teaching language skill

I.TEACHING LISTENING

1.     What Is Teaching Listening?

Listening is one of the receptive skills and as such it involves students in capturing and understanding the input of English.Listening is probably more difficult than reading because students often recognize the written words more easily than they recognize the spoken word.

                        Because of these issues,many students find listening difficult.Listening tasks can be very disheartening and demotivating,especially if students have had a previous negative experience.It is therefore important to give our students plenty of opportunities to practise the skill of listening in a supportive environment that helps them to learn.

2.     The Skills And Subskills Of Listening.

1.Listening for gist

This is were somebody listens in order to get the main idea of what is being said without focusing on specific details and without hesitating over unknown words.

Remember that wit gist listening,the aim is to practice listening,not to study language.Of course,we can follow up the gist listening phase with other activities that help develop language skills.

2.Extensive listening               

This involves students listening for long period and usually for pleasure.If a student chooses to watch a film in English or to listen to recording of a novel being read,this would be sextensive listening.This type of listening is rarely practiced in the classroom.We tend to assign tasks rather than allowing students to simply listening.

3.Listening for specific information

This is where we listen to specific information and disregard the rest.When the news was on the television,it was generally running as background noise.We stopped whatever we was doing and listened to the news.

4.Listening for detiled information

This is the type of listening you engage in when listening to announcement in a railway or when listening to directions in a street.We are listening intensively in order to understand all information given.

5.Predicting

When we are listening in our mother tongue,we are constantly predicting what is going to come next.This action of predicting helps us understand the thread of the discourse.Start encouraging our student to predict,we can even do this at low levels.

3.A Template For A Listening Activity Lesson

They are:

            1.Introduce the topic of the recording and arouse students interest in it.

            2.Pre-teach any difficult language.

            3.Set a task to be completed during the first listening

            4.Give students a task to complete while they are listening again.

            5.If necessary,play the recording again.

            6.After listening,do some oral work and/or language work linked to the recording.

            7.We can also,choose some language items as a focus.

            8.Guessing words from context is also a useful language exercise after a listening

               activity.

II.TEACHING SPEAKING

1.What Is Teaching Speaking?

Speaking is one of the most difficult aspects for students to master .This is hardly surprising when one considers everything that is involved whwn speaking:ideas,what to say,language,how to use grammar and vocabulary.We can achieve this by:

a.      Setting controlled speaking tasks and moving gradually towards free speaking tasks

b.     Setting tasks that are at the right level for the students or at a level lower than their receptive skills

c.      Setting tasks that are easily achievable and gradually moving toward more challenging tasks

d.     Praising students efforts

e.      Using error correction sensitively

f.      Creating an atmosphere where student don’t laugh at other people’s efforts

2.Three Key Elements On Speaking Activities

1.     Language

When planning any speaking activity with students,analyze carefully the language

they will be using to carry out the activity.Of course we can work on the language in one lesson and review it very quickly in the following lesson before doing the speaking work.

2.     Preparation

Preparation is vital as it will help srudents to speak more easily.One aspect of preparation is warning students up to the subject matter.If they are to communicate well,it’s important to engage them in the topic.This can be done by checking their prior knowledge and experience of the topic.It’s also important to give students time to prepare what they are going to say and how they are going to say it.

3..Reason for speaking

a)     Speaking activities provide rehearsal opportunities

b)     Speaking tasks in which students try to use any or all languages they know provide feedback for both teaching and students

c)     The more students have opportunities to activate the various elements of language have stored in their brains,the more automatic their use of these elements become.

3.Types Of Speaking

a)     Information gap

b)     Discussions:reaching a consensus

c)     Discussions:moral dilemma

d)     Discussions involving opinions

e)     Debates

f)      Role play

g)     Problem solving:reorganizing the zoo

h)     Discussions about job

i)      Discussions based on pictures

j)      Topic prompts

III.TEACHING READING

1.What Is Teaching Reading?

           Reading is considered by many to be neglected aspect of language teaching.However,it is essential for students to practice the skills of reading .They need to be introduced to and given opportunities to practice various sub skills.There is great choise of texts for use in class:apart from textbooks other TEFL resource books,we can take texts from magazine,newspapers,the internet,brochures,menus.The opportunities are endless.

2.Reading Skills And Sub-Skills

          1.Reading for gist

        This involves reading to get the main message of the text,it doesn’t involve studying every word.

      2.Reading to extract detailed information

      Here students read to understand certain of the text thoroughly.

      3.Reading to extract specific information

        This involves passing over a text to gather specific information.We look over a text to get the information that interest us.

      4.Predicting

      As competent readers we are constantly predicting what will come next.

   5.Extensive reading

      This involves lengthly reading,often for pleasure.If curl up on the sofa a favorite novel,we are engaging in extensive reading.

3.Template for a reading skills lesson

1)     Start by awakening students interest in the topic.

2)     Pre-teach unfamiliar vocabulary that will affect the students understanding of the text.

3)     Set a task that will practice reading for gist.

4)     Set some question that will practice reading for specific or detailed information.

5)     After feedback on the second of the reading tasks,there are 4 related activities you can do;these are outlined below.

a.      You can spend some time satisfying the students natural desire to want to understand everything in the text.

b.     You can study language work arising from the text.

c.      You can do a related speaking activity.

d.     You can encourage the students the deduce meanings from the text.

IV .TEACHING WRITING

1.What Is Teaching Writing?

     Writing is a productive skill and as such,the way we treat it in class has some similiarities with the teaching and learning of speaking.The focus of this will be longer written assignments and creative writing,we will not cover written exercises that are designed to practice a language point.

2.The Key Elements to Consider In The Teaching Writing

1)     Language

It is essential to make sure that your students have the level of English required to do the task.Analize any tasks for language required before deciding whether to use it in class.

2)     Time for preparation

Allow students time to prepare their ideas;they can do this individually,in pairs or in groups.

3)     Reason for writing

There are many reasons for getting students to write,both in and outside class.

Firstly,writing give them more’thinking time’ than they get when they attempt spontaneous conversation.another kind of writing for learning occurs when we have student write sentences in a preparation for some other activity.

3.Types Of Writing Activities

a.      Creating interest in the topic and activating students knowledge

b.     Coherence and cohesion

c.      Publication

d.     Shorter writing a activities

e.      Using computers

f.      Penpals

4.Approaches to Teaching Writing

a.      Process writing

b.     The genre approach to writing

V .TEACHING GRAMMAR

1.What Is Teaching Grammar And Function?

                        Although it is recognize that people learn language in different ways,it seems that many people can learn language more easily if they can perceive regularties or patterns.Many of the patterns that learn are particular grammatical items,verb forms such as the past simple,modal verbs such as will or could,particular combinations such as the first conditional.

               Many coursebooks aim to have and integrated syllabus-one which combines certain grammatical structures with the function thought most useful for students at a particular level.

2.Aspects Of a Grammar

1.The form

·       The part of speech

·       A regular or iregular

·       The spelling

·       The pronounciation

·       The word order and whether the item is followed by any particular words or structures

2.The meaning

            The exact meaning structure we are concentrating on.This is particulary important to consider if a structure can be used to perform more than one function.

            3.The use

                                    The structure widely used in a range of contexts and situations or does it has a more restricted.

            4.Potential problens

·       There any special difficulties related to the structure

·       The language strucuture can be confused with any other item in english

3.What Approaches Can Be Used to Present or Revise Language Structures?

One of the ways in which the approaches differ is in the amount and type of practice activites used.

It’s also important to remember that a variety of approach is interesting and motivating for students-so it’s o good iden to try to vary the ways we present and practise language.They are:

· Visual/oral context

· Texts

· Short dialoques

· Giving or working out the “rule”

· Test-teach-test

· Students based research

· Inductive and deductive approaches

4.How Can We Check Students Have Understood What Is Being Presented?

            They are:

·       Visuals

·       Concept questions

·       Translation

VI.TEACHING VOCABULARY

1.What Is Teaching Vocabulary?

                                    Vocabulary is important to students.It is more important than grammar for communication purposes,particularly in the early stages when students are motivated to learn the basic words they need to get by in the language.So more advanced students are motivated to add to their vocabulary stock,to understand nuances of meaning,to become more profocient in their own choise of words and expressions.

2.What Make a Vocabulary Item Easy or Difficult?

1)     Similiarity

2)     Connotation

3)     Spelling and pronunciation

4)     Multi-word items

5)     Collocatian

6)     Appropriate use

3.What Aspect Of a vocabulary?

            1.The form

·       What part of speech is the word?

·       How is it spelled?

·       Does it belong to a “family”words?

·       How is the word?

·       How does the word collocate with surrounding words?

            2.The meaning

·       Many words have more than one meaning

·       What is the connotation of the item?

·       Could the vocabulary item have different meanings for different people?

            3.The use

·       How is the vocabulary item used?

·       Does it has a restricted use?

4.Presenting,Practising and Revising Vocabulary

            They are:

·       Presenting a vocabulary set via a visual/oral context

·       Vocabulary in texts

·       Test-teach-test

·       Recyling

5.Conveying Meaning and Checking Uderstanding

            They are:

·       Realia and visuals

·       Mime and gesture

·       Give example

·       Explanation or definition

·       Translation

·       Concept questions

6.Devoloping students skills and strategies

            Ways the teacher can foster this independence both in and out of the classroom include:

·       Encouraging strategies for dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary in the texts

·       Developing reference skills

·       Encouraging the use of vocabulary records

·       Demonstrating and discusing ways of memorizing vocabulary

·       Giving choice

·       Helping learnes devise their own revision plan for reviewing and learning vocabulary

VII.TEACHING PRONOUNCIATION

1.What Is Teaching Pronounciation and What Aspects?

  Pronounciation is way in which a language or a particular word or sounds is spoken.Work on pronouciation is important for two main reasons:

1.     To help students understand the spoken english they hear

2.     To help them make their own speech more comprehensible and meaningful to other.

While aspects are stress in new words,contractions and weak forms,and intonations.We should focus on pronounciation by raising awareness and focusing on how things are said.

2.The Elements Go to Make Up Pronunciation

            1.Individual sounds

            We can indicate individual sounds,like:

a.      Mouthing the word

b.     Using gesture

c.      Emphasizing the syllable containing the sound

d.     Finger indication

e.      Visuals

f.      Hands

g.     Phonetic or ponemic symbols(by vowel sounds,diphtong sounds,consonants and clusters

            2.Word stress

            Indicating stress in word based on:

a.      ‘where’s the stress?

b.     By overstressing

c.      By gesture

d.     By using quisenaire rods

e.      By making marks on the board

            3.Sounds in conected speech

                   In spoken sentences or utterances certain changes take place to some of the sounds as words are said at normal speed and linked together to make connected speech.

            4.Rythm and stress in utterances

                   Its indicating by oversressing,gesture(this is particularly useful to indicate the rhythm),cuisenaire rods and marking on the board

            5.Intonation

                        It is pattern of rise and fall in the level of voice,which often adds meaning to what is being said.Idcicating of intonations:

a.      By exaggeration

b.     By gesture

c.      By making marks on the board

3.Pronunciation and Spelling

         We know that spelling is ability to spell or action for spelling or  way in which a word is spelt.In spelling we can know how to spell the alphabet or letters one by one.

VIII.TESTS

1.How About The Tests?

Tests which are designed to measure an explicit set of objectives are called criterion-referenced tests.This type of testing is important to:

·       Test and evalute students’ progress,and

·       To provide information about the effectiveness of the materials to the instructur

The result of criterion referenced test indicate to the instructur exactly how well students were able to achive each instructional objective.Thus,criterion-referenced testing is a critical feature of almost every instructional design model

2.Types of Criterion-Referenced Tests

            There are basically four types of test which the instructor may utilize in a modul:

·       Entry-behaviors test

This is a criterion-referenced designed to measure skills which the instructor has identified as being critical to beginning the instructional materials.

·       Pretest

It is criterion-referenced test to objectives which the designer intends to teach in the module

·       Posttest

This criterion-refernced test is parallel to and sometimes identical to the pretest.Like the pretest,it measures objectives taught in the instructional program

·       Embedded test

This is not necessarily a single test,but rather represents clusters of criterion-refenced test items which are interpersed through out the module.

3.Designing a Test

            Objectives designing a test based on:

1.     Objctives in the cognitive(intellectual)

2.     Objctives in the affective(attitude/social)

3.     Objctives in the psychomotor(to practice or demonstration)

4.Writing Test Items

         It goes without saying that regardless of the type of learning that is involved in the objective,appropriate test writing techniques should be applied to the development of citerion-referenced test.This is the top types of test items that can be used to evaluate students performance for each type of behaviour.

	Type of test items
Type of behaviour fromobjetive	Easy	Fill in the blank	completion	Multiple choice	matching	True/false	Free response
State	x	x	x
Identify	x	x	x	x
discuss	x		x
Define	x	x	x
Select				x	x	x
discriminate				x	x	x
solve	x	x	x	x		x	x
develop	x		x				x
locate	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
construct	x	x	x				x
generate	x		x				x

5.Three Basic Differences between norm-referenced test and criterion-referenced test.

            They are:

1.     Test development

2.     Assesment of student performance

3.     Testing purposes