UNIT 1

Approaches and Methods

Introduction

 Changes in language teaching methods throughout history have reflected recognition of

changes in the kind of proficiency learners need, such as a move toward oral proficiency
rather than reading comprehension as the goal of language study; they have also reflected
changes in theories of the nature of language and of language learning.

 Some 60 percent of today’s world population is multilingual. English is the world’s most
widely studied foreign language, 500 years ago it was Latin. However, in the sixteenth
century, French, Italian and English became more important as a result of political changes
in Europe.

 The study of classical Latin became the model for foreign language study from the
seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Children entering “grammar school” learned grammar
through rote learning of grammar rules, study of declensions and conjugations, translation
and practice in writing sample sentences. Once basic proficiency was established, students
were introduced to the advanced study of grammar and rhetoric.

 Modern languages began to enter the curriculum of European schools in the eighteenth
century. They were taught using the same basic procedures that were used for teaching
Latin. Textbooks consisted of statements of abstract grammar rules, lists of vocabulary, and
sentences for translation. Speaking the foreign language was not the goal, and oral practice
was limited to students reading aloud the sentences they had translated. These sentences
illustrated the grammatical system of the language and bore no relation to the language of
real communication.

 By the nineteenth century, this approach based on the study of Latin had become the
standard way of studying foreign languages at school A typical textbook consisted of
chapters or lessons organized around grammar points Each grammar point was listed, rules
were explained and it was illustrated by sample sentences.

 Textbooks were determined to codify the foreign language into frozen rules of morphology
and syntax to be explained and eventually memorized. Oral work was reduced while written
exercises came as a sort of appendix to the rules. The immediate aim was for the student to
apply the given rules by means of appropriate exercises.

 This approach to foreign language teaching became known as the Grammar-Translation

Method.

Traditional Methods

The Grammar – Translation Method

Background

 The main exponents of this method are Johann Seidenstucker, Karl Plotz, H. S. Ollendorf,
and Joahann Meidinger.

 Grammar translation was the offspring of German schoolarship, which object was to know
everything about something rather than the thing itself.

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  Grammar Translation was first known in the United States as the Prussian Method.

 It is also called Classical Method since it was first used in the teaching of classical
languages, Latin and Greek. This method was used to help students read and appreciate
foreign language literature and to help them grow intellectually. (Larsen - Freeman)

 Grammar Translation dominated European and foreign language teaching from the 1840s to
the 1940s. It is still used in situations where understanding of literary texts is the primary
focus of foreign language study and there is little need for a speaking knowledge of the
language.

 This method has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no theory. There is no
literature that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory.

Principal characteristics

1. The goal of foreign language study is to learn a language in order to read its literature or
to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result from foreign
language study. In other words, to develop mental discipline essential to strengthen the
powers pf the mind. The Grammar Translation approaches the language through
detailed analysis of its grammar rules, followed by translating sentences and text into
and out of the target language. It views language as more than memorizing rules and
facts in order to understand and manipulate the morphology and syntax of the target
language.

2. Reading and writing are the major focus; little attention is paid to speaking or listening.
Vocabulary and grammar are emphasized.

3. Vocabulary selection is based only on the reading texts used. Words are taught through
bilingual word lists, dictionary study, and memorization.

4. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice. Much of the lesson is
devoted to translating sentences in and out of the target language.

5. Accuracy is emphasized. Students are expected to attain high standards in translation.

6. Grammar is taught deductively, that is, by presentation and study of grammar rules,
which are then practiced through translation exercises.

7. The students’ native language is the medium of instruction. It is used to explain new
items and to enable comparisons to be made between the foreign language and the
students’ native language.

Objectives

 To develop logical thinking.

 To develop intellectual capacities and to have a generally educational and civilizing effect.
 To develop the ability to read original texts in the languages concerned.
 To improve the standard of learners’ first language.

Principles

 A fundamental purpose of leaning a foreign language is to be able to read its literature.

Literary language is superior to spoken language. Students’ study of the foreign language is
limited to its literature and fine arts.

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  An important goal is for students to be able to translate each language into the other.

 The ability to communicate in the target language is not a goal of foreign language
instruction. The teacher and the students use their native language.

 The primary skills to be developed are reading and writing. Littl attention is giving to listening
or speaking, and almost none to ponounciation.

 It is imposible to find native language equivalents for all target language words.

 Learning is facilitated through attention to similarities between the target and the native
language.

 Deductive apllication of an explicit grammar rule is a useful pedagogical technique

 Language learning provides good mental exercise since students memorize vocabulary.

 Whenerver possible, verb conjugations and other grammatical paradigms should be

commited to memory.

 The language that is used in class is mainly the students’ native language.

 Evaluation: to translate texts from the native language to the target language or vice versa.
Questions about the foreign culture or questions that ask students to aplly grammar rules.

Teacher roles

 The role of the teacher is very traditional. She is the authority in the classroom. The students
do as she says so they can learn what she knows.

 Most of the interaction in the classroom is from the teacher to the students. There is little
students initiation and little student-student interaction.

 Students should get the correct answers. But if they make errors or do not know an answer,
the teacher supllies them with the correct answer.

Learner roles

 Students should be conscious of the grammatical rules of the target language.

 They should be able to read literature written in the target language. They should also learn
the grammar rules and vocabulary of the target language.

 They should be able to translate from one language to the other.

 They study grammar deductively: they are given the grammar rules and examples, they are
told to memorize them, and then apply them and give other examples. They also learn verb
conjugations, and memorize equivalents for foreign language vocabulary words.

The Grammar Translation method involves

 Grammar explanation on the personal pronouns

 Discrepancies between English and German usage
 A “fill in the blank” exercise
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  Translation of some sentences
 Translation of a text
 Emphasis on written language at the expense of speech
 Graded grammatical syllabus which does not guarantee language use
 Language as a stock of potential sentences
 Sentences which are unnatural, stilted, remote from reality
 Too much emphasis on memorization of grammar rules and vocabulary
 Interaction from teacher to students and students to teacher
 Translation that requires a very good knowledge of noth languages

Greatest asset and greatest drawback

 To achieve “correct” grammar with little regard for the free aplication and production of
speech. Good for left-brained students who respond well to rules, structure and correction,
the grammar-translation method can provide a challenging and even intriguing classroom
environment.

Remodernizing the classical method: using GTM in the EFL classroom:

o Consider the text, not the sentence, as the unit of analysis

o Select the text as TAVI (text as vehicle of information), not as TALO (text as a linguistic
object)
o Formulate achievable objectives
o Design activities compatible to those objectives

The Direct Method

Background

 Sauveur developed the Natural Method, in which he emphasized intensive oral interaction in
the target language, employing questions as a way of presenting and eliciting language.

 Foreign language could be taught without translation or use of the students’ native language
if meaning was conveyed directly through demonstration and action: a language could be
best taught by using it actively in the classroom. Rather than focus on grammar rules,
teachers must encourage direct and spontaneous use of the foreign language. Learners
would then be able to induce grammar rules.

 The teacher replaced the textbook in the early stages of learning. Speaking began with
systematic attention to pronunciation. Known words could be used to teach new vocabulary,
using mime, demonstration, and pictures.

These natural language learning principles provided the foundation for

what came to be known as Direct Method

 The Direct Method was introduced in France and Germany. It became widely known in the
United States through its used in commercial language schools.

 The Direct Method was revived as a method when the goal of instruction became learning
how to use a foreign language to communicate. Since the Grammar Translation Method was
not very effective to accomplish this goal, the Direct Method became popular.
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  Why Direct Method? Because meaning is connected directly with the target language,
without going through the process of translating into the students’ native language.

Characteristics

1. Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language.

2. Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught.
3. Oral communication skills were built up around question and answer exchanges between
teachers and students in small, intensive classes.
4. Grammar was taught inductively.
5. New teaching points were introduced orally.
6. Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract
vocabulary was taught through association of ideas.
7. Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.
8. Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized.

So ....

o Never translate: demonstrate

o Never explain: act
o Never make a speech: ask questions
o Never imitate mistakes: correct
o Never speak with single words: use sentences
o Never speak too much: make students speak much
o Never use the book: use your lesson plan
o Never jump around: follow your plan
o Never go too fast: keep the pace of the students
o Never speak too slowly: speak normally
o Never speak too quickly and loudly: speak naturally
o Never be patient: take it easy

 The Direct Method was quite successful in private language schools, but it was difficult to
implement in public seconday school education since it distorted the similarities between
naturalistic first language learning and classroom foreign language learning and failed to
consider the practical realities in the classroom

Drawbacks

 It required teachers who were native speakers or who had native-like fluency in the foreign
language.

 It was largely dependent on the teacher’s skill, rather than on a textbook.

 It was counterproductive since teachers were required to go to great lenghts to avoid using
the native language, when sometines a simple, brief explanation in the students’ native
language would have been more comprehensible.

Principles

1. Reading in the target language should be taught from the beginning of language instruction;
however, the reading skill will be developed through practice with speaking.

2. Objects present in the classroom should be used to help students understand the meaning.
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 3. The native language should not be used in the classroom.

4. The teacher should demonstrate, not explain or translate. Students should make a direct
association between the target language and meaning.

5. Students should learn to think in the target language as soon as possible. Vocabulary is
acquired naturally if students use it in full sentences, rather than memorizaing word lists.

6. The purpose of language learning is communication. That is why students need to learn how
to ask and answer questions.

7. Pronunciation should be worked from the beginning of language instruction.

8. Self-correction facilitates language learning. The teacher corrects a grammar error by asking
students to make a choice.

9. Lessons should contain some conversational activities, some opportunities for students to
use language in real contexts. They should be encouraged to speak as much as possible.

10. Grammar should be taught inductively. There is no explicit grammar rule given.

11. Writing is an important skill. It should be developed from the beginning.

12. Learning another language also involves how speakers of that language live.

13. The syllabus is based on situations (language that people use at a bank, language that the
use when going shopping) or topics ( geography, money, whether), not usually on linguistic
structures.

14. Language is primarily spoken, not written. Therefore, students study common, everyday
speech in the target language. They also study culture, geography and information about the
daily lives of the speakers of the language.

15. Vocabulary is emphasized over grammar. Although the four skills are developed from the
first day, oral communication is seen as basic. Reading and writing are based on what the
students practice orally first. Pronunciation also receives attention from the beginning.

Teacher roles

 Teachers must encourage direct and spontaneous use of the foreign language.

 Although the teacher directs the class activities, the teacher and the students are like partners
in the teaching/learning process.

 The teacher should not translate, she should demonstrate.

 The teacher should get students to self-correct their errors.

Learner roles

 Students should learn how to communicate in the target language. They should learn to
think in the target language.

 The student role is less passive than in the Grammar Translation Method. The students
interact more. They should be encouraged to communicate as much as possible.

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  They should learn to associate meaning and the target language directly: when the tecaher
introduces a new target language word or phrase, she demonstrates its meaning through the
use of relia, pictures, pantomime.

 Students speak in the target language a great deal and they communicate as if they were in
real situations. They converse with one another.

 Students are asked to use the language, not to demonstrate their knowledge about the
language. They are asked to do so using both oral and written skills. The students might be
interviewed orally by the teacher or might be asked to write a paragraph about something
they have studied.

Alternative Approaches

The Silent Way

Background

 It’s a method devised by Caleb Gattegno. It’s based on the premise that the teacher should
be silent as much as possible in the classroom, but the learner should be encouraged to
produce as much language as possible.

 Language acquisition must be a procedure whereby people use their own thinking process,
or cognition, to discover the rules of the language they are acquiring. The emphasis on
human cognition led to the name “cognitive code.” The Silent Way shares some principles
with the cognitive code. For example, one the the basic principles of the Silent way is that
teaching should be subordinated to learning.

 There are three important learning hypotheses:

1) Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers or

repeats what is to be learned.

The Silent way views learning as a problem solving, creative, discovering activity,
in which the learner is a principal actor rather than a bench-bound listener.

2) Learning is facilitated by accompanying (mediating) physical objects.

The rods and the colour-coded pronunciation charts (called Fidel charts) provide
physical foci for student learning and also create memorable images to facilitate
students recall. These visual devices serve as associative mediators for student
learning and recall.

3) Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the material to be learned.

The Silent Way is related to a set of premises that we have called “problem-
solving approaches to learning” Benjamin Franklin represent these premises
in these words: “ Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me
and I learn.”

Theory of Language

 Gattegno emphasizes the importance of grasping the “spirit” of the language, and not just its
component forms. By “spirit” Gattegno is reffering to the way language is composed of

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 phonological and suprasegmental elements that combine to give language its unique sound
system and melody.

 Structural view: The sentence is the basic unit of teaching, and the teacher focuses on
propositional meaning, rather tan communicative value. Students are presented with the
structural patterns of the target language and learn the grammar rules of the language
through inductive processes.

 Vocabulary is a central dimension of language learning and the choice of vocabulary is

crucial. The most important vocabulary deals with the most functional and versatile (with
many different uses) words of the language, many of which may not have direct equivalents
in the learner’s native language. This “functional vocabulary” provides a key to
comprehending the “spirit” of language.

Theory of Learning

 Gattegno recommends that the learner should return to the state of mind that characterizes
a baby’s learning – surrender.

 He states that the process of learning a second language is “radically different” from those
involved in learning a first language. The second language learner cannot learn another
language in the same way because of what he now knows.

 Gattegno proposes an “artificial approach” that is based on the premise that successful
learning involves commitment of the self to language acquisition through the use of silent
awareness and then active trial.

 He emphasizes the primacy of learning over teaching, places a focus on the self of the
learner, on the learner’s priorities and commitments.

 Silence is considered the best vehicle for learning, because in silence students concentrate
on the task to be accomplished and the potential means to its accomplishment. Silence, as
avoidance of repetition, is an aid to alterness, concentration, and mental organization.

 Awareness is educable. The Silent Way facilitates “learning to learn.” Learners acquire
“inner criteria” which allows them to monitor and self-correct their production.

Objectives

 The general objective is to give beginning-level students oral and aural facility in basic
elements of the target language.

 The general goals are to become highly independent and experimental learners and develop
one own’s criteria for correctness, to achieve near-native fluency in the target lanaguage, to
acquire correct pronunciation, and to master the prosodic elements in the target lanaguage.

 The immediate objective is to provide the learner with the basic practical knowledge of the
grammar.

 At an elementary level, students should be able to:

 Correctly and easily answer questions about themselves, their education, their
family, travel and daily events.
 Speak with a good accent.
 Give a written or oral description of a picture

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  Answer general questions about the culture and the literature of the native speakers
of the target language.
 Perform adequately in spelling, grammar (production rather than explanation),
reading cmprehension and writing.

The syllabus

 The Silent Way adopts a structural syllabus, with lessons planned around grammatical items
and related vocabulary.

 Language items are introduced according to their grammatical complexity, their relationship
to what has been taught previously, and the ease with which items can be presented
visually.

 The structures of the syllabus are not arranged in a linear fashion, but are constantly being
recycled. The syllabus develops according to the learners needs.

Types of learning and teaching activities

 Learning tasks and activities have the function of encouraging and shaping student oral
response without direct oral instruction from or unnecessary modeling by the teacher.

 Charts, rods, and other aids may be used to elicit learner responses. Teacher modeling is
minimal, although much of the activity may be teacher.directed.

 Responses to commands, questions, and visual cues constitute the basis for classroom
activities.

Learner roles

 Learners are expected to develop independence, autonomy and responsability.

 Independent learners are those who are aware that they must depend on their own
resources and realize that they can use the knowledge of their own language to open up
some things in the new language.

 The absence of correction and repeated modeling from the teacher requires the students to
develop “inner criteria” and to correct themselves.

 The absence of explanations requires learners to make generalizations, come to their own
conclusions, and formulate rules.

 Learners have only themselves and the group to rely on, so they must learn to work
cooperatively rather than competitively. They must feel comfortable both correcting one
another and being corrected by one another.

Teacher roles

 Teacher silence is the most demanding aspect of the Silent Way. She is still very active,
however.

 She is a technician or enginner. Only the learner can do the learning, but the teacher can
give what help is necessary.

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  Teachers should resist their commitment to model, remodel, assist, and direct desired
student responses. According to Stevick, teachers’ tasks are to teach, to test and to get out
of the way.

 Teachers present an item once, using nonverbal clues to get across meanings. Testing
follows immediately. Elicitation and shaping of students production is done in as silent way
as possible. Finally, the teacher silently monitors learners’ interactions with each other and
may even leave the room while students struggle with their new linguistic tools.

 The teacher uses gestures, charts, and manipulatives in order to elicit and shape student
responses and so must be both facile and creative as a pantomimist and puppeteer.

The role of instructional materials

 Materials consist mainly of a set of colored rods, color-coded pronunciation and vocabulary
word charts, a pointer and reading/writing exercises, all of which are used to illustrate the
relationships between sound and meaning in the target language.

 The pronunciation charts (Fidels) contain symbols in the target language for all of the vowel
and consonant sounds of the language. The symbols are color-coded according to
pronunciation.

 The colored Cuisenaire rods are used to directly link words and structures with their
meanings in the target language, avoiding translation into the native language. The rods
may be used for naming colors, for size comparisons, to represent people, build floor plans,
constitute a rod map, and so on.
 Use of the rods is intended to promote inventiveness, creativity, and interest in forming
communicative utterances on the part of the students, as they move from simple to more
complex structures.

Important points:

 The teacher should start with something the students already know and built from that to the
unknown.

 Language learners are intelligent and bring with them the experience of learning a language.

 Language is not learned by repeating after a model. Students need to develop their own
“inner criteria” for correctness. They should be responsible for their own production in the
target language.

 Students should learn to rely on each other and themselves.

 The teacher works with the students while the students work on the language.

 The teacher makes use of what the students already know

 Learning involves transferring what one knows to new contexts.

 Silence is a tool. It helps to foster autonomy. It also removes the teacher from the center of
attention. The teacher’s silence encourages group cooperation.

 Meaning is made clear by focusing on students’ perceptions, not through translation.

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  Errors are important and necessary to learning. They show the teacher where things are
unclear.

 At the beginning, the teacher needs to look for progress, not perfection. Learning takes
place in time. Students learn at different rates.

 Student attention is a key to learning. Students must give the teacher their attention in order
not to miss what he says.

 Students gain autonomy in the language by exploring it and making choices.

 Language is for self-expression.

 Students learn how to accept responsability for their own learning.

 The skills of speaking, reading and writing reinforce one another.

Community Language Teaching

Background

 Community Language Teaching is a method developed by Charles A. Curran.

 CLL represents the use of Counseling- Learning theory to teach languages. Counseling is
one person giving advice, assistance and support to another who has a problem. CLL draws
on the counseling metaphor to redefine the roles of the teacher (the counselor) and learners
(the clients) in the language classroom.

 CLL techniques can also be related to the humanistic techniques. The humanistic
techniques engage the whole person, including the emotions and feelings (the affective
realm) as well as linguistic knowledge and behavioural skills.

 CLL is linked to the language alternation teaching tradition, in which a message, lesson or
class is presented first in the native language and then again in the second language.

The four essentials of Counselling Learning:

1. Learning is persons.
2. People may or may not grow in independence or interdependence.
3. A group of people may also become a community, or it may not become one.
4. A community is more likely to come into being when a person who is a teacher functions
also as a counselor.

Theory of language

 Structural view: (Curran wrote little about his theory of language. His student La Forge was
more explicit about this dimension of CLL) Language theory must start with criteria for sound
features, the sentence, and abstract models of language. The foreign language learner’s
tasks are to apprehend the sound system, assign fundamental meanings, and to construct a
basic grammar of the foreign language.

 La Forge elaborates an alternative theory of language: Language as Social Process. This

theory states that communication is more than just a message being transmitted from
listener to speaker. Communication is an exchange which is incomplete without a feedback
reaction from the destinnee of the message.
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  La Forge also elaborates on the interactional view (more than the structural view) of
language underlying CLL. Language is people; language is persons in contact; language is
persons in response. CLL interactions are of two kinds:

1. Interactions between learners: involve exchanges in affect. Learner exchanges deepen

in intimacy as the class becomes a community of learners. The desire to be part of this
growing intimacy pushes learners to keep pace with the learning of their peers.

2. Interactions between learners and knowers: they are initially independent. The learner
tells the knower what he or she wishes to say in the target language, and the knower
tells the learner how to say it. In later stages, the interactions are charactrized as self-
assertive (stage 2), resentful and indignant (stage 3) tolerant (stage 4) and independent
(stage 5).

 The techniques of counseling could be applied to learning in general (this became

Counseling-Learning) and to language teaching in particular (Community Language
Teaching)

Theory of learning

 The CLL view of learning is a holistic one (considering one person or thing as a whole),
since “true” human being is both cognitive and affective. This is termed whole-person
learning. Such learning takes place in a communicative situation in which teachers and
learners are involved in an interaction. Thus, the development of the learner’s relationship
with the teacher is central.

 The process is divided into five stages and compared to the ontogenetic development of the
child:

1. Birth stage: feelings of security and belonging are established.

2. The learner’s abilities improve; the learner begins to achieve measure of independence from
the parent.

3. The learner speaks independently, and may need to assert his or her own identity.

4. The learner is secure enough to take criticism and being corrected.

5. The learner merely works on improving style and knowledge of linguistic appropriateness.
By the end of the process, the child has become and adult. The learner knows everything
the teacher does and can become knower of a new learner.

 The process of learning a new language is like being reborn and developing a new persona,
with all the trials and challenges that are associated with birth and maturation.

 Curren discusses consensual validation or convalidation, in which warmth, understanding,

and a positive evaluation of the other person’s worth develop between the learner and the
teacher. A relationship characterized by convalidation is considered essential to the learning
process.

 Successful learning is related to the SARD acronym:

S stands for security: if learners don’t feel secure, it will be difficult for them to enter
into a successful learning experience.

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 A stands for attention and aggression: a lack of attention may be due to the learner’s
lack of involvement in learning. Variety will increase attention and promote learning.
Aggression is present when the learner seeks an opportunity to show his or her
strenght by demonstrating what has been learned, using the new knowledge as a
tool for self- assertion.
R stands for retention and reflection. If the whole person is involved in the learning
process, what is retained is internalized and becomes a part of the learner’s new
persona in the foreign language. Reflection is a consciously identified period of
silence for the student to focus on the learning forces of the last hour, to assess his
present stage of development, and to re-evaluate future goals.

D denotes discrimination: when learners have retained a body of material, they are
ready to sort it out and see how one thing relates to another. This discrimination
process enables students to use language for purposes of communication outside
the classroom.

 These central aspects address the personal commitments that learners need to make before
language acquisition processes can operate.

Objectives

 Explicit linguistic or communicative objectives are not defined in CLL. Most of what has been
written about it describes its use in introductory conversational courses in a foreign
language.

The syllabus

 CLL does not use a conventional language syllabus, which sets out in advance the
grammar, vocabulay, and other items to be taught and the order in which they will be
covered.

 The progression is topic-based, with learners dominating things they wish to talk about and
messages they wish to communicate to other learners.

 The teacher’s responsability is to provide a conveyance for these meaning in a way

appropriate to the learners’ proficiency level. Thus, syllabus emerges from the interaction
between the learner’s expressed communicative intentions and the teacher’s reformulation
of these into suitable target-language utterances.

 Specific grammatical points, lexical patterns, and generalizations will sometimes be isolated
by the teacher for more detailed study and analysis.

 In the beginning stages, the syllabus is designed primarily by the students. Students are
more willing to learn when they have created the material themselves.

Types of learning and teaching activities

CLL combines innovative learning tasks and activities with conventional ones. They include:

1. Translation: learners form a small circle. A learner whispers a message or meaning he or

she wants to express, the teacher translates it into the target language, and the learner
repeats the teacher’s translation.

2. Group work: learners may engage in various group tasks, such as small-group discussion of
a topic, preparing a conversation, preparing a summary of a topic for presentation to another
group, preparing a story that will be presented to the teacher and the rest of the class.

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 3. Recording: students record conversations in the target language.

4. Transcription: students transcribe utterances and conversations they have recorded for
practice and analysis of linguistic forms.

5. Analysis: students analyze and study transcriptions of target-language sentences in order to

focus on particular lexical usage or on the application of particular grammar rules.

6. Reflection and observation: learners reflect and report on their experience of the class, as a
class or in groups. This usually consists of expressions or feelings – sense of one another,
reactions to silence, concern for something to say, and so on.

7. Listening: students listen to a monologue by the teacher involving elements they might have
elicited or overheard in class interactions.

8. Free conversation: students engage in free conversation with the teacher or with other
learners. This might include discussion of what they learned as well as feelings they had
about how they learned.

Learner roles

 Learners become members of a community and learn through interacting with the
community. Learning is achieved collaboratively.

 Learners are expected to listen attentively to the knower, to freely provide meanings they
wish to express, to repeat target utterances without hesitation, to support fellow members of
the community, to report deep inner feelings, and frustrations as well as joy and pleasure,
and to become counselors of other learners.

 CLL learners are typically grouped in a circle of six to twelve learners, with the numbers of
knowers varying from one per group to one per student.

 Learner roles are keyed to the five stages of language learning. The view of the learner is an
organic one, with each role growing developmentally out of the one preceding. These role
changes are not easily achieved; they are outcomes of affective crises. When faced with a
new cognitive task, the learner must solve an affective crisis. With the solution of the five
affective crises, the student progress from a lower to a higher stage of development.

Teacher roles

 The teacher is a counselor. The counselor’s role is to respond calmly, in a supportive

manner, and help the client try to understand his or her problems better by applying order
and analysis to them.

 In the early stages of learning the teacher operates in a supportive role, providing target-
language translations and a model for imitation on request of the clients.

 Later, interaction may be initiated by the students, and the teacher monitors learner
utterances, providing assistance when requested.

 As learning progresses, students become increasingly capable of accepting criticism, and

the teacher may intervene directly to correct deviant utterances, supply idioms, and advice
on usage and fine points of grammar.

14
  The teacher’s role is initially likened to that of a nurturing parent. The student gradually
grows in “ability” and the nature of the relationship changes so that the teacher’s position
becomes somewhat dependent on the learner.

The role of instructional materials

 Since interactions with the community are essential, a textbook is not a necessary
component. A textbook would impose a particular body of language content on the learners,
thereby impeding their growth and interaction.

 Materials may be developed by the teacher. These consist of little more than summaries on
the blackboard or overhead projector of linguistic features generated by the students.

 Conversations may also be transcribed and distributed for study and analysis, and learners
may work in groups to produce their own materials, such as scripts for dialogues and mini-
dramas.

Pros Cons

Learners appreciate the autonomy CLL offers In the beginning some learners find it difficult to
them and thrive on analyzing their own speak on tape while others might find that the
conversations. conversation lacks spontaneity.

CLL works especially well with lower levels who We, as teachers, can find it strange to give our
are struggling to produce spoken English. students so much freedom and tend to
intervene too much.
The class often becomes a real community, not
just when using CLL but all the time. Students In our efforts to let our students become
become much more aware of their peers, their independent learners, we can neglect their need
strengths and weaknesses and want to work as for guidence.
a team.

Important points:

 Building a relationship with and among the students is very important.

 Any new learning experience can be threatening. When students have an idea of what will
happen in each activity, they feel more secure. People learn best when they are secure.

 Language is for communication.

 The superior knowledge and power of the teacher can be threatening. If the teacher does
not remain in front of the classroom, the threat is reduced.

 The teacher should be sensitive to students’ limitations and not overwhelm them with more
than they can handle. (The teacher translates what the students want to say in chunks)

 Students feel more secure when they know the limits of an activity. (10 minutes)

 The teacher and the students are whole persons. They can talk about what they are feeling.

 The teacher accepts what each student says. By doing this, he is creating an accepting
atmosphere and the learning experience becomes less threatening.

15
  The teacher “counsels” the students. He listens to them and understands what they are
saying.

 The students’ native language is used to make meaning clear. Students feel more secure

 Learning at the beginning stages is facilitated if students attend to one task at a time.

 The teacher encourages student initiative and independence.

 Students develop an inner wisdom about where they need to work. If they feel in control,
they can take responsability for their own learning.

 Students need to learn to discriminate. Eg: perceiving the similarities and differences among
the target language forms.

 In groups, students can feel a sense of community and can learn from each other.
Cooperation, not competition, is encouraged. Developing a community among the clas
members builds trust and can help to reduce the threat of the new learning situation.

 Learning does not take place when the material is too new.

 Students reflect on what they have experienced.

Suggestopedia

Background

 Also known as Desuggestopedia, it is a method developed by Georgi Lozanov.

Suggestopedia is derived from Suggestology: a science concerned with the nonrational
and/or nonconscious influences that human beings are constantly responding to.
Suggestopedia tries to harness these influences and redirect them so as to optimize
learning.
 The most conspicuous characteristics of Suggestopedia are the decoration, furniture, and
arrangement of the classroom, the use of music, and the authoritative behavior of the
teacher.

 A most conspicuous feature of Suggestopedia is the centrality of music and musical rhythm
to learning. Suggestopedia can be related to other functional uses of music, particularly
therapy. Gaston (1986) defines three functions of music in therapy: to facilitate the
establishment and maintenance of interpersonal relations; to bring about increased self-
esteem through increased self-satisfaction in musical performance; and to use the unique
potential of rhythm to energize and bring order. This last fnction seems to be used to relax
learners as well as to structure, pace, and punctuate the presentation of linguistic material.

 Suggestopedia, the application of the study of suggestion to pedagogy, has been developed
to help students eliminate the feeling that they cannot be successful and, thus, to help them
overcome the barriers to learning.

Theory of language

 Lozanov does not articulate a theory of language. The emphasis on memorization of

vocabulary pairs – a target language item and its native language translation – suggests a
view of language in which lexis is central and in which lexical translation rather than
contextualization is stressed.

16
  Lozanov stresses the importance of experiencing language material in “whole meaningful
texts”. He notes that suggestopedia directs the student not to vocabulary memorization and
acquiring habits of speech, but to acts of communication.

 Lozanov recommends home study of recordings of whole emaningful texts that are
interesting. These are listened to for the sake of the music of the foreign speech. The texts
should include emotional content. Lozanov’s recommendations of such stories seem to be
entirely motivational, however, and does not represent a commitment to the view that
language is preeminently learned for and used in its emotive function.

 Lozanov refers to the language to be learned as “the material”. Eg: the new material that is
to be learned is read or recited by a well-trained teacher.

Theory of learning

 Suggestion is at the heart of Suggestopedia. Suggestopedia is separated from the narrow

clinical concept of hypnosis as a kind of static, sleep like, altered state of consciousness.
Lozanov claims that what distinguishes this method from hypnosis and other forms of mind
control is that these other forms lack a desuggestive-suggestive sense and fail to create a
constant sep up access to reserves through concentrative psycho-relaxation. We interpret
reserves as being something like human memory blanks. Desuggestion involves unloading
the memory banks, or reserves, of unwanted or blocking memories. Suggestion involves
loading the memory banks with desired and facilitating memories.

 There are six theoretical components through which desuggestion and suggestion operate
and that set up access to reserves.
1) Authority

People remember best and are most influenced by information coming from an
authorative source. Lozanov talks about a ritual placebo system. Lozanov believes that
scientific-sounding language, highly positive experimental data, and true-believer teachers
constitute a ritual placebo system that is authoritatively appealing to most learners.
Institution authority, commitment to the method, self-confidence, personal distance, acting
ability, and a highly positive attitude give an authoritative air to the teacher.

2) Infantilization

Authority is also used to suggest a teacher-student relation like that of parent to child. In
the child’s role the learner takes part in role playing, games, songs, and gymnastic
exercises that help the older student to regain self-confidence, spontaneity and receptivity
of the child.

3) Double-planedness

The learner learns not only from the effect of direct instruction but from the environment in
which the instruction takes place. The bright decor of the classroom, the musical
background, the shape of the chairs, and the personality of the teacher are considered
very important.

4) Intonation, rhythm, and concert pseudo-passiveness

Varying the tone and rhythm helps to avoid boredom through monotony of repetition and
to dramatize, and give meaning to linguistic material. Both intonation and rhythm are
coordinated with musical background. The musical background helps to induce a relaxed
attitude or “concert pseudo-passiveness.” This state is felt to be optimal for learning, in
that anxieties and tension are relieved and power of concentration for new material is
raised. The role of music is central in suggestopedia.
17
Objectives

 Suggestopedia aims to deliver advanced conversational proficiency quickly. Students should

master lists of vocabulary pairs.

 Lozanov claims that increased memory power is not an isolated skill but is a result of
positive, comprehensible stimulation of personality.

 The main aim of teaching is not memorization, but the understanding and creative solution of
problems. However, memorization of vocabulary pairs is an important goal of
Suggestopedia.

The syllabus

 A Suggestopedia course lasts thirty days and consists of ten units of study. The central
focus of each unit is a dialogue with a vocabulary list and grammatical commentary. The
dialogues are graded by lexis and grammar.
 Unit study is organized around three days. On the first day, the teacher duscusses the
general content (not structure) of the unit dialogue. The learners then receive the printed
dialogue with a native language translation in a parallel column. The teacher answers
questions. Then dialogue is read and discussed. Days 2 and 3 are spent in primary and
secondary elaboration of the text:

 Primary elaboration: consists of imitation, question and answer, reading and so on, of the
dialogue and of working with the new vocabulary items.

 Second elaboration: involves encouraging students to make new combinations and

productions based on the dialogues. A story or essat paralleling the story is also read. The
students engage in conversation and take small roles in response to the text read.

 The whole course also has a pattern of presentation and performance, On the first day a test
is given to check the level of student knowledge and to divide students in two groups (new
beginners and modifies beginners) The teacher then explains the attitude the students
should take toward the course in order to put them in a positive, relaxed and confident mood
for learning. Students are given a new name in the second language and a new biography in
the second culture to operate during the course.

 During the course there are two opportunities for the generalization of material:

1. In the middle of the course: students are encouraged to practice the target language
in a setting where it might be used, such as hotels or restaurants.

2. In the last day of the course: students participate in a performance. Students

construct a plays built on the material of the course. Rules and parts are planned, but
students are expected to speak ex tempore rather than from memorized lines.
Written texts are also given, and these and the performance is reviewed on the final
day of the course.

Types of learning and teaching activities

 Suggestopedia includes activities such as imitation, question and answer, and role play. But
the types of activities that are more original to Suggestopedia are listening activities, which
concern the text and text vocabulary of each unit. These acttivities are part of the
“pre.session phase”, which takes place on the first day of the unit.

18
  The students first look at and discuss a new text with the teacher. In the socnd reading,
students relax and listen to the teacher read the text in a certain way. During the third
reading the material is acted out by the instructor in a dramatic manner over the
baackground of a special musical form. This is the phase in which students breathe deeply
and regularly as instructed by the teacher and in which the unconscious learning system
takes over.

Learner roles

 Students are expected to be committed to the class and its activities. Smoking and drinking
are prohibited or discouraged in class.
 The mental state of the learners is critical to success, that is why learners must forgo
distractions and immerse themselves in the procedures of the method.

 Learners must not try to figure out the material but maintain a pseudo-passive state, in which
the material rolls over and through them.

 Students are expected to tolerate and encourage their own “infantilization” by acknowledging
the absolute authority of the teacher and by regaining self-confidence, spontaneity, and
receptivity of the child. Such activities include role playing, games, songs, and gymnastic
exercises.

 To assist them in the role plays and to help them detach themselves from their past learning
experiences, students are given a new name and personal history within the target culture.

 The groups of learners are socially homogeneous and divided equally between men and
women. Learners sit in a circle, which encourages face-to-face exchange and activity
participation.

Teacher roles

 The primary role of the teacher is to create situations in which the learner is most
suggestible and then to present linguistic material that encourages positive reception and
retention by the learner. To do this, the teacher should:

1. Show absolute confidence in the method.

2. Display fastidious conduct in manners and dress.Organize properly and strictly
observe the initial stages of the teaching process – this includes choice, play of
music and punctuality.
3. Maintain a solemn attitude towards the session.
4. Give tests and respond tacfully to poor papers.
5. Stress global rather than analitical attitudes towards material.
6. Maintain a modest enthusiasm.

 Teachers have to be prepared to be initiated into the method by stages. They are also
expected to be skilled in acting, singing, and psycho-therapeutic techniques.

The role of instructional materials

 Materials consist of dirent support materials, text and tape, and indirect support materials,
classroom fixtures and music.

 The textbook should have emotional force, literary quality, and interesting characters.

 Language problems should be introduced in a way that does not worry or distract students
from the content. Traumatic themes and distasteful lexical material should be avoided.

19
  Each unit should be governed by a single idea featuring a variety of subthemes, “the way it
is in life.”
 The learning environment plays such a central role in Suggestopedia that the important
elements in the environment need to be briefly enumerated. The environment comprises the
appearance of the classroom, the furniture, and the music.

Important points:

 Learning is facilitated in a relaxed comfortable environment.

 A student can learn from what is presented in the environment, even if his attention is not
directed to it (peripheral attention) – some posters contain grammatical information.

 If the student trusts and respects the teacher’s authority, he will accept and retain
information better.

 The teacher should recognize that students bring certain psychological barriers with them to
the learning situation. She should attempt to “desuggest” these by telling them that learning
the target language will be easy and enjoyable.

 Activating the learners’ imagination will aid learning.

 The teacher attempts to increase her students’ confidence taht they will be successful
learners. The more confident the students feel, the better they will learn.

 Assuming a new identity enhances students’ feeling of security and allows them to be more
open. They feel less inhibited since their performance is really that of a different person.

 The dialogue that the students learn contains vocabulary they can learn immediately.

 When their attention is off the form of the language, and on the process of communicationg,
students will learn best.

 The teacher should present and explain the grammar and vocabulary, but not dwell on them.

 One way that meaning is made clear is through mother tongue translation.

 Communication takes place on “two planes”: on one the linguistic message is encoded; and
on the other are factors which influence the linguistic message. On the conscious plane, the
learner attends to the language; on the subconscious plane, the music suggests that
learning is easy and pleasant. When there is unity between conscious and subconscious,
learning is enhanced.

 A pseudo-passive state, such as the state one experiences when listening to a concert, is
ideal for overcoming psychological barriers and for taking advantage of learning potential.

 Dramatization is a valuable way of activating the material. Fantasy reduces barriers to

learning.
 The fine arts (music, art, and drama) enable suggestions to reach the subconscious. The
arts should be integrated as much as possible in the teaching process.

 The teacher should help students activate the material to which they have been exposed to
by providing variety so as to avoid repetition as much as possible. Novelty aids acquisition.

20
  Music and movement reinforce the linguistic material. Students should achieve a state of
infantilization so that they will be more open to leaning.

 In atmosphere of play, the conscious attention of the learner does not focus on linguistic
forms, but rather on using the language. Learning can be fun.

 Errors are to be tolerated, the emphasis being on content, not on form.

The Lexical Approach

Background

 A lexical approach in language teaching refers to one derived from the belief that the
building blocks of language learning and communication are not grammar, functions,
notions, or some other unit of planning and teaching but lexis, that is, words and word
combinations.

 Lexical approaches reflect a belief in the centrality of the lexicon to language structure,
second language learning, and language use, and in particular to multiword lexical units or
“chunks” that era learned and used as single items.

 The role of lexical units has been stressed in both first and second language acquisition.
These have been referred to by many different labels, including “holophrases”,
“prefabricated patterns”, “gambits”, “speech formulae”, and “lexicalized stems.” Several
approaches to language learning have been proposed that view vocabulary and lexical units
as central in learning and teaching, one of them being the Lexical Approach.

 Lexical approaches in language teaching seek to develop proposals for syllabus design and
language teaching founded on a view of language in which lexis plays a central role.

Theory of language

 Whereas Chomsky’s influential theory of language emphasized the capacity of speakers to

create and interpret sentences that are unique and have never been produced or heard
previously, in contrast, the lexical view holds that only a minority of spoken sentences are
entirely novel creations and that multiword units functioning as “chunks” or memorized
patterns form a high proportion of the fluent stretches of speech heard in everyday
conversations.

 Language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalised grammar.

 Lexis is central in creating meaning and grammar only plays a subservient managerial role.

 Laxical items are classified into words and polywords, collocations, and fixed/semi-fixed
expressions.

 The role of collocation is very important such as:

 do my hair/the cooking/thelaundry/my work

 make my bed/apromise/coffee/a meal

 Many other leaxical units also occur in language:

 binomials: clean and tidy, back to front

 trinomials: coll, calm and collected
21
  idioms: dead drunk, to run up a bill
 similes: as old as the hills
 connectives: finally, to conclude
 conversational gambits: Guess what!

These and other types of lexical units are thought to play a central role
in learning and communication.

 Lexis is also believed to play a central role in language learning. Natinger commented that
our teaching should center on the patterns and the ways in which language production can
be pieced together, along with the ways they vary and the situation in which they occur.
However, as native speakers have lots of phrases in their lexical inventory; the implications
for second language learning are uncertain. How might second language learners internalize
this massive inventory of lexical usage?

Possibilities: Massive amounts of “language input”, especially through reading, is

the only effective approach to such learning (Krashen)

Making the language class a laboratory in which learners can

explore, via computer, the contexts of lexical usage that occur in
different kinds of texts.

Contrastive approach: in which the teaching of lexical collocations

In EFL should concentrate on items for which there is no direct
translational equivalence in English and in the learners’ respective
mother tongues.

 A massive learning load seems an avoidable consequence of a lexical approach.

Theory of learning

 Lewis acknowledges that the lexical approach has lacked a coherent learning theory, but he
makes some assumptions about learning theory in the leaxical approach.

o Encountering new learning items on several occasions is a necessary but sufficient

condition for learning to occur.

o Noticing lexical chunks or collocations is a necessary but not sufficient condition for
“input” to become”intake.”

o Noticing similarities, differences, restrictions, and examples contributes to turning

input into intake by raising students’ awareness of, and developing their ability to
“chunk” language succesfully.

o Acquisition is based not on the application of formal rules but on an accumulation of

examples from which learners make provisional generalizations. Language
production is the product of previously met examples, not formal rules.

o No linear syllabus can adequately reflect the nonlinear nature of acquisition.

22
  Learning consists of turning a high proportion of the language input to which students are
exposed into intake by raising students‘ awareness of, and developing their ability to 'chunk'
language successfully.

Syllabus

 A lexical – based syllabus. The types of learning and teaching activities are classifying and
identifying categories of words.

Teacher roles

 Teacher talk is a major source of learner input in demosntrating how lexical phrases are
used for different functional purposes.

 Teachers need to understand and manage a classroom methodology based on stages

composed of Task, Planning, and Report.

 The teacher should create and environment in which learners can operate effectively and
they should help learners manage their own learning. This requires that teachers abandon
the idea of teacher as “knower” and concentrate instead on the idea of learner as
“discoverer.”

Learner roles

 Learners should be discoverers.

 Learners should make use of computers to analize text data previously collected. They
should assume the role of data analyst constructing their own linguistic generalizations
based on examination of large corpora of language samples taken from real life. Here,
teachers should organize the technological systema and provide scaffolding to help learners
built autonomy in use of the system.

 Learners will need teaching assitance through the different stages of lexical analysis such as
observation, classification, and generalizations.

The role of instructional materials

 Materials and teaching resources to support lexical approaches are of four types:

o Type 1: consists of complete course packages including texts, tapes, teachers’

manuals.

o Type 2: is represented by collections of vocabulary teaching activities

o Type 3: consists of “printout” versions of computer corpora collections packaged in

text format.

o Type 4: materials are computer concordancy and programs attached data setes to
allow students to set uo and carry out their own analysis. These are typicaly
packaged in CD-ROM form.

23
Cooperative Language Learning

Background

 Cooperative Learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative

activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the classroom.

 Learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners

in groups and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own learning and is
motivated to increase the learning of others.

 Cooperative Learning has antecedents in proposals for peer-tutoring and peer-monitoring.

Educators were concerned that traditional models of classroom learning were teacher-
fronted, fostered competition rather then cooperation, and favored majority students.
Cooperative Learning in this context sought to do the following:

 Raise the achievement of all the students.

 Help the teacher built positive relationships among students.

 Give the students the experiences they need for healthy social, psychological and
cognitive development.

 Replace the competitive organizational structure in most classrooms and schools

with a team-based, high-performance organizational structure.

 In second language teaching, CL was a way of promoting communicative interaction in the

classroom and is seen as an extension of the principles of Communicative Language
Teaching. It is viewed as a learner-centered approach held to offer advantages over
teacher-fronted classroom methods. In language teaching its goals are:

 To provide opprtunities for naturalistic second language acquisition through the use
of interactive pair and group activities.

 To provide teachers with a methodology to enable them to achieve this goal and one
that can be applied in a variety of curriculum settings.

 To enable focused attention to particular lexical items, language structures, and

communicative functions through the use of interactive tasks.

 To provide opportunities for learners to develop succesful learning and

communication strategies.

 To enhance learner motivation and reduce learner stress and to create positive
affective classroom climate.

 CLL is thus an approach that crosses both mainstream education and second and foreign
language teaching.

24
 Collaborative Learning

 teacher-centred student-centered
 extrinsic intrinsic
motivation motivation
 knowledge transmission knowledge construction
construction

Theory of Language

 Cooperative Language Learning is found on some basic premises about the

interactive/cooperative nature of language and language learning and builds on these
premises in several ways.

 Premise 1: all children growing up in a normal environment learn to talk. We are born
to talk, we are programmmed to talk. Communication is generallly considered to be
the primary purpose of language.

 Premise 2: most talk/speech is organized as conversation. Human beings spend a

large part of their lives engaging in conversation and for most of them conversation is
among their most significant and engrossing activities.

 Premise 3: conversation operates according to a certain agreed-upon set of

cooperative rules or “maxims.”

 Premise 4: one learns how these cooperative maxims are realized in one’s native
language through casual, everyday conversational interaction.

 Premise 5: one learns how the maxims are realized in a second language through
participarion in cooperatively structured interactional activities.

 CCL is used to support both structural and functional models as well as interactional models
of language, since CLL activities may be used to focus on language form as well as to
practice particular language functions.

Theory of Learning

 Cooperative learning advocates draw heavily on the theoretical work of developmental

psychologists Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, both of whom stress the central role of social
interaction in learning.

 A central premise of CCL is that learners develop communicative competence in a language

by conversing in socially or pedagogically structured situations.

 CLL seeks to develop learners’ critical thinking skills, which are seen as central to learning of
any sort. Some authors have even elevated critical thinking to the same level of focus as
that of the basic language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.

 CLL advocates adopted the Question Matrix Approach to integrate the teaching of critical
thinking: this approach is based on cooperative activities that encourage learners to ask and
respond to a deeper array of alternative questions types.

25
  CLL seeks to develop classrooms that foster cooperation rather than competition in learning.
Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals. Through cooperative learning
students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.

 From the perspective of second language teaching, there are six learning advantages for
ESL students in CLL classrooms:

1. Increased frequency and variety of second language practice through different types
of interaction.

2. Possibility for development or use of language in ways that support cognitive

development and increased language skills.

3. Opportunities to integrate language with content-based instruction.

4. Opportunities to include a greater variety of curricular materials to stimulate language

as well as concept learning.

5. Freedom for teachers to master new professional skills, particularly those

emphasizing communication.

6. Opportunities for students to act as resources for each other, thus assuming a more
active role in their learning.

Theory of Learning

Founded in constructivist epistemology

 knowledge is constructed, discovered, and transformed by students.

 students actively construct their own knowledge.
 effort is aimed at developing students' competencies and talents.
 education is a personal transaction among students and between the faculty and
students as they work together.
 all of the above can only take place within a cooperative context.
 teaching is assumed to be a complex application of theory and research that requires
considerable teacher training.

Objectives

 The general objectives of CLL are to foster cooperation rather than competition, to develop
critical thinking skills, and to develop communicative competence through socially interaction
activities.

 More specific objectives will derive from the context in which it is used.

The syllabus

 CLL does not assume any particular form of language syllabus, since activities from a wide
variety of curriculum orientations can be taught via cooperative learning. Thus we find CLL
used in teaching content classes, ESP, the four skills, grammar, pronunciation, and
vocabulary.

 What defines CLL is the systematic and carefully planned use of group-based procedures in
teaching as an alternative to teacher-fronted teaching.

Types of learning and teaching activities

26
 There are three types of cooperative learning groups:

 Formal cooperative elarning groups: these last from one class period to several
weeks. They are established for a specific task and involve students working
together to achieve shared learning goals.

 Informal cooperative learning groups: these are ad-hoc groups that last from a few
minutes to a class period and are used to focus student attention or to facilitate
learning during direct teaching.

 Cooperative base groups: These are long term, lasting for at least a year and consist
of heterogeneous learning groups with stable membership whose primary purpose is
to allow members to give each other the support, help, encouragement, and
assistance they need to succeed academically.

 The success of CL is crucially dependent on the nature and organization of group work in
which learners interact with each other and are motivated to increase each other’s learning.
The key elements of successful group-based learning in CL are:

1. Positive interdependence: occurs when group members feel that what helps one member
helps all and what hurts one member hurts all. It is created by building a spirit of mutual
support within the group.

2. Group formation is an important factor in creating positive interdependence. Factors involve

in setting up groups are:

 deciding on the size of the group: this will depnd on the tasks they have to carry out,
the age of the learners, and time limits for the lesson. Typical group size is fron two
to four.

 assigning students to groups: groups can be teacher-selected, random, or student-

selected. Teacher-selected is recommended as the usual mode so as to create
groups that are heterogeneous.

 student roles in groups: each group member has a specific role to play in a group,
such as noise monitor, turn-taker monitor, recorder, or summarizer.

3. Individual accountability involves both group and individual performance, for example, by
assigning each student a grade of his or her portion of a team project or by calling on a
student at random to share with the whole class, with group members or with another group.

4. Social skills determine the way students interact with each other as teammates. Usually
some explicit instruction in social skills in needed to ensure successful interaction.

5. Structuring and structures refer to ways of organizing student interaction and different ways
students are to interact.

 There are three major kinds of cooperative learning tasks (activities):

1. Team practice from common input – skills development and mastery of facts:

 All students work on the same material.

 Practice could follow a traditional teacher-directed presentation of new material and

for that reason is a good starting point for teachers and studebts new to group work

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  The task is to make sure that everyone on the group knows the answer to a question
and can explain how the answer was obtained or understands the material. Because
students want their team to do well, they coach and tutor each other to make sure
that any member of the group could answer for all of them and explain their team’s
answer.

 When the teacher takes up the question or assignment, anyone in a group may be
called on to answer for the team.
 This technique is good for review and for practice tests; the group takes the practice
test together. But each student will eventually do an assignment or take a test
individually.

 This technique is effective in situations where the composition of the groups is

unstable (in adult programmes, for example). Students can form new groups
everyday.

2. Jigsaw: differentiated but predetermined input – evaluation and systhesis of facts and
opinions:

 Each group member receives a different piece of the information.

 Students regroup in topic groups (expert groups) composed of people with the same
piece to master the material and prepare to teach it.

 Students return to home groups (jigsaw groups) to share their information with each
other.

 Students synthesize the information through discussion.

 Each student produces an assigment of part of a group project, or takes a test, to

demonstrate synthesis of all the information presented by all group members.

 This method of organization may require team-building activities for both home
groups and topic groups, long-term group involvement, and rehearsal of presentation
methods.

 The method is very useful in the multilevel class, allowing for both homogenueous
and heterogeneous grouping in terms of English proficiency.

 Information-gap activities in language teaching are jigsaw activities in the form of pair
work. Partners have data (in the form of text, tables, charts, etc.) with missing
information to be supplied during interaction with another partner.

3. Cooperative projects: topics/resources selected by students – discovery learning.

 Topics may be different for each group.

 Students identify subtopics for each gorup member.

 Steering committee may coordinate the work of the class as a whole.

 Students research their information using resources such as library reference,

interviews, and visual media.

 Students synthesize their information for a group presentation: oral and/or written.
Each group member plays a part in the presentation.

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  Each group presents to the whole class.
 This method places greater emphasis on individualization and students’ interests.
Each student’s assignment is unique.

 Students need plenty of previous experience with more structured group work for this
to be effective.

Examples of CLL activities:

1. Three step interview: (1) Students are in pairs; one is interviewer and the other is
interviewee. (2) Students reverse roles. (3) Each shares with team member what was
learned during the two interviews.

2. Roundtable: there is one piece of paper and one pen for each team. (1) One student makes
a contribution and (2) passes the paper and pen to the student of his or her left. (3) Each
student makes contributions in turn. If done orally, the structure is called Round Robin.

3. Think-Pair-Share: (1) Teacher poses a question. (2) Students think of a response. (3)
Students discuss their responses with a partner. (4) Students share their partner’s response
with the class.

4. Solve-Pair-Share: (1) Teacher poses a problem. (2) Students work on the solutions
individually. (3) Students explain how they solved the problem in Interview or Rpund Robin
structures.

5. Numbered Heads: (1) Students number off in teams. (2) Teacher asks a question. (3) Heads
Together – students literally put their heads together and make sure everyone knows and
can explain the answer. (4) Teacher calls a number and students with that number raise
their hands to be called on, as in traditional classroom.

Learner roles

 The learner is a member of a group who must work collaboratelly on tasks with other group
members. Learners have to learn teamwork skills.

 Learners are also directors of their own learning. They are taught to plan, monitor and
evaluate their own learning, which is viewed as a compilation of lifelong learning skills. Thus,
learning is something that requires students’ direct and active involvement and participation.

 Pair grouping is the most typical CLL format. Pair tasks in which learners alternate roles
involve partners in the role of tutors, checkers, recorders, and information sharers.

Teacher roles

 The role of the teacher in CLL differs considerably from the role of teachers in traditional
teacher-fronted lesson.

 The teacher has to create a highly structured and well-organized learning environment in the
classroom, setiing goals, planning and structuring tasks, establishing the physical
arrangement of the classroom, assigning to students to groups and roles, and selecting
materials and time.

 An important role for the teacher is that of facilitator of learning, the teacher must move
around the class helping students and groups as needs arise. Facilitators give feedback,
redirect the group with questions, encourage the group to solve its own problems, extend
activity, encourage thinking, manage conflict, observe students, and supply resources.
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  Teachers speak less than in teacher-fronted classes. They provide broad questions to
challenge thinking, they prepare students for the tasks they will carry out, they assit students
with the learning tasks, and they give few commands, imposing less disciplinary control.

 The teacher should also restructure lessons so that students can work on them
cooperatively. This involves the following steps:

1. Take your existing lessons, curriculum, and sources and structure them
cooperatively.

2. Tailor cooperative learning lessons to your unique instructional needs,

circumstances, curricula, subject areas, and students.

3. Diagnose the problems some students may have in working together and intervene
to increase learning groups’ effectiveness.

The role of instructional materials

 Materials create opportunities for students to work cooperatively. The same materials can be
used in other types of lessons but variations are required in how they are used.

 Materials may be specially designed for CLL learning (such as commercially sold jigsaw and
information-gap activities), modified from existing materials. Or borrowed from other
disciplines.

Neurolinguistic Programming

Background

 Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) refers to a training philosophy and set of training

techniques first developed by John Grindler and Richard Bandler in the mid-1970 as an
alternative form of therapy.

 Grindler and Bandler were interested in how people influence each other and in how the
behaviours of very effective people could be duplicated. They were essentially interested in
discovering how successful communicators achieved their success.

 Grindler and Bandler developed NLP as a system of techniques therapists could use in
building rapport with clients, gathering information about their internal and external views of
the world, and helping them achieve goals and bring about personal change.

 NLP is a collection of techniques, patterns, and strategies for assisting effective

communication, personal growth and change, and learning. It is based on a series of
underlying assumptions about how the mind works and how people act and interact.

 The principles of NLP have not only been applied for directing and guiding therapeutic
change, but they have also been applied in a variety of other fields, including management
training, sports training, communications sales and marketing, and language teaching.

 The assumptions of NLP refers to attitudes to life, to people, and to self-discoverty and
awareness. That is whay, it has had some appeal within language teaching to those
interested in humanistic approaches (approaches that focus on developing one’s sense of
self-actualization and self- awareness).

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  NLP claims to help people change by teaching them to program their brains

Theory of language and learning

 In NLP neuro part refers to beliefs about the brain and how it functions. It is concerned with
how we experience the world through our five senses and represented in our minds through
our neurological processes.

 The linguistic part has nothing to do with the field of linguistics but refers to a theory o
communication, one that tries to explain both verbal and nonverbal information processing. It
is concerned with the way the language we use shapes, as well as reflects, our experience
of the world. We use language to represent the world to ourselves and to embody our beliefs
about the world and about life. If we change the way we think and speak about things, we
cab change our behavior. We can also use language to help other people who want to
change.

 The Programming part refers to observable patterns (referred to as “programs”) of thought

and behaviour. NLP practitioners claim to be able to deprogram and program clients’
behaviors with a precision close to computer programming. It is concerned with training
ourselves to think, speak, and act in new and positive ways in order to release our potential
and reach those heights of achievement which we previously only dreamt of.

 Modeling is also central to NLP views on learning. Modeling a skill means finding out about
it, and the beliefs and values that enable them to do it. You can also model emotions,
experiences, beliefs and values. Modeling successful performance leads to excellence. If
one person can do something it is possible to model and teach others how to do it.

Key principles in NLP

1. Outcomes: the goals or ends. NLP claims that knowing precisely what you want helps to achieve
it. This principle can be expressed as “know what you want.”

2. Rapport: a factor that is essential for effective communication – maximizing similarities and
minimizing differences between people at a nonconscious level. This principle can be expressed
as “establish rapport with yourself and then with others.”

3. Sensory acuity: noticing what another person is communicating, consciously and nonverbally.
This can be expressed as “Use your senses. Look at, listen to, and feel what is actually
happening.”

4. Flexibility: doing things differently if what you are doing is not working: having a range of skills to
do something else or something different. This can be expressed as “Keep changing what you do
until you get what you want.”

Presuppositions that guide the application of NLP

 These principles become part of the belief system of the teacher and shape the way
teaching is conducted no matter what method the teacher is using:

1. Mind and body are interconnected: they are parts of the same system, and each
affects the other.
2. The map is not the territory: we all have different maps of the world.
3. There is no failure, only feedback ... and renewed opportunity for success.
4. The map beocmes the territory: what you believe to be true either is true or becomes
true.
5. Knowing what you want helps to get it.
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 6. The resources we need are within us.
7. Communication is nonverbal as well as verbal.
8. The nonconscious mind is benevolent.
9. Communication is nonconscious as well as conscious.
10. All behavior has a positive intention. Eg: a learner frequently comes late to the class.
The positive intent that the teacher seeks for is that he might have other important
priorities.
11. The meaning of my communication is the response I get.
12. Modeling excellent behavior leads to excellence.
13. In any system, the element with the greatest flexibility will have the most influence on
that system.

Roles of the teachers and students

 As modeling is central to NLP practice, teachers are expected to model their teaching on
expert teachers they most admire. Similarly, learners are expected to find successful models
for that person they themselves are striving to become.

If you want to be an excellent teacher, model excellent teachers. Look at what they do,
how they act, what sort of relationship they have with their students. Share modeling
strategies with students. Encourage them to share and try out strategies they learn.

 Rapport is another central principle to NLP. Rapport is meeting others in their world, trying to
understand their needs, thei values and their culture, and communicating in ways that are
congruent with those values. One way in which teachers might apply rapport is by
responding to the following statements from students:

S: I hate this stuff. It’s such a waste of time.

T: Is part of you saying that you want to be sure your time is well spent today?

S: I can’t do it.
T: What, specifically, can’t you do?

S: Everyone says that. It makes me sick.

T: Who says that?

DON’T FORGET!

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  Communication is more than what you are saying.
 No one is wrong or broken. People work perfectly to accomplish what they are
currently accomplishing.
 People already have all the resources they need.
 Behind every behavior is a positive intention.
 Every behavior is useful in some context.
 The meaning of a communication is the response you get.
 If you aren't getting the response you want, try something different
 There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback.
 Having choice is better than having no choice at all.
 In any system, the element with the most flexibility exerts the most influence.
 The map is not the territory.
 If someone can do something, anyone can learn it.
 You cannot fail to communicate.
 Each of us has a Primary Representational System (PRS), a tendency to think in
specific modes: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory or gustatory.

 CLIL: Content Language Integrated Learning

The Beginning: CBI (Content Based Instruction)

Approach based on two principles:

1. People learn a L2 better when they use it as a means of acquiring information
2. CBI better reflects learners’ needs for learning a L2

Theory of Language

 Language is text and Discourse-based

 Language use draws on integrated skills
 Language is purposeful (means to transmit content/knowledge of the subject)

Theory of Language Learning

 Knowledge of the language becomes the means of learning content

 Language is integrated into the broad curriculum
 When learners are interested in a topic they are motivated to acquire language to
communicate
 CLIL is based on language acquisition rather than enforced learning such as drilling
 Language is seen in real life situations in which students can acquire the language
 This is natural language development which builds on other forms of learning
 Fluency is more important than accuracy and errors are a natural part of language learning
 Reading is the essential skill

What is CLIL?

 CLIL stands for Content Language Integrated Learning

 It is the teaching of a subject such as geography, science or history through English to
learners whose first language is not English

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Classroom Principles

 Language is used to learn as well as to communicate

 It is the subject matter which determines the language needed to learn
 According to this theory, the teacher provides correction if the meaning is altered

A CLIL lesson is not a language lesson neither a subject lesson

 According to the 4Cs curriculum, a successful CLIL lesson should combine elements of the
following:
Content
Communication (discourse as the main element)
Cognition (critical thinking is developed)
Culture (embedded within language)

In a CLIL lesson, all four language skills should be combined

The skills are seen thus:

 Listening is a normal input activity, vital for language learning
 Reading, using meaningful material, is the major source of input
 Speaking focuses on fluency. Accuracy is seen as subordinate
 Writing is a series of lexical activities through which grammar is recycled

What are the benefits of CLIL?

 Students learn in the same way as native speakers do

 Lessons are based around highly motivational topics using a top down approach
 The content is familiar to students are multiple intelligence friendly
 Students focus on fluency and communication and have the opportunity to experiment with
language

True or False?

1. CLIL is structured around the topic/ content TRUE

2. Teachers need to have a strong background in silence, geography, history, social
studies, etc as well as ELT for teaching CLIL FALSE
3. CLIL uses English as a medium to teach other subject areas TRUE
4. There is no predetermined language syllabus in CLIL TRUE
5. CLIL focuses on fluency and communication TRUE

CLIL helps to:

 Introduce the wider cultural context (diversity)

 Prepare for internationalisation
 Access International Certification and enhance the school profile
 Improve overall and specific language competence
 Prepare for future studies and/or working life (going beyond the classroom)
 Develop multilingual interests and attitudes
 Diversify methods and forms of classroom teaching and learning
 Increase learner motivation

General aspects: intrinsic motivated students, appealing for students, we never teach grammar
under this method (we use what students already know), language teachers can teach whatever
subject, language is a means not a barrier, we need to develop critical thinking, culture awareness,
4 content syllabus.
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Designing a CLIL activity

 Decide on the theme: define content, objectives and assessment

 Think about the contextual element which it can be related to (focus on content to make our
students think)
 Have the resources (text, audio, video)
 Decide and prepare the final task
 Choose the TICS which you will use
 Define methodology: group work, roles, time management, etc

Activity: has a linguistic outcome

Task: has a real life or concrete outcome with an audience (example: debate)

UNIT 2

Teaching Across Diversity

Mixed-Ability Classes

1. What is a mixed-ability class?

 Classes are mixed-ability because each one of them is made up of a group of individuals
who are different in terms of their knowledge and ability. Mixed-ability refers to:

1. Classes in which there is a very clear difference in language level among the students. Eg:
differences in grammatical knowledge, in vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.

2. Classes in which there are clear differences in learning style, speed and aptitude among the
students. Some students seem to be good at languages while others are slower and
experience more difficulties in learning.

3. Classes in which there are clear differences in the students’ background knowledge,
knowledge of the world and their skills and talents in other areas. These differences may be
linked to age, sex, different levels of maturity, different interests, etc.

4. Classes in which there are different levels of motivation. Some students may have a very
positive attitude toward learning English while others may not.

2. What problems mixed-ability classes present for the teacher?

o Half the students have finished an exercise when the other half have just began.
o The stronger students dominate.
o The stronger students get bored if the teacher spends time explaining to the weaker ones.
o The teachers have got a syllabus to get through but most of the students are already behind.
o The weaker students sit at the back and start disrupting the lesson.
o The weaker students don’t even try.
o The teacher doesn’t know where to pitch her lesson.
o The weaker students are always asking things in Spanish and want everything to be explained
in that language.
o Some of the weaker students try hard but they still get bad marks.
o When the teacher is doing groupwork she doesn’t know whether is better to put strong and
weak students together or put students of the same level in the groups.
o Some of the students’ written homework is an absolute disaster – grammar, spelling,
everything! The teacher doesn’t know where to start correcting.
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 o Some of the really good students sometimes ask the teacher very difficult questions and even
corrected her once!

3. Why does the problem exist?

1. Students come from different learning backgrounds

 Some may have studied more English at primary levels than others. Some may have
attended private language schools for extra English. Thus they may have spent
different amounts of time studying.

2. Students progress at different rates

 This is due to different learning styles and the way students respond yo the teacher’s
style and approach. Some learners may be primarily visual (they like to see things
written down). Others are primary auditory (they learn best and remember things
best through listening). Others are kinesthetic (they like to learn through doing). If the
teacher’s approaches emphasize the visual element, then it is likely that the primary
visual learners will have progressed at a faster rate.

3. Some students find learning a second language easy and some find it difficult

 “Learning aptitude” or “gift for languages” means to have the ability to:

o perceive and recognise new sounds

o establish sound-symbol relationships
o recognise patterns in language forms and infer rules
o notice similarities and differences in meanings and language forms
o memorise and recall new verbal information

4. Some students may find formal study easier than others

 These students may have adopted good study habits and appropiate learning
strategies. They pay attention and participate in class, they ask questions, they keep
neat notebooks, etc. Other students do none of these things and seem to make little
progress in learning.

5. Students may already have a positive or negative attitude

 Students may develop a positive or negative attitude towards the language. This may
depend on how successful they are in it or how they are treated. For example, if they
enjoy the classes, get on well with the other students and with the teacher, they are
likely to have a positive attitude. But if they find classes boring, they are likely to
develop a negative attitude.

6. There may be other influences

 Other things may influece the students’ attitude and ability, such as:

o Having an English-speaking family

o Travelling to English speaking countries
o Satellite TV or computers with English programmes at home
o Personal interests such as love of English or American pop music
o Having a future ambition for a job that involves English
4. How can we deal with mixed-ability classes?

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 Ways of changing: ways of trying to ensure that all students have equal opportunities.

A. Classroom management skills

 Organizing and running our classrooms efficiently and effectively mazimise opportunities for
learning.

1. Spread attention: make sure you involve all the students. Allow quieter and weaker students
to participate by establidhing eye contact, not alloweing them to hide at the back and
checking they have understood the instructions.

2. Learn an use students’ names: students will feel recognised as individuals and they will feel
more involved.

3. The teacher’s attitude: good teachers are bright, cheerful and frindly, enthusiastic,
organised, fair, confident, authoritative (not authoritarian), enthusiastic and encouraging.

4. Praise and encouragement: Students need to feel noticed but also valued. Recognising
good behavior, effort and good work is important. Say “good” and “well” done, express
approval in your class. Comment on what is good, do not only focus on errors.

5. Teacher talk : everybody needs to hear you. Speak loud and clear. Vary tone and pitch.
Your talk should be meaningful and comprehensible. Keep your language simple and pause
to allow students some thinking time.

6. Managing learning activities: all the students should be involved in the lesson.

o Focus on instruction: use simple language, use gestures, give examples, check
understanding.

o Use pair and group work: weaker students participate in small groups, students can
help each other, they can assume different roles according to their level.

o Set a time for the activity before the students begin.

o Monitor while the students are working: go around helping them with problems they
may encounter.

o Find things to do with fast finishers

o Make sure everyone benefits from feedback: check that everyone has heard and
understood the answers and has correted their work.

7. Using the board: all the students should read and see what’s on the blackboard. Check that
your writing is clear and legible.

8. Classroom layout: the way that the classroom is organized is very important. If your
classroom is badly laid out and neither you nor the students ever move, some students will
stop paying attention. There are various layouts possible with larger classes:

o Students in pairs at desks

o Students sitting in a horseshoe
o Students in groups around tables

Depending on the activity you are doing, some layouts may be better than others.

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B. Motivating students: the weaker learners are often those with least motivation. Successful
learners are those who are more motivated from the beginning. The teacher should motivate
all the students in mixed-ability classes.

1. Show them how useful English is: show them how much English is around them and how
many people speak English to increase motivation. Discuss names of famous people,
singers, films. Show them English countries in a map. Discuss jobs and professions, etc.

2. Create an English environment: include posters of English-speaking countries or of famous

English-speaking people. A corner with English books, comics, magazines and game is also
a very good idea.

3. Create a good atmosphere: the teacher should encourage an atmosphere of co-operation,

tolerance and mutual support. The teacher should also make a class contract with her
students (speak as much English as we can, be polite to each other), be fair and not to
discriminate, provide opprtunities for learners to get to know each other, encourage students
to listen to each other, have some class activities (students make posters of important
events) and she should not compare students’ performances.

4. The lesson: students sould enojoy the lesson so the teacher needs to make lessons
motivating by finding out topics the students are interested in, including variety, balancing
serious and fun activities, varying the students’ tasks, being flexible to avoid being boring,
catering for different learnin styles and preferences, allowing student choices and giving
opportunities for creativity.

5. Personalization: you should relate the language to the students themselves to make the
language more meaningful and memorable. Eg: vocabulary of animals – “do you have any
pet at home?”

C. Catering for different learning styles

1. Different kinds of learners: learners have different learning styles and preferences; if you
cater only for one type of learner, then the others will fall behind. There are different kind of
learners:

Visual learners: learners that like to have visual clues. For example, they prefer reading
instructions to listening them bacause they understand and remember them better, and they
prefer looking at their coursebook to listening explanations.

Auditory learners: learners that learn and remember better when they listen. They prefer the
teacher to give oral instructions and they remember things they have listened to more easily
than things they have read.

Kinesthetic learners: learners that prefer to learn by doing or experiencing. They prefer
demonstration to written or verbal explanations. They will learn better by being actively
involved in a task, by acting, drawing or making something.

2. How students like to learn?

Individual learners: these learners prefer to study alone because it helps them to remember
and they feel they work more efficiently.

Group learners: they remember more and they work more efficiently when they work with
other people.

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 Concrete learners: they like visual and verbal experiences and they dislike routine learning
and written work. They like to be entertained and physically involved. They want immediate,
varied and lively learning experiences.

Analitycal learners: they are independent, they like problem solving and working things out
by themselves. They like new learning material to be presented systematically and logically
and they like to follow up on their own. They are serious and hardworking, and are badly
affected by failure.

Communicative learners: they like a social approach to learning. They learn well from
discussion and group activities, and need personal feedback and interaction.

Authority-oriented learners: they relate well to a traditional classroom, preferring the teacher
as an authority figure. They like clear instructions and they need structure and logical
progression in what they learn.

3. How can you find about students’ preferred learning styles?

We can use questionnaires to find out their attitudes to different ways of learning (how they
prefer to work, how they remember thing better). We can ask them what they feel about
certain activities. We should also evaluate the students’ progress through informal checking
and formal tests. Different students may remember different things if they have different
learning preferences but if there are some leassons that no one seems to remember well,
this may indicate a general tendency in the class.

4. How can you catter for different learning styles?

It is important to vary the teaching approaches you use, so that you cater for as many types
of learner as possible. There are dofferent ways of approaching various learning activities to
ensure that we cater for different types of learners:

Grammar presentation: you may want to present the simple present with he/she for talking
about daily routines. To do this, you can use pictures of a famous pop star. You can draw a
clock on the board, use mime, play a cassette, etc.

Vocabulary: you can use pictures to elicit vocabulary orally, translation, picture dictionaries,
mime or gesture, etc.

Skills work: it is also important t provide practice in all the four skills so that different types of
learners are catered for. You need to ensure that you include a good balance of the skills.

D. Learner training

You need to make students aware of effective learning behaviors and strategies to help
them become better learners.

1. Participation: all students should participape. You should give students management
responsabilities (cleaning the board, handing out papers), teach them classroom language
(“how do you say ...?”), so that all of them can participate. Display students work with their
name visible to make them feel proud, etc.

2. Organising notebooks: encourage and train weaker students to keep well organised
notebooks. Help them to organise their notes, look at their notebooks regularly and give
them a mark, separate vocabulary notebooks.

3. Training in using different books: learners should make use of bilingual and monolingual
dictionaries, coursebook, grammar book, picture dictionaries .
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 4. English outside the class: raise your students’ awareness of thing they can do to improve
their English outside the classroom. For example, encourage them to listen to pop songs,
get a reader from the libary, write to a penfrind in English, etc.

5.Error awareness: teach students to learn from their mistakes. This can be done by: error
spoting ( give them a text with mistakes and they spot the mistakes) or by error checklist
( write common errors on a poster, along woth their correct version)

6. The good language learner: ask students to make a list of things the good language
learner does and a list of things that bad language learner does.

7. Strategies for skills work: give them tips of how to improve their skills. This can be done
through quizzes, discussion or listening activities.

8. Keeping records of work: learners should have a clear idea of their strenghts and
weakenesses as language learners

 Ways of coping: practical techniques and teaching ideas suitable for mixed-ability classes.

A. Grading tasks

Students need to work on the same basic activity but with different tasks graded at varying
levels of difficulty.

1. An example-dictation: select a text to dictate to the students but give different students
different tasks to do. Give the students in the strongest group a blank piece pf paper, give
the middle-level group a gapped version of the text to be dictated and give the lowest-
level group a complete version of the text with multiple choice options for some of the
words and expressions. When you dictate the text, the students in the strongest group
write down everything, the middle-level group fills in the gaps and the lowest-level group
chooses the correct word.

2. Advantages and disadvantages of using graded tasks:

Advantages: all the students can get involved in doing the task, no one should have nothing
to do. All the students can succeed in completing the task. The cheking stage empowers the
weaker students since they are the ones who are most likely to have a complete and correct
version of the text. The checking stage also promotes co-operation and tolerance.

Disadvantages: there is much more preparation fron the teacher. Students may feel labelled
as weak, medium or strong. The weaker students may feel demotivated and the stronger
ones may resent having to work always harder.

Solutions: although it means more preparation, the tasks can be used for other classes. Let
students choose which activity they want, but they should challenge themselves sufficiently.
Classroom management and organisational skills are crucial here: make sure the groups are
equally sized.

3. Picture dictation: this activity provides practice in many different lexical and structural
areas. It has to do with describing people, their appearance and clothes. Again, the students
are divided in strong (they draw the people from the scratch), middle (they are given outlines
of the people) and low groups (they are given outlines with some details to fill in).

40
 4. Vocabulary activities: give students crazy texts (texts with wrong words). Students should
find the wrong words andd replace them with the correct ones. You can also give them a
wordsearch (sopa de letras) in which they have to recognize the words.

5. Reading and listening: the types of exercises to work with these skills are true or false,
completng a chart, chaging wrong information for correct information in a chart, etc.

B. Self access

Students should work on different tasks, with different resources in the classroom,
individually or in groups.

1. Advantages of this approach: it caters for a wide mix of ability. Learners work on
something that is useful and iteresting for them. It increases learner autonomy, it gives the
students a sense of responsability for their own learning. You can spend more time with
those students who need your help. It adds variety to your classes

2. Materials that can be used: students’ workbooks, books of grammar and vocabulary
exercises, readers and accompanying tapes, videos, compiters and CD-ROM, audio
cassettes, magazines, games and references books.
3. Organisation of the materials: it is important that materials are indexed and clearly
organised. We should have separate files of grammar, listening and vocabulary. Readers
should be arraged according to level of difficulty, they can also be arraged according to type
(crime, non-fiction). An index for video and one for audio materials with brief summaries of
the contents will help students choose what they want to work with.

4. Students choice in what they do: it is important that students choose something that is
useful for them in terms of improving their English. You should check what they choose and,
if you see that they are not doing something appropriately, encourage them to choose more
suitable activities.

5. Ensure students are working: some activities may be done individually, in groups or pairs.
The teacher should help organise the groupings. If discipline problems arise, the teacher
should intervene and change groupings.

6. Monitoring students’ progress: The record sheets that students complete are very
important. You can fill in comments too. Using these with self evaluation and individual
counselling, you can see if the student is making progress.

C. Content teaching

Just because a learner has not been a successful language learner does not mean that he lacks
knowledge or skills in other areas. To provide opportunities in the English class, we need to
encougare a sense of self-esteem, encourage respect, motivate weaker students, make lessons
relevant to learners, allow learners to teach the teacher, etc.

1. Quizzes: quizzes can be written or oral. They should include short questions: wh-questions,
true or false or multiple choice.

2. Games: nought and crosses, pictionary, snakes and ladders.

3. Maths tricks: practicing numbers and mathematics in English can be very motivating and
allows the students who have a skill in this area to use it

4. Number puzzles: students have to explain to the class or write down in English how they
reached their answer.

41
5. Logic puzzles: The explanation is also important. The students who are good at working out
these puzzles are not necessarily those who are good at English. The students can work in
groups on the solution.

6. Choosing topics: by letting students choose topics to work on you allow a very mizex group of
students to satisfy a wide range of interests and thereby keep up interest and motivation.

D. Activities with different responses

Some classroom activities allow for different types of responses from different students. This
allows students to do what they are good at and thereby raise self-esteem. All of these
activities involve students in producing language and are based on groupwork.

1. Project work: there are different tasks to do, students have different responsabilities:
reading skills, knowledge of English vocabulary, the ability to use a dictionary, clear
handwriting, speaking and writing skills, etc.

2. Roleplays: this activity involves students in taking on different roles. Roleplays are also a
very versatile activity and can be used to practice a wide range of laguage items in many
different situations. Give the students time to prepare the roles. Give easier roles for weaker
students.

3. Bilingual roleplays: there should be one student who speaks only English, one who
speaks only L1, and one who speaks both languages. The English and the L1 speaker want
to communicate with each other so they must use the bilingual speaker as an interpreter.
The weaker students can be the L1 speakers.

4. Drama: students can be asked to act out a scene based on a picture (you give students a
picture and they act a shor scene) or a short extract of dialogue (students act out a short
dialogue).

5. Responding to the text: students can be asked to prodece in groups a written or oral
response to something they have read or listened to. They can listen to a song and do
comprehension work on the lyrics, read a poem and write a similar one, they can illustrate
the poem or song, etc.

E. Open-ended activities

These are activities which are designed to let students respond at their own level.

1. Diary or student journal: students can keep a diary, journal or personal notebook in
English. The aim is to get students to write whatever they can on a certain topic in a certain
time. The emphasis should be on fluency rather than on accuracy.

2. Choosing vocabulary to learn: after reading a text, give students bilingual dictionaries and
set a time limit. They have to choose which words thay want to look up and learn.

3. Asking or answering questions: give students a list of questions and they have to answer
as many as they can within a time limit. The questions can be based on you and your
family, on school, daily routines and holidays.

4. Dictation and questions: students write on the board words that you dictate them. Once
the words are on the board, the students have to try to guess the questions you are thinking
of to elicit the answer.

5. Responding to a picture: students have a picture and write around it words, expressions
or phrases associated with it.
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 6. Using stories: you can use stories in English that the students already know in their own
language. With these stories students can draw a picture of the story, act out a scene,
answer questions, etc.
7. Using video: video may be easier to understand than audio listening material because of
the visual clues.

8. Vocabulary brainstorming: This can be done from a picture or from a topic tittle. Students
write as many words as they can associate with the picture or topic.

9. Poetry writing: find a poem that you think will appeal to your students and that they will be
able to understand quite easily. The teacher writes the topic of the poem on the board
(without showing the poem) and the students write words associated with it. Then the
students are asked to make up a short poem on the same topic using the words from the
board. The students read their poems. Finally, the teacher shows them the poem.

10. Music: give the students a list of questions to think about as they listen to a piece of
music. Then students compare their ideas in groups. Finally, students act out a scene to go
with the music.

11. Student presentations: students can be asked to do a presentation to the class at some
time during the year. This can take different forms: a talk, a poster presentation, a
demonstration.

F. Dealing with different learning speeds

Students do not work at the same speed. We should find a balance and clear strategies for
ensuring that stronger students are not held back or challenged insufficiently; and that
weaker students have enough time to do the essential work.

1. Course content: it is essential to plan work ahead. You should have an overview of the
year’s objectives and the work to be covered.

Identify your syllabus: depending on how your syllabus are organised, you need to identify
how you will meet the objectives.

Identify remedial work necessary: we need to consider what the essential previous
knowledge for these objectives is. You need to identify any language items or skills that are
essential.

Identify extra work: make sure that stronger students learn extra things.

Assess the students: you need to find out if your students need to do the remedial work. You
can do this by a test, by setting tasks or by homework. It is not a good idea to begin the year
with a lot of revision because it can bore the stronger students and demotivate the weaker
ones.

Inform the students: give students a copy or a simplified version of the document you have
produced. Give them the remedial work list before the core work (work essential to achieve
the objectives) list for this year.

2. Whole-class stages of the lesson: although working individually, in pairs or groups is very
useful, there will be some classes with the teacher at the front. The aim is to involve the
stronger students and make sure they do not get bored and to give the weaker ones enough
time and opportunities to understand.

43
 Presenting new language: elicit as much as you can from stronger students, encourage peer
correction, insist on good pronunciation, keep the presentation lively, give more oral practice
to weaker students, etc.

Checking an exercise: do not always check in class because it’s a waste of time. Students
can check in pairs or use a written key while you help students with more difficulties.

Checking interest and brainstorming ideas: allow thinking time to think of more ideas
individually or in pairs.

3. Fast finishers: students who finish first may become restless or even disruptive if they are
left doing nothing. It is important to have a range of strategies to deal with fast finishers. How
to deal with this problem?

Checking work: fast finishers should be encouraged to check their own work. They can
check their work with another student who has also finished.

Helping other students: you can ask fast finishers to help students who have not finished or
who are finding the task difficult. This promotes co-operation between learners.

Extension activities: it may be possible to extend some activities: some extra reading
comprehension, garmmar exercises, extra writing, vocabulary, speaking, listening
comprehension, etc.

Additional exercises: fast finishers can do exercises that you have no time to do with the
whole class.

Workcards/sheets: if you have a collection of laminated workcards/sheets or photocopies of

different exercises, fast finishers can be given an activity while the other students finish. Eg:
a crossword.

Readers: fast finishers can get on with some reader.

4. Homework: it is an ideal opportunity for slower students to catch up and an opportunity for
stronger students who work quickly to do extra tasks.

G. Assessment

1. Assessing at the beginning of the year: you may want information about their knowledge
of grammar, vocabulary, their ability in listening, reading, writing and speaking. You may
want to know about their behavior, their motivation, their learning style, etc. You can find out
about their language level in the following ways:

Give them a formal test: you may want to include sections on grammar and vocabulary, a
reading comprehension, a listening comprehension and a writing task. This test should tell
you those language items and skills that you identify as things the students should already
be able to do before beginning on the new year’s work.

Test them informally through different classroom activities: observe how students perform in
different activities. Monitor their work carefully. Pay attention to weaker students.

Individual counselling: you should try to have an individual counselling session with all the
students to get to know them, show them that you are aware of them, motivate them, advise
them, check their work, etc.

44
 Explaining assessment procedure: you need to tell your students how often will formal tests
take place, what form they will take, what criteria you will use in assessing students’ work,
etc.

2. Testing throughout the year: you need to keep track of students’ progress and
achievement throughout the year

Record-keeping: it is essential that both you and your students keep a record of work they
have covered.

Counselling: individual counselling should be carried out. Counselling can take place during
self.access sessions or outside class time.

Checking progress: students need to know where they are in terms of their own progress
(have they improved since the beginning of the year?), the standard expected of a class at
this level (are they weak, average, or very strong for he level?), and they need to know in
which areas they are weak and need to improve (language skills, behaviors).

Assessment records: assessment records should be as complete as possible with

references to different language skills, effort, progress and levels of achievement.

Formal tests: they should include progressively more difficult tasks so that the stronger
students will be increasingly challenged, they should have an extra task at the end. The
teacher should design different tests for different levels within the class.

Mini checktests: these are short tests which focus on discrete language items and particular
tasks for the syllabus.

Continuous assessment: it can be used in conjunction with formal tests. The teacher should
define at the beginning of the term a number of tasks related to core work that students will
need to carry out successfully. She should give students a list of these and give them a final
date by which they must do them. She should also let them have another go at the task if
they do not complete it satisfactorily the first time.

3. Testing at the end of the year: in most school systems there is one test that all students
must do in order to pass satisfactorily to the next level. Those students who have no
reached the required standard as reflected in the test will inevitably do worse.

Solving the problems!!!

Problems Solutions

The use of graded tasks would help. If stronger

Have students have finished an students are given more challenging work to do,
exercise when the other half have it is less likely that they will finish quickly. Open-
just began. ended activities also allow students to respond
at their own level and should keep stronger
students ocuupied. Fast finishers should be set
extra tasks, never just left doing nothing.

45
 You can get the stronger students involved by
The stronger students get bored getting them to explain. You also need to pace
if I spend time explaining to the whole-class teacher-led stages carefully. Or
weaker ones have students doing different things in the class
while you spend time teaching a group of
weaker students.

Planning you core coursebook is essential and

We’ve got a syllabus to get it is mportant that you do not begin every year
through but most of the with remedial work that not everybody needs.
students are already behind. However, you do need to cater for those stu-
dents who are behind by drawing up remedial
checklists, identifying gaps in the students’
knowledge, and providing opportunities for them
to work.

Ensuring that all the students have the opportu-

nity to participate is part of classroom manage-
ment. Ensure that weaker learners have the
The stronger students opportunity to contribute in whole-class stages
dominate. by asking them easier questions. Individual
work, pair and groupwork may be less threaten-
ing for quieter students. The use of graded-
tasks, self-access, content teaching, different
responses and open-ended activities encoura-
ge and provide opportunitiesfor all students to
contribute.

Good classroom management skills, the use of

The weaker students sit at the different groupings and interaction partners,
back and start disrupting the and good lesson planning in terms of appropri-
lesson ate and varied tasks design should prevent this.

Motivation is crucial. Providing tasks that are

The weaker students don’t even achievable encourages students to try. Recog-
try. nising effort and progress is also and important
factor.

If you are working to a syllabus, then basically

I don’t know where to pitch my you have to deal with the language and the
lesson. skills that appear on it. You can adapt particular
tasks to suit different levels of ability. Self
access also allows students to work on different
tasks at an appropriate level. Make sure that
you cater for all levels so that everyone is invol-
ved.

46
 You need to vary your approach to cat for differ-
The weaker students are always ent learning styles. By doing this you may dis-
asking me things in their own courage students from needing to have things
language and want everything explained. Insist that the students use English
explained in it. as much as possible. Raising their awareness
of good learning strategies helps and also their
awareness of the assessment criteria. You
need to ensure your language is well graded.

Some of the weaker students try Recognition of effort and progress is as import-
so hard but they still get bad ant as achievement. This must be included in
marks. any evaluation of them.

When I’m doing pair or groupwork

I don’t know whether it’s better to There is no right answer to this. It depends on
put strong andweak students to- the activity and the stage of the activity.
gether or put students of the
same level in the groups.

This is not surprising if weaker students have

Some of the students’ written been given no guidance. Train students in error
homework is an absolute disaster: awareness and encourage them to check and
grammar, spelling, everything! correct their own and each other’s work, using
I don’t know where to start error checklist and reference books. They need
correcting it. to be aware of the assessment criteria you use.
With freer, open-ended tasks, responding to the
content and reformulation is more appropriate
than correcting error overtly.

Good students should be regarded as a positive

Some of the really good students influence. If you don’t know the answer to a
sometimes ask me difficult question, don’t be afraid to say so, but promise
questions and one even corrected to find out. If you have reference books available
me once! in the class, then get the students to look the
answer up.

To remember …

 Real classes are mixed-ability classes. Real groups of students are heterogeneous, with
very pronounced differences in:

 Profieciency levels
 Levels of motivation
 Background gender characteristics
 Preferred learning styles
 Predominant intelligence

 Teaching diversity means teaching reality.

 Teaching unique individuals means to recognize and respect:

 The principle of universality in education 47

 The quality of opportunities for every student
 The acceptance of differences and diversity
The Multiple Intelligence Theory

What is intelligence?

 It is people who excel in learning information.

 It is a single, inborn, unchanged, unitary capacity that can be measured by IQ tests designed
to assess an individual’s logic and verbal abilities (traditional definition)

 It is a bio-psychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural

setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture.

 According to Howard Gardner, a cognitive psychologist, intelligence is a multidimensional

set of brain functions that can be developed, educated, explained and enhanced and that
consists of skills for:

o solving genuine problems or difficulties encountered in life.

o finding or creating solutions for problems and which enables a person to create new
knowledge.

o creating effective products or offering services that are valuable in one own’s culture.

What are the classroom implications?

 All groups are homogeneous

 All individuals learn in only one way
 All the knowledge gained can be measured by the same standarized tools.
 There is only one way to teach.
 The same learning strategy suits everyone
 A high IQ is a good predictor of success in life.

Key points of Gardner’s theory

 All human beings possess all nine intelligences in varying degrees.

 Each individual has a different intelligence profile.
 Education can be improved by assessment of students’ intelligence profiles and designing
activities accordingly.
 Each intelligence occupies a dirrect area of the brain.
 The nine intelligences may operate in consort/combination or independently from one
another.
 These nine intelligences may define the human species.
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 It’s not how smart you are that matters, what really counts is how you are smart!!

The nine intelligences

Multiple intelligence theory is a pluralized way of understanding the intellect. Each person’s level of
intelligence is actually made up of autonomous faculties that can work individually or in concert with
other faculties.

1) Bodily/Kinesthetic:

Body smart

 Use the body to solve problems, make things, and convey emotions.
 Control body movements and handle objects skillfully.
 Have a good sense of balance and eye-hand coordination
 Interact with the space in order to remember and process information
 Engage in at least one sport or physical activity on a regular basis.
 Find it difficult to sit for long periods of time.
 Like working with hands at concrete activities such as sewing, weaving or model building.
 The best ideas often come when being out for a walk or a jog, or when being engaged in
some other kind of physical activity.
 Like to spend free time outdoors.
 Frequently use hand gestures or other forms of body language when conversing with
someone.
 Need to touch things in order to learn more about them.
 Enjoy daredevil amusement rides or similar thrilling physical experiences.
 Would describe themselves as well coordinated.
 Need to practice a new skill rather simply reading about it or seeing a video that describes it.
 Each perso possesses a certain control of his or her movements, balance, agility and grace.
 Each hemisphere of the brain controls the opposite side of the body’s movements.

2) Naturalistic:

Nature smart

49
  Identify and classify the components that make up our environment.
 Organize and make clear distinctions of the patterns of nature.
 Learn about natural events.

3) Verbal/Linguistic:

Word smart

 Use language in creative ways.

 Are sensitive to differences in the order, the rhythm of words.
 Think in words.
 Understand information thorugh listening.
 Are good at speaking, writing, story telling, explaining, using humor, understanding the
syntax and meaning of words, convincing someone of their point of view.
 Analize language usage.
 Books are very important to them.
 Can hear words in their head before they read, speak, or write them down.
 Get more out of listening to the radio or a spoken-word cassette than they do from television
or films.
 Enjoy word games like passwords.
 Enjoy tongue twisters, nonsense rhymes, or puns.
 People ask them the meaning of the words they use in their writing and speaking.
 English, social studies, and history are easier for them than math and science.
 When driving, they pay more attention to the words written on signs than to the scenery.

4) Musical:

Music smart

 Appreciate a variety of musical forms.

 Use music as a vehicle of expression.
 Pick up sounds, remember melodies and rhythms, and recognize tonal patterns.
 Are sensitive to pitch and timbre and to environmental sounds.
 Understand the structure and rhythm of music and language.
 Have a pleasant singing voice.
 Can tell when a musical tone is off-key.
 Frequently listen to music on the radio, cassette tapes or compact discs.
50
  Play a musical instrument.
 Walk around with a jingle or other tune running through their minds.
 Can easily keep time to a piece of music with a simple percussion instrument.
 Know the tunes to many different songs or music pieces.
 Hear a musical selection once or twice, usually able to sing it back fairly accurately.
 Often make tapping sounds or sing little melodies while working, studying or learning
something new.

5) Visual/Spatial:

Picture smart

 Create visual/spatial representations or models of the world.

 Orient oneself easily.
 Represent ideas graphically.
 Think in pictures.
 Retain information included in maps, charts, pictures, videos and movies.
 Create visual metaphors and analogies.
 Draw, construct, fix and design practical objects.
 See clear visual images when closing their eyes.
 Are sensitive to color.
 Frequently use a camara or camcorder to record what they see around them.
 Do jigsaw puzzles, mazes, and other visual puzzles.
 Have vivid dreams at night.
 Can find their way around unfamiliar territory.
 Draw or doodle.
 Geometry is easier for them than algebra.
 Imagine how something might appear if it were looked down upon from directly above in a
bird’s eye view.
 Prefer looking at reading material that is heavily illustrated.

6) Logical/Mathematical:

Logic smart

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  Think rationally and conceptually making connections between pieces of information.
 Reason deductively or inductively.
 Recognize and manipulate patterns and relationships.
 Arrange tasks in an orderly sequence in order to solve problems systematically or
scientifically.
 Work out the rules of the language, manipulate, categorize, and classify abstract
information.
 Question and wonder about natural events.
 Perform complex mathematical calculations, and work with geometric shapes.
 Can easily compute numbers in their heads.
 Maths and science are their favourite subjects.
 Enjoy playing games or solving brain teasers that require logical thinking.
 Like to set up “what if” experiments.
 Their minds search for patterns, regularities, or logical sequences in things.
 Interested in new developments in science.
 Believe that almost everything has a rational explanation.
 Think in clear abstract, wordless, imageless concepts.
 Feel more comfortable when something has been measured, categorized, analyzed, or
quantified in some way.
7) Intrapersonal:

Self-smart

 Understand one own’s inner feelings, desires, dreams, emotions, moods, goals and
intentions.
 Reflect on, analize and understand oneself and apply one’s talent successfully.
 Work quietly on one’s own.
 Are confident and have instinct about one’s own weaknesses and strenghts.
 Assess one’s own thinking patterns, and reason with oneself.
 Understand one’s role in relationship to others.
 Do effective self-paced projects.
 Spend time alone meditating, reflecting, or thinking about important life questions.
 Have attended counseling sessions or personal growth seminars to learn more about
themselves.
 Are able to respond to setbacks with resilience.
 Have a special hobby or interest that they keep pretty much to themselves.
 Have some important goals for their lives that they thing about on a regular basis.
 Have a realistic view of their strenghts and weaknesses.
 Would prefer to spend a weekend alone in a cabin in the woods rather than at a fancy resort
with lots of people around.
 Consider themselves to be strong willed or independent minded.
 Keep a personal diary or journal to record the events of their inner life.
 Are self-employed or have at least thought seriously about starting their own bussiness.

8) Interpersonal:

52
People smart

 Understand other people, as well as their goals, motivations, feelings, and intentions.
 See things from other people’s point of view in order to understand how they think.
 Organize groups and work well with others.
 Maintain peace in groups settings and encourage cooperation.
 Use empathy.
 Resolve conflicts peacefully
 Communicate effectively, both verbally and non-verbally, building trust, and establishing
positive relationships with other people.
 People come to them for advice.
 Prefer group sports like volleyball to solo sports like swimming.
 When having a problem, they seek out another person for help than attempt to work it out on
their own.
 Have at least three close friends.
 Favor social pastimes such as Monopoly over individual recreations such as video games or
solitaire.
 Enjoy the challenge of teaching another person, or groups of people, what they know how to
do.
 Consider themselves a leader.
 Feel comfortable in the midst of a crowd.
 Like to get involved in socail activities connected with their work, church, or community.
 Would rather spend their evenings at a lively party than stay at home alone.

9) Existentialist Intelligence/ Moral Intelligence:

 It is currently under study. Still lacks neurological evidence.

 Concerned with issues such as:

o who we are
o where we come from
o where we go
o how we should behave

IQ Multiple Intelligence

Intelligence is believed to be a reliable predic- Intelligence is the way you deal with problems
tor of academic and finacial success. or learn new things and skills.

Intelligence can be presented as a numerical It is impossible to present intelligence as a

value. number.

Logical thinking is the only criterion by which Intelligence can only be measured in context of
53
intelligence is assessed. culture and history.

There is only one type of intelligence: there are There are many ways in which intelligence can
no types of intelligence. manifest itself.

You cannot develop your intelligence, you inte- You can develop your intelligences. Intelligence
lligence is stable. is dynamic.

We should plan our lessons around more than one intelligence, this means, to organize a good
range of rich, varied and balanced activities and tasks.

So in the language classroom:

Make students speak, play music in the classroom, sing songs, use well-known songs.
Support the visuals they need: power point, charts, cartoons, videos.
Provide brain teaser and puzzles.
Encourage groupwork and class discussion.
Organize plays and drama
Take them outside to enjoy nature.

The Learning Styles Theory

We approach learning and process information in different ways, since everyone has
strenghts, but different people have different strenghts.

 Language learning styles are the general approaches students use to learn a new language.
(Scarcella and Oxford)

 Learning Style is a way in which each learner begins to concentrate on, process, and retain
new and difficult information. (Dunn)

 Learning Style is a biologically and developmentally imposed set of personal characteristics

that make the same teaching method effective for some students and ineffective for others.
(Dunn, Beaudry, and Klavas)

 These approaches can determine:

 how we focus on a learning task to process information.

 the sensory channel we use.
 our preferred way for the presentation of material.
 the degree of ambiguity we can tolerate.
 the predominance of one brain hemisphere over the other.
 our preferred learning style.

 There are five key dimensions of language learning styles:

1) Analytic-global
54
 Analytic students (field independent) Global students (field dependent)

They are detailed oriented. They focus on They are holistic individuals. They focus on the
details main idea or big picture, not on details.

They concentrate in grammatical details and They like socially interactive, communicative
often do not participate well in communicative events in which they use main ideas. They have
activities. They focus on contrastive analysis difficulty dealing with grammatical details. They
between languages, on rule-learning and on avoid analysis of words, rules and sentences.
dissecting words and sentences.

They would rather find the meanings of words They are content to use guessing strategies.
in the dictionary than guess in context. They They like guessing meanings of words, use
don’t use synonyms or paraphrase when they synonyms or paraphrases.
don’t know a particular word.

They can easily separate important details They find it more difficult to see the parts in a
from a complex or confusing background. complex whole.

They tend to rely on themselves and their own They rely on others’ ideas to solve problems.
thought-system when solving problems.

They are not skilled in interpersonal relation- They are good at interpersonal relationships.
ships.

In the EFL class, they are strong in: grammar, In the EFL class, they are strong in: social,
detailed and contrastive analysis, problem communicative interaction, working woth others,
solving, dissecting words and sentences, participating in games, open-ended and
structured learning, deducing rules and work- context-embedded activities.
ing independently.

2) Sensory preferences: this dimension highlights the physical, perceptual avenues for
learning.

Visual learners Auditory learners Hands-on learners

They like to read and obtain a They are comfortable without They like lots of movements
great deal of visual stimulation. visual input and therefore enjoy and enjoy working with tangible
For them, lectures, conversa- lectures, conversations and objects, collages, and flash-
tions, and oral directions with- oral directions. They like class- cards. They can’t sit at a desk
out any visual backup can be room interactions in role-plays for vey long; they prefer to ha-
very confusing. and similar activities. They ve frequent breaks and move
sometimes have difficulty with around the room. They are
written work. tactile-kinaesthetic)

They are strong in: silent read- They are strong in: under- They are strong in: learning by
ing, working with visual clues, standing oral input, reading doing, role playing, handing,
using books and pictures. aloud, discussing. touching, moving, drawing,
experiencing.
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 3) Intuitive/Random and Sensory/Sequential Learning: ordering abilities for the presentation of
material.

Intuitive/Random learners Sensory/Sequential learners

Intuitive students are able to think in abstract, They are concerned with concrete facts, which
large-scaled, nonsequential (random) ways. they prefer to be presented in a step-by-step,
Without being instructed to do so, such students organized fashion. Abstract principles and un-
are able to distill the main principles of how the derlying language systems are not very
new language works and thus conceive of the important to them, they just want to do the task
underlying language system. They are often at hand and move to the next activity. Although
bored by concrete, step-by-step learning and these learners achieve goals, they are frequent-
would rather take daring intellectual leaps. ly slow and steady, making progress at their
own rate. Randomness and lack of consistency
in lesson plans are difficult for them to handle in
the language classroom.

They are strong in: making sense of the global They are strong in: dealing with concrete facts,
picture, discovery learning, thiking in abstract, understanding ordered and detailed explana-
summarizing, taking intellectual leaps, creating tions, using all five senses, performing step-by-
theories, following “hunches” to guide their own step tasks.
learning.

4) Orientation to closure: the degree to which each person needs to reach desicions or clarity.
This dimension is very closely related to tolerance of ambiguity. It is also associated with
flexibility in learning styles: the ability to shift styles when necessitated by the task.

Closure-oriented learners Open learners

They have a strong need for clarity in all as- They take language learning far less seriously,
pects of language learning. They want lesson treating it like a game to be enjoyed rather than
directions and grammar rules to be spelled out a set of tasks to be completed.
and are unable to cope with much slack in the
system. They are not worried with class deadlines. They
are more concerned with having a good time in
Spontaneous conversations and games in the the language classroom and soaking up what
language classroom are not for them, unless learning they can by osmosis rather than hard
thay have had adequate tikme to prepare their effort.
vocabulary lists and understand the rules
involved in any given interaction.
As they are more relaxed, they sometimes do
They are serious, hardworking learners who better in developing fluency than do more
have developed useful metacognitive skills such closure-oriented learners.
as planning, organizing, and self-evaluating.

They like control in their lives and in their learn- Openness can be a benefit in those situations
56
ing. Sometines, their desire for closure and that require flexibility and development of fluen-
contro can prevent them from participating in cy, but can be a detriment in situations such as
the open-ended communication necessary for highly structured and traditional classroom
developing fluency. settings.

They are strong in: planning, organizing, self- They are strong in: activities promoting fluency,
assessment, understanding clear rules, using games, discussions, role playing, interactive
detailed lists of vocabulary. communication.

5) Competition-cooperation: this dimension illustrates the degree to which learners benefit from
competing against or cooperating with others.

Competitive learners Cooperative learners

They are motivated by competition in which They prefer working with others in a helpful,
winning is the most important. supportive situation.

Competition in language learning may result in Coopearative learning provides an avenue for
feeling of anxiety, inadequacy, hostility, fear of student interaction while increasing self-esteem,
failure, guilt, and a strong desire for approval. achievement, motivation, and the use of
cognitive strategies.

Beyond the Stylistic Comfort Zone

Language learners need to make the most of their style preferences. But they also must extend
themselves beyond their stylistic comfort zone to use techniques and behaviors that might not
initially feel right to them. Learners need to develop other styles as well. For instance, an analytic
learner cannot stay stuck in memorizing and analyzing vocabulary, but must try to have a more
global understanding of meaning.Conversely, a global student needs to do some analysis in order
to understand the structure of the language and learn how to communicate with precision and skill.
Teachers should provide a wide range of classroom activities that cater to a variety of learning
styles and that challenge students to try new things. The key is offering a variety and change in
activities within a steady, consistent, learner-centered, communicative approach.

Learning Strategies

 Language strategies are specific actions, behaviors, steps or techniques – such as seeking
out conversation partners, or giving oneself encouragement to tackle a difficult language
task – used by students to enhance their own learning.
 Strategies are important for language learning because they are the tools for active, self-
directed involvement, which is essential for developing communication ability.

 Oxford has developed six general kinds of language learning strategies:

1. Planning/evaluating (metacognitive) strategies, such as playing attention,

consciously searching for practice opportunities, planning for language tasks, self-
evaluating one’s progress, and monitoring errors.

2. Emotional/motivational (affective) strategies, such as anxiety reduction, self-

encouragement and self-reward.

57
 3. Social strategies, such as asking questions, cooperating with native speakers of the
language, and becoming culturally aware.

4. Memory strategies, such as grouping, imagery, rhyming, and structured reviewing.

5. Cognitive strategies, such as reasoning, analizying, summarizing, and general

practising.

6. Compensation strategies (to compensate for limited knowledge), such as guessing

meanings from the context in reading and listening and using synonyms and
gestures to convey meaning when the precise expression is not known.

 Students typically use learning strategies that reflect their basic learning style. Students are
not always aware of the power of consciously using language strategies for making learning
easier, quicker, more effective, and even more fun. Skilled teachers help their students to
develop an awareness of learning strategies and enable them to use a wider range of
appropiate strategies.

 Strategy instruction includes demonstrating when a given strategy might be useful, as well
as how to use it, how to evaluate its usefulness, and how to transfer it to other related tasks
and situations.

 The use of appropiate learning strategies often resukts in increased language proficiency
and greater self-confidence.

 Strategy training can be integrated with language learning activities and conducted through
simulations, games, and other interactive tasks. Oxford developed an eight-step model for
integrating strategy training into classroom activities.

1. Identify students’ needs to determine what strategies they are currently using, how
effective the strategies are, and how they can be improved.

2. Choose relevant strategies to be taught.

3. Determine how best to integrate strategy training into regular classroom activities.

4. Consider students’ motivations and attitudes about themselves as learners and about
learning new ways to learn.

5. Prepare materials for activities.

6. Conduct “completely informed training”, in which students learn and practice new
strategies, learn why the strategies are important, learn to evaluate their use of the
strategies, and learn how to apply them in new situations.

7. Evaluate the strategy training.

8. Revise the strategy training procedure for the next stage of strategies to be taught.

What is your preferred learning style and why?

 Oxford and Lavine examine the mismatch between instructors’ teaching styles and their
students’ learning styles. They claim that students whose learning processes resemble the
teacher’s are more likely to achieve good grades and want to continue studying the
language than are students with opposing styles, who may drop the course.

58
  Oxford and Lavine suggests six ways in which these teacher-student style conflicts can be
dealt with:

1. Assess students’ and teachers’ styles and use this information to understand
classroom dynamics. As teachers and students become aware of the major learning
style preferences, they may be able to help one another understand diverse views
and make an effort to compensate for any style mismatches.

2. Change your teaching behavior. Teachers can orient their learning styles to meet
their students’ needs by providing a variety of multisensory, abstract, and concrete
learning activities that appeal to different learning styles. Learners who are analytic,
sequential, or closure-oriented usually like questions and exercises requiring
unambiguous information such as completions, definitions, true-false, slash
sentences, cloze passages, and guided writing. Learners who ar global, intuitive or
open often prefer open-ended activities, personalized questions, simulations and
games, interviews, reading for the gist, and social conversation. Visual learners need
visual stimuli such as transparencies, slides, video, charts, maps, posters, puppets,
etc. Auditory learners prefer auditory input from radio, television, video, songs,
interviews, oral reports, discussions, telephone conversations, and recordings.
Hands-on learners require hands-on experiences such as making things,
manipulating real cultural items, taking notes, doing TPR activities, and following
directions.

3. Change learners’ behavior. Language learners use their style preferences to their
own advantage. Leaners can benefit when teachers provide opportunities for
students to move beyond their “stylictic comfort zone” through the use of strategies
with which they might not initially feel comfortable.

4. Change the way students work in groups in the classroom. Teachers can use the
principles of cooperative learning in grouping students for interactive work. In some
activities, students with similar learning styles might be grouped together, while in
other activities, students might be grouped in a heterogenous fashion so that
members can move beyond their stylistic comfort zones.

5. Change the curriculum. Teachers might organize lessons as a series of activities or

episodes, each with a different objective and style.

6. Change the way style conflicts are viewed. Teachers who encourage students to be
aware of learning style preferences help promote flexibility and openness to the use
of many styles.

Hemispherity

Left-Brain versus right-Brain functions

Brain Hemisphere Information Processing Styles

LEFT HEMISPHERE RIGHT HEMISPHERE

Interested in component parts; detects discrete Interested in wholes; integrates component

features. parts and organizes them into a whole.

Analytical: figures things out step by step and Relational: constructional and pattern seeking.
part by part.
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Linear, sequential processing of input. Global, simultaneous integration of input.

Abstract: takes out a small bit of information and Concrete: relates to things as they are at the
uses it to represent the whole thing. present moment.

Logical: drawing conclusions based on reasons Intuitive: making leaps of insight, often based on
and facts. hunches, feelings or visual images.

Temporal: sequencing one thing after the other. Spatial: seeing where things are in relation to
other things, and how parts go together to form
a whole.

Verbal: encoding and decoding speech, using Nonverbal: visual-spatial, minimal connection
words to name, describe, and define. with words.

Mathematics, musical notation. Musical lyrics and melodies.

Benefits from narrow examples, from trial and Does not learn by specific rules and error
error, and from learning from rules. correction; requires exposure to rich associative
patters.

Ignores emotional cues or makes inappropiate Recognizes and interprets emotional cues.
responses.

Characteristics of Left-Brain and Right-Braain Dominance

LEFT-BRAIN DOMINANCE RIGHT-BRAIN DOMINANCE

Rational Intuitive

Planned and structured Fluid and spontaneous

Theoretical Experiential

Analyzes Synthesizes

Prefers established, certain information. Prefers elusive, uncertain information.

Favors logical problem solving. Favors intuitive problem solving.

Makes objective judgements, conclusions. Make subjective judgements, conclusions.

Focuses on differences. Focuses on similarities.

Sees cause and effect. Sees correspondences.

Observes details. Observes overall design form.

Relies on language iin thinking and Relies on images in thinking and remembering.
remembering.

60
Remembers names and labels. Remember faces and images.

Rarely uses metaphors and analogies. Frequently uses metaphors and analogies.

Responds to verbal instructions. Responds to demonstrated or illustrated

instructions.

Learns by trial and errors and from rules. Learns by modeling, rich exposure, and
practice, not from rules and error correction.

Prefers talking, writing and reading. Prefers drawing and manipulating.

Prefers obejective test formats: true/false, Prefers more open-ended test formats: short
multiple choice, fill-in-the blank, matching. answer, essays, illustrations, diagrams.

Controls feelings. More free with feelings.

Not skilled at interpreting body language. Skilled at interpreting body language.

Responsive to structure. Responsive to environment, ambiance.

Proficiency Levels

Proficiency describes the competencies that enable us to define in more specific terms what it
means to know a language. It’s the ability to perform language functions with a variety of
contexts/contents and with a given degree of accuracy. Proficiency levels make reference to the
terms “beginning”, “intermediate”, or “advanced.”

1) Teaching Beginning Levels

o This may be the most challenging level of language instruction since students have little
knowledge of the target language and the teacher becomes a central determiner in whether
students accomplish their goals.

o Your students’ capacity for taking in and retaining new words, structures and concepts is
limited. The teacher should present the material in simple segments that don’t overwhelm
the students.

2) Teaching intermediate Levels

o At this level, students are able to sustain basic communicative tasks, to establish some
minimal fluency, to deal with a few un rehearsed situations, to self-correct, to use a few
compensatory strategies, and generally to “get along” in the language beyond mere survival.
Your role and the students’ capacities change.

3) Teaching Advanced Levels

o Students get closer and closer to their goals, they develop fluency along with a greater
degree of accuracy , they are able to handle virtually any situation in which target language
use is demanded.

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 Teaching beginning levels Teching intermediate Teaching advanced
levels levels

The students’ process- Students assign larger

ing is in a focal, control- and larger chunks to
led mode. Therefore you An automatic processing automatic modes and
can expect to engage in is present: phrases, sen- gain confidence to put
Students’ repetition of a limited tences, structures, and the formal structures of
cognitive number of words, phrases conversational rules have languageon the periphe-
learning and setences. Get your been practiced and the ry so that focal attention
process students to use practiced mental processes are may be given to the in-
language for meaningful automatizing. Get your terpretation and nego-
purposes (peripheral pro- students continue to au- tiation of meaning and to
cessing), do not get them tomatize. the conveying of thou-
to use the forms of the ghts and feelings in inte-
language. reactive communication.

You are not longer the Your job may appear

Students are dependent only initiator of language. easier with advanced
on the teacher, so a Students should be en- students; you can sit at
teacher –centered or Couraged to ask ques- the back and let their
teacher- fronted class- tions, make comments, questions and self-gene-
room is appropiate, yet and negotiate certain op- rated curiosity take
The role of the your classes should in- tions in learning. Student- over. Your class runs
teacher clude a small amount of student interaction can away with itself and you
students-centered work. take place in pairs or are left with only half
That is why pair and small groups. Learner your plans fulfilled. A
groupwork are effective centered work is possible, directed role on your
techniques. and students are able to part can create effective
maintain topics of dis- learning opportunities.
cussion and focus.

Your input in the class is Most of your oral produc- Natural language at na-
crucial. Your English tion can be sustained at a tural speed is a must.
needs to be articulated natural pace. You should Your students should be
and slow your speech for not speak the major pro- challenged by your choi-
easier comprehension. portion of a class hour, ce of vocabulary, struc-
Use simple vocabulary you should give your stu- tures, idioms, and other
and structures. You dents enough opportuni- language features. They
should restrict classroom ties to talk. At this level, should have ample
Teacher talk language to English un- you should use the stu- opportunities to produce
less some advantage is dents’ native language language so that your
gained by the use of the less. role as a provider of
students’ native langua- feedback takes promi-
ge. Eg: explaining how to nence. The students’
carry out a technique. native language is used
very little. Discipline, ex-
planations and other
more complex language
functions can be carried
out in English.
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 Everything from acade-
The language should be Students become too mic prose to literature to
authentic. Eg: simple concerned about idiomatic conversation
Authenticity of greetings and introduc- grammatical correctness. becomes a legitimate
language tions are authentic and This may prevent them resource for the class-
yet manageable. Utteran- from using authentic, real room. Virtually, no au-
ces should be short. language. thentic language should
be disqualified at this
stage.

Fluency is a goal within

limited utterances. Atten- Some students may be- Most of the students are
tion to accuracy should come too concerned fluent in the sense that
center on the gramma- about accuracy. Others they are no longer think-
tical, phonological, or may become quite fluent Ing about every word or

Fluency and discourse elements that but very difficult to structure they are produ-
accuracy are being practiced. comprehend. In general, cing or comprehending.
Students should practice fluency exercises are a Some problems still
speaking skills freely and must at this level. They need attention. If errors
openly without fear of help students to carry on are relatively rare, treat-
being corrected. Pronun- a whole conversation Ment from you or from
ciation work is very without thinking about peers may be quite help-
important and it should be grammar mistakes. ful.
practiced, too.

The students have more

Students can be creative opportunities to be creat- Students are able to
only within the confines of ive. Recognize creativity apply material to real
Student highly controlled reper- as a positive sign of lan- contexts beyond. Make
creativity toire of language. Innova- guage development. sure your students keep
tion will come later when Students are also beco- their eyes fixed on those
students get more lan- ming capable of applying goals.
guage under their control. their classroom language
to unrehearsed situations.

Short, simple techniques Techniques can now tap

must be used. Choral re- into a full range of socio-
petition and other drilling linguistic and pragmatic
are appropiate. Teacher- Common interactive skills competencies. Group
initiated questions domi- include chain stories, debates and argumenta-
Techniques nate at this level, then surveys and polls, paired tion, complez role-plays.
students can initiate interviews, group problem Scanning and skimming
questions. Group and pair solving, role-plays, story reading material,
activities are excellent telling, and many others. determining and
techniques. A variety of questioning author’s in-
techniques is important tent, and writing essays
because of limited lan- and critiques are typical
guage capacity. activities of this level.
Students have specific
63
 purposes for which they
are planning to use
English.

Students focus more

Listening and speaking carefully on all the socio-
functions are meaningful linguistic nuances of
and authentic communi- Students create novel language. Pragmatic
Listening cation tasks. They are utterances, participate in constraints are common
speaking limited more by grammar, short conversations, ask areas needing work as
goals vocabulary, and lenght of and answer questions, students fine-tune their
utterance than by commu find ways to convey production and compre-
nicative function. Many meaning, solicite informa- hension in terms of re-
language functions can tion from others, etc. gister, style, the status of
be achieved with very the interlocutor, the
uncomplicated language. specific context of a con-
versational exchange,
etc.

When you teach reading

and writing you should Reading and writing
bear in mind the students’ Lenght, grammar and dis- skills similarly progress
literacy level in their own course characterize read- closer and closer to na-
native language. Reading ing material as students tive speaker competen-
Reading and and writing topics are read paragraphs and ce as students learn
writing goals brief but real-life written short, simple, stories. more about critical think-
material. Advertisements, Students are beginning to ing, the role of the
forms and recipes are use skimming and scann- schemata in interpreting
useful for reading, while ing skills. Writing is also written texts, and writing
written work involves more sophisticated a document related to
forms, lists, and simple one’s profession.
notes and letters.

Students built functional

Grammar includes pro- forms, sociolinguistic
Very simple verb forms, gressive verb tenses and and pragmatic pheno-
personal pronouns, defi- clauses. Keep gramma- Mena and strategic
nite and indefinite articles, tical metalanguage at an competence. Your
Grammar singular and plural nouns, ideal minimum, otherwise, classes need not to be-
and simple sentences are your students will become come saturated with
taught. English grammarians ins- language about langua-
tead of English speakers. ge, but well-targeted
deductive grammar has
its place.

 In other terms, the proficiency level are novice, intermediate, advanced and superior. We
can discuss each level in terms of funtions, context, content, accuracy and text type.

Proficiency Global Tasks and Context/Content Accuracy Text Type

Level Functions
64
 Most formal and No pattern of
Discuss topics informal settings. errors in basic
Superior extensively, sup- Wide range of structures. Errors Extended
port opinions and general interest virtually never discourse
hypothesize. Deal topics and some interfere with co-
with a linguistical- special fields of mmunication or
ly unfamiliar si- interest and distract the native
tuation. expertise speaker from the
message.

Narrate and des- Most informal and Understood with-

Advanced cribe in major ti- some formal out difficulty by Paragraphs
me frames and settings. Topics speakers una-

deal effectively of personal and ccustomed to

with unanticipat- general interest. dealing with non-
ed complication. native speakers.

Create with lan- Some informal

guage, initiate, settings and a Understood with
maintain, and limited number of some repetition,
Intermediate bring to a close transactional si- by speakers Discrete
simple conversa- tuations. Predict- accustomed to sentences
tions by asking able familiar dealing with non-
and responding topics related to native speakers.
to simple ques- daily activities.
tions

Novice Communicate Most common May be difficult to

minimally with informal settings. understand, even Individual words
formulaic and Most common for speakers and phrases.
rote utterances, aspects of daily accustomed to
lists and phrases. life. dealing with NNS.

Age Levels: Teenagers and Adults (Brown)

Teenagers Adults

Their ages range between twelve They have superior cognitive abilities
and eighteen or so. They are an which allows them to deal with language
General age of transition, confusion, self- that isn’t embedded in the “here and
Characteristics consciousness, growing and now” context. Their need for sensory
chaging bodies and minds. They input can rely a little more on their
are between childhood and imaginations. They are shy, but they are
adulthood. also self-confident.

Intellectual capacity adds abstract

operational thought around the age
of twelve. Therefore, some
65
 sophisticated intellectual process-
ing is increasingly possible. Com- They are able to handle abstract rules
Intellectual plex problems can be solved with and concepts. But too much abstract
Development logical thinking. So linguistic meta- generalization and not enough real life
language can now have some language use can be deadly for adults.
impact. But the success of any
intellectual endeavor will be a factor
of the attention a learner places on
the task; therefore, if a learner is
attending to self, to appearance, to
being accepted, to sexual thoughts,
the intellectual task may suffer.

Attention spans are lengthening as

a result of intellectual maturation, Adults have longer attention spans, but
Attention Span but with many diversions present in keeping your activities short and sweet
a teenager’s life, those potential will be very helpful.
attention spans can easily be
shortened.

Varieties of sensory input are Sensory input need not always be quite
important, but increasing capacities as varied with adults, but one of the
Sensory Input for abstraction lessen the essential secrets of lively adult classes is their
nature of appealing to all five appeal to multiple senses.
senses.

Factors surrounding ego, self-

image, and self-esteem are very
present in teenagers. They are Adults are generally self-confident;
ultrasensitive to how others percei- therefore, the fragility of egos may not be
Affective Factors ve their chaging physical and emo- quite critical. Yet we should never
tional selves along with their mental underestimate the emotional factors that
abilities. The teacher should keep may be attendant to second language
self-esteem high by avoiding learning.
students’ embarrassment, affirming
their talents and strenghs, accept-
ing mistakes, encouraging
groupwork, etc.

They are becoming increasingly

adultlike in their ability to make They are able to understand a context-
Authentic, those occasional diversions from reduced segment of language. Authen-
Meaningful the “here and now” nature of ticity and meaningfulness are important,
Language immediate communicative contexts but adults should also dissect and
to dwell on a grammar point or a examine isolated linguistic properties.
vocabulary item. But don’t bore
them with overanalysis.

Implications for general classroom management

66
  Remember that even though adults cannot express complex thinking in the new language,
they are intelligent adults with mature cognitive and adult emotions. Show respect for their
deeper thoughts and feelings.

 Don’t treat adults like children by calling them “kids”, by using “careteaker” talk, and by
talking down to them.

 Give your students as many opprtunities as possible to make choices (cooperative leaning)
about what they will do in and out of the classroom.

 Don’t discipline adults in the same way as children. If discipline problems occur, first assume
that your students are adults who can be reasoned with like adults.

More characteristics! (Harmer)

Adolescents

 They are rebelious, cliquish (changing constantly) and very egocentