rather than a means.
- The time taken to work out a rule may be at the expense of time spent in putting the rule
to some sort of productive practice.
- Students may hypothesize the wrong rule, or their version of the rule may be either too
broad or too narrow in its application, which is especially a danger where there is no overt
testing of their hypotheses, either through practice examples, or by eliciting an explicit
statement of the rule.
- It can place heavy demands on teachers in planning a lesson. They need to select and
organize the data carefully so as to guide learners to an accurate formulation of the rule,
while also ensuring the data is intelligible.
- However carefully organized the data is, many language areas such as aspect and
modality resist easy rule formation.
- As inductive approach frustrates students who, by dint of their personal learning style of
their past learning experience (or both), would prefer simply to be told the rule.

Both deductive and inductive sequences are valuable for teaching concepts, generalizations,
processes, and skills.
- Students will usually be more involved in the learning experience and tend to participate
more actively when an inductive approach is used. If a deductive approach is chosen, it is
35
 important to structure the learning experience in order to draw on students' prior
experiences and learning, and to provide for their active involvement.
- The deductive approach is more predictable because the teacher selects the information
and the sequence of presentation. The deductive approach is faster and can be an efficient
way to teach large numbers of facts and concrete concepts. However, students tend to
understand and remember more when learning occurs inductively.

IV. HOW TO SHOW THE MEANING AND THE FORM OF NEW

STRUCTURES

1. How to present the meaning

a. Showing meaning visually
The simplest and clearest way to present a structure is often to show it directly, using things
the students can see: objects, the classroom, yourself, pictures...
Ex: This is how T presents the structure “too....to...”
T: [points to the ceiling] What’s that?
Ss: The ceiling
T: [reach up and try to touch it] Look – I’m trying to touch it. Can I touch it?
Ss: No.
T: No, I can’t. Because it is too high to touch. Too high. The ceiling is too high to touch.
(say this sentence again in L1)

Here is the second demonstration, to show how you could present the same structure using a
blackboard drawing.
T: Look at this. Is it light or heavy?
Ss: Heavy
T: Yes, it’s heavy. How heavy is it?
Ss: A hundred kilos.
T: That’s right. It’s very heavy. Could you lift it?
Ss: No
T: No, of course you can’t. It’s too heavy. It’s too heavy to lift.

36
b. Showing meaning through a situation

It is not always possible to show the meaning of a structure visually, using what is in the class.
Another way of showing meaning is to think of a situation from outside the class, in which the
structure could naturally be used. The situation can be real or imaginary.

This is a demonstration of how to use an imaginary situation to present a more advanced

structure: ‘There’s no point in.... –ing’:

T: Listen. Imagine you are with a friend. You’re going to visit your uncle, who lives
quite near. Your friend says, ‘Let’s go by bus’. What will you say? Yes or no?
Ss: No
T: Why?
Ss: Because he lives near.
T: Yes, he lives nearby. So you might say ‘We can walk there in 15 minutes’. There’s
no point in going by bus.
There’s no point in doing it. No point (say this again in L1).
There’s no point in going by bus.

Note:
 By giving several different examples, the teacher helps the class to build up a clear idea
of what the structure means and how it is used.
 After giving a few examples, the teacher can just give the situation and try to get the
students to give the example. This checks how well students have understood, and also
helps to involve the class more.

2. How to present the form

As well as making it clear how a structure is used and what it means, it is also important to
show clearly how it is formed. There are two basic ways of doing this:

a. By giving a clear model and asking students to listen and repeat two or three times. Quickly
demonstrate this, using this example ‘It’s too heavy to lift’
T: Listen. It’s too heavy to lift. It’s too heavy to lift. (gesture for repetition)
Ss: It’s too heavy to lift.
The aim of doing this is just to give students the ‘feel’ of the structure, and especially to make
them familiar with the way it sounds. It should not be continued for too long – a few

37
repetitions by the whole class, perhaps followed by one or two repetitions by individual
students.

b. By writing the structure clearly on the board. Demonstrate this by writing ‘It’s too heavy to
lift’ on the board. Say the word as you write them, and underline the ‘fixed’ part of the
structure.
Ex: It’s too heavy to lift.

c. By contrasting structures

Sometimes we need not only to present single structures, but to show the difference between
two structures; this is especially important when there is a contrast between two structures in
English which does not exist in the students’ own language. There are two basic ways of
doing this: by giving examples and by giving simple explanations.

To illustrate this, think about the structures How much? and How many?
- We could give examples to show the difference between them: how much
water/flour/money? How many eggs/books?
- We could give an explanation: ‘how many is used with countable nouns (books/eggs)and
how much is used with uncountable nouns (water/money)

3. The steps for presenting a structure

a. Presentation
i) Lead-in PROCEDURE
- Introducing the structure in contexts  Lead-in
(dialogues, readings): T writes on the  Presenting meaning & form
board 1 example from the dialogue, ss  Give other examples
find occurrences of the same pattern.  Model the examples and conduct
repetition
- Using pictures/situations
 Ask class to copy down the lesson
ii) Presenting meaning
- Show meaning visually
- Show meaning through a situation
- Show form and meaning
iii) Presenting from:
- Show examples (subject / objects, tenses, etc...) note / exception

38
b. Practice:
- The purpose is to get students to use the form accurately and fluently.
- The process should be as following, a controlled practice (mechanical practice) is held
first, then a less controlled practice (meaningful practice) is planned and following is a free
practice.

V. TYPES OF PRACTICE

1. Mechanical practice:

A drill where there is complete control of response, where there is only one correct way of
responding. Ss produce the correct FORM, not using the structure to express meaning. The
main purpose is to help students to memorise the pattern. The teacher cannot be sure that the
students understand what they say.
a. Repetition
T: Let’s play football
Ss: Let’s play football
T: Let’s go swimming
Ss: Let’s go swimming
b. Substitution
My pen is stolen by John
My TV was repaired my neighbour
My bikes are given a stranger
My were sold Jack
phones

c. Word cues
T gives word cues, Ss make up complete sentences
 5 houses/burn down/in the fire
 he/wound/in a battle
 opening speech/deliver/soon

d. Single word prompts

T: television
Ss: Let’s watch television
39
 T: radio
Ss: Let’s listen to the radio

e. Picture prompts

2. Meaningful practice:

There is still control of response although it may be correctly expressed in more than one way
and less suitable for choral repetition. Students cannot complete these drills without truly
understanding structurally and semantically what is being said. They express meaning.
Students are not focusing on meaning rather on form, on an answer which is true rather than
correct.
There are 3 possible ways of making practice more meaningful:

a. By getting students to say real things about themselves.

i) Anne likes tea but she doesn’t like ii) Say true sentences about yourself:
coffee I like tea or I don’t like tea
a. folk music/pop music What about: a. coffee?
b. walking/swimming b. pop music?
c. cats/dogs c. cats?

Comment:
The task given in 1) is completely mechanical – it can be done without thinking or
understanding what pop music is. It is also quite meaningless, and so very uninteresting
to do.

b. By giving situations which imply the structure, but leave the students to decide exactly
what to say.

i) You are a stranger. Ask about places in ii) You are a stranger. Ask about places in
40
 the town. the town.
Is there a cafe near here? You want to buy some fruit.
a. a grocer’s shop Is there a fruit stall near here?
b. a cinema a. You want to post a letter
c. a fruit stall b. You want to spend the night here

Comment:
Exercise i) is completely controlled as there is one way to respond
Exercise ii) is more meaningful as students can give several different responses.
c. By letting students add something of their own.

i) ‘Where are you going?’ ii) ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going to the station’ ‘I’m going to the station’
a. cinema ‘Why?’
b. zoo ‘Because I want to buy a train ticket’
c. river a. cinema
b. zoo
c. river

Comment:
Exercise i) is mechanical, the question is always the same to the answer and the student
merely fits the prompt into the sentence. In exercise ii), the exercise becomes
meaningful because students have to add a reason, so they must understand what they
are saying.

3. Free practice (Communicative drill)

Free practice give students the chance to use the structure to express their own ideas or to talk
about their own experiences. Two kinds of topics are useful for free oral practice:

a. We can get students to talk about real life (themselves, their friends & families, things in the world)

T: Let’s talk about the loss caused by the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean in
2014.
S1: Many people were killed
S2: Many were injured
S3: A lot of buildings along the beaches were destroyed.

41
b. We can ask students to imagine a situation which is not real.

T: Please imagine our life in the year 2020. You could think of housework,
lectures or diseases or something else and use the passive structure to express your
idea
Possible answers:
S1: Most of the housework will be done by robots.
S2: All lectures would be delivered online.
S3: Diseases could be treated on computer from a distance.

VI. THINGS TO BEAR IN MIND IN TEACHING GRAMMAR

1. Encourage students to see patterns

Whenever the teacher can guide students to the perception of a pattern, the learning load will
be lighter. On the other hand, if the student is taught that something is the pattern which in
fact is not so, he is likely to be unnecessarily confused. It is the job of textbook writers and
teachers to try to draw attention to helpful patterns and, in the modern classroom in which the
student is involved in his own learning, to help the student to discover the pattern for himself.
Here are some simple examples:

 Arrange the irregular verbs alphabetically:

feel felt felt
find found found
fly flew flown
forget forgot forgotten

 Group the verbs according to the phonological patterns

freeze froze frozen
speak spoke spoken
steal stole stolen
weave wove woven

The ability to recognize items which are similar in some way will make it easier for the
student to learn. Part of the teacher’s job is to construct and draw attention to groups which
make such similarities clear to students.

42
2. Good rules can help students.

An understanding of the nature of language rules helps teachers and students. A few teachers
still believe in prescriptive rules – rules which tell us about what ‘should’ and ‘should not’ be
possible in the language. This is a mistake. All linguists believe rules should be descriptive –
they should say how the language is used, not how it should be used.

In a similar way all linguists are agreed that it is not sufficient to divide language into ‘right’
and ‘wrong’; language is more complicated than that. Full, accurate descriptive rules will need
to describe language as standard / non-standard, appropriate / inappropriate, spoken / written,
formal / informal, etc. for many students some of these extinctions are too complicated and
too subtle, but for language teachers, all are always important. For the language teacher a
compromise need to be made between the accuracy of the rule, and its accessibility. In short, a
rule which is perfectly accurate but which students cannot understand is no help to them.
Equally important, however, is that a rule which is inaccurate, even if students can understand
it, will often at a later stage in learning lead to confusion.

Very often, language teachers are so anxious that the student will understand the ‘rule’ that
they learn towards accessibility at the expense of accuracy. Many teachers, for example, teach
the ‘rule’.
Some in positives.
Any in negatives and questions.
Such a rule is nonsense as the following examples show:
I like some pop music.
I don’t like some pop music
I like any pop music.
I don’t like any pop music.

What is the clue to the use of good rules? It is first important to understand that the rule is not
just a brief verbal description. The rule is a combination of a wide range of natural examples
and verbal description. Natural examples help students to see how the language is used; good
verbal descriptions help students to understand the significance of particular points of usage.
The examples support the explanation, the explanation supports the examples. Understanding
rules is a process, in which understanding is deepened through recycling examples and
explanation.

43
3. Understanding involves examples, explanation and practice.

Sometimes, a pattern quickly emerges from examples:

A: Have you…?
B: No, I haven’t.
A: Can you…?
B: No, I can’t.
The examples reveal the structure of B’s response. Little explanation is necessary.

Sometimes, partly because of the language itself, and partly perhaps because of mistaken
ideas introduced in the students’ early learning, explicit explanation may be much more
important. Many students believe, for example that there are two quite different kinds of
questions in English - questions with ‘do’ and questions without ‘do’. If the former are taught
first, the latter are ‘exceptions’. In fact, all questions follow the same pattern and the explicit
statement of a rule may help students to see this:

To make a question invert the order of the subject and first auxiliary; if there is no
auxiliary introduce (do) as a “dummy” auxiliary, and follow the basic rule.

The example illustrates the problem – the rule alone does not help the student, and example
alone make it difficult for student to find the rule.

Understanding is a cycle which involves each of explicit explanation, example and practice.
Each part of the cycle contributes in its own way to understanding. It is not sufficient for
students to understand intellectually; what students ‘understand’ should directly influence
their language performance. This is best achieved if teachers constantly bear in mind the
important link between explanation, example, and practice.

4. Terminology can help or hinder.

This is a complicated idea for students because terminology can confuse as much as help –
particularly if it is not introduced as a deliberate part of the teaching program. As already
discussed, understanding involves a statement of the rule, examples and practice. If the normal
terms are used, teachers must be aware of the potential confusion introduced by the
terminology. Teachers need to approach the problem stage by stage. First, give examples of
the grammar category, and then introduce the name. Check that students understand the name
by asking students to sort examples into those which belong to the category and those which

44
do not. Then ask students to divide words into category. All of this has nothing to do with
students producing language, or doing exercises. It is only ensuring that students understand,
and can use the terminology the teacher is going to use and which the students will themselves
need.

After this initial introduction of the term, the teacher should draw attention to the difficulties.
In the case of countable and uncountable nouns, this means pointing out that a noun is not
always countable or uncountable. The same noun may have a countable meaning and
uncountable meaning. Until students have grasped this, they do not have a clear idea of the
meaning of the term.

No terminology should be taught for its own sake. It should provide teachers and students
with a convenient shorthand. It can only do that if the terminology is taught and understood
before students are expected to use it. Teachers should bear two rules in mind:

a. if a term is introduced, time needs to be taken to ensure that students really

understand it, the terminology needs to be taught as part of the lesson.
b. a term should only be introduced if it is going to help the students. Terminology
introduced to show off the teacher’s knowledge, or simply because it sounds
impressive, is dishonest and counter-productive.

5. Filling in a fill-in exercise is not enough.

Fill-in exercises assume that the sentence which is given contains sufficient context to reveal
the ‘correct’ choice to be filled in. This means that elsewhere in the sentence there are clues to
the correct answer – the part to be filled in in some way collocates with other words in the
sentence. In such circumstances, it must be necessary for the student to say the whole sentence
aloud, thereby increasing the chance of the item being memorized correctly.

It is incorrect for the teacher to give the number of the question, and the student simply to say
the fill-in part, it is even worse for the teacher to read a sentence from the book and pause at
the gap while the student says one or two words (the fill-in) before the teacher finishes the
sentence.

Teachers may care to consider whether fill-in practices will be more effective if exploited
three times – orally in class, as written homework, and finally checked again orally in class.

45
The students need the practice. The teacher should say the number; the students say the
complete sentence.

Students need to practice form as well as use.

Language teaching based entirely on getting the form correct becomes meaningless and
boring, and has little to do with the real nature of language. At the same time, it is difficult to
be more communicative if your hearer cannot understand what you say!

The teaching should maintain the balance between practices which concentrate on fluency,
and those which concentrate on accuracy. On the whole, fluency practices concentrate on why
a person is speaking (function) and accuracy practices on how a message is conveyed
(structural form). A good language teaching program involves both. Students have little
difficulty in understanding that some verbs have irregular past tense forms, or how certain
questions forms are made in English. Practicing the forms - sometimes very
uncommunicatively – is a legitimate part of a well-balanced teaching program.

6. There is place for oral and written practices.

Oral practice is natural, and ensures that a wide range of structures co-occur, develops the
ability to understand and response quickly, and the ability to articulate – but it is not the whole
of language teaching. Written practices, where students have time to pause, think, and
consciously construct, also have an important place. As usual in language learning, a policy of
doing both activities rather than one or other, is best.

In general, it would be usually best for students first to do oral practices, then use written
practice for reinforcement and finally, further oral free practice.

It is worth emphasizing that oral and written practices are both useful even if the students’
main objective places the emphasis strongly on oral or written English. Clearly, the students
who need a high level in written skills require more written practice than the general students,
but in such a case, oral practice provides a valuable alternative and supportive learning
strategy. Similarly, for a student who requires a high level of oral skills, some written practice
provides useful support which cannot be gained through a purely oral approach.

7. Use ‘gimmicks’ to combat popular mistakes.

46
Some mistakes are always ‘popular’ – the third person –s, making questions, and for each
language group, certain interference mistakes which are heavily penalized in tests. In these
cases, it is usually better to combat the mistakes by some kinds of gimmicks, rather than
constantly explaining or taking a stern attitude.

Many teachers find it useful to prepare a large card containing nothing but a very large letter
S. This is kept flat on their desk and each time a student makes a third person –s mistake, the
teacher, without speaking, simply raises the card; other teachers have a large S on the wall of
their classroom and simply point to it.

‘Popular’ mistakes can demotivate students – ‘they know it is a mistake, but continue to make
it. a light-hearted method of correction of such mistakes ensures that the mistake is drawn to
the students’ attention, without depressing students unnecessarily.

8. Use beehives with large classes

One of the most effective techniques for large classes is the beehive drill. Such practices work
best in classes who are sitting in rows. A clear model is presented – either orally or on the
blackboard:
How old are you?
I’m….
The model consists of a simple two-line dialogue. Then, simultaneously, all the people sitting
in a particular line, for example, next to the windows, ask the question to their neighbor; their
neighbors answer and, without pausing, turn to their neighbors and ask the questions; these
students answer and, without pausing, pass the question on.

In this way, six or seven pairs are involved at any one time and the whole class is involved in
saying something (two sentences each) in a practice which lasts less than half a minute.

On the other occasions the practice starts from the opposite side of the room or from the front
or back of the classroom with the question being passed on to the student immediately behind
or in front.

Such practices are only effective if the two-line dialogue is simple, and the model clear. The
first time they are done they are often chaotic but as soon as the class has the idea of how such
practice works it is sufficient for the teacher to present the model and then say simply: beehive
practice starting, here (pointing).

47
The name of such practice is, of course, based on the fact that the bees in the hive work at the
same time. It is a model which is very appropriate for the language classroom!

9. Most of language games are structure practices.

It is characteristic of language games that the same formula is constantly repeated. That is
precisely the same characteristic that is shown by structure practices.

A simple game like hangman is easily converted into a useful structure practice.

Game: Hangman

Each dash represents a letter; as letters are guessed, successful guesses are filled in, and for
each unsuccessful guess part of the hanging scene is drawn. If the scene is completed before
the word, the game is lost. The game is often used to help teach the alphabet. It can, however,
be simply adapted to a very useful practice of there. Students use this formula:
Is there a (p) in it?
No, there isn’t. / Yes, there is.
There’s a (p) here.
There are two, here and here.
Instead of just calling out letters, the game has the extra rule that students must use the Is
there…? formula in their questions.

Teacher working with school classes often think that ‘games’ can only be used for a few
minutes at the end of a lesson, or occasionally on Friday afternoons. Almost all language
games, with very little preparation from the teacher, can be turned into very lively and
effective structure practices. . Needless to say, most students, particularly in schools, would
rather play a game than do a grammar practice. Teacher should remember that if the students
48
are enjoying what they are doing, and it has an underlying serious language teaching purpose,
it is more likely to be effective than a more conventional practice.

10. Free situations are important.

Most language lessons develop from controlled to free practice. Teachers like to be in control
of their lessons and therefore, like controlled practice. The lesson moves smoothly, can be
timed carefully, and gives an impression of efficiency. Unfortunately, there is a big gap
between controlled practice and natural language use. Natural language use involves not only
knowledge of the language, but social skills, self-confidence, the ability to improvise, etc.
controlled practice is nothing more than a first step in the teaching sequence. The free practice
part of the lesson is, by definition, the part over which the teacher has least control. The
students have more chance to make mistakes, to show that they have not learned, and to show
that even if they can do controlled practice, they have not yet developed the ability to use the
language. Such practices – situations, dialogue building, information gap-based pair work,
discussion or writing about the students’ own interests, are an essential part of the learning
process. Such practices develop the whole range of skills which are required for effective
natural language use. In doing them, teachers must encourage such skills, and not concentrate
only on accurate structural knowledge. At the same time teachers should remember that these
are still classroom practices. Neither the teachers nor the students should expect too much.
They are an important step in the complex process which leads from structural accuracy to
spontaneous fluency.

49
APPENDIX

50
 APPENDIX A: SUGGESTED TEMPLATE FOR TEACHING
PRONUNCIATION
Date of preparation: GROUP ….
Date of teaching: 1. ……………………………………………………
Class: 2. ……………………………………………………
Lecturer’s remark: 3. ……………………………………………………
4. ……………………………………………………
5. ……………………………………………………
6. …………………………………………………….

LESSON PLAN
Unit 2: LANGUAGE FOCUS (page ….)
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION
1. SOUND(S) TO BE TAUGHT:
Sounds Single words Sentences

2. TEACHING STEPS / PROCEDURES: (10-12 minutes)

Steps / Time Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Content

3. FEEDBACK:
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
……...

51
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
APPENDIX B: SUGGESTED TEMPLATE FOR TEACHING
VOCABULARY

52
Date of preparation: GROUP ….
Date of teaching: 1. ………………………………………………
Class: 2. ………………………………………………
Lecturer’s remark: 3. ………………………………………………
4. ………………………………………………
5. ………………………………………………
6. ……………………………………………….

LESSON PLAN
Unit 2: …………………………….. (READ / p….)
TEACHING VOCABULARY
1. WORDS TO BE TAUGHT:
Words to be taught Techniques Example / Explanation
1.
2.
3.
4.

2. TEACHING STEPS / PROCEDURES: (10-12 minutes)

Steps / Time Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Content

3. FEEDBACK:
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………….

APPENDIX C: SUGGESTED TEMPLATE FOR TEACHING

GRAMMAR
53
Date of preparation: GROUP ….
Date of teaching: 1. ………………………………………………
Class: 2. ………………………………………………
Lecturer’s remark: 3. ………………………………………………
4. ………………………………………………
5. ………………………………………………
6. ………………………………………………

LESSON PLAN
Unit 2: LANGUAGE FOCUS (page ….)
TEACHING GRAMMAR
1. GRAMMAR POINT(S) TO BE TAUGHT:
Grammar point(s) Approach (Deductive / Inductive) Exercise(s)

2. TEACHING STEPS / PROCEDURES: (10-12 minutes)

Steps / Time Teacher’s activities Students’ activities Content

3. FEEDBACK:
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………

54
 REFERENCES
Baker, J. & Westrup, H., (2000), The English Language Teacher’s Handbook. Continuum

Brown, H. D., (1994), Teaching by Principles - An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy.

Prentice Hall Regent

Cameron, L., (2001), Teaching Languages to Young Learners. CUP

Doff, A., (1998), Teach English: Trainer’s handbook. New York. CUP

Falla, T. & A Davies, P., (2009), Solutions- Intermediate, OUP

Harmer, J., (1998), How to Teach English – An Introduction to the Practice of English Language
Teaching, Essex, Longman

Harmer, J., (2001), The Practice of English Language Teaching. England. Longman

Heaton, J.B., (1990), Writing English Language Tests. New York. Longman

Lan, V.T., (2006), Language Teaching Methodology, Saigon University

Lợi, N. V., (2000). Tiếng Anh 6, 7, 8, 9 – sách giáo khoa và sách giáo viên. Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục.

Oxenden, C. & Latham-Koenig C., (2008). New English File- Intermediate, OUP

Scrivener, J. , (2005), Learning Teaching. Macmillan.

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., Williams, M., (2011), The T.K.T Course. CUP

Ur, P., (1996), A course in language teaching, Cambridge: CUP

www.teachingenglish.edu.vn

Vân, H. V., (2006), Tiếng Anh 10, 11, Nhà xuất bản Giáo Dục

Vân, H. V., (2008), Hướng dẫn thực hiện thực hiện chương trình, sách giáo khoa lớp 12 môn Tiếng
An,. Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục

55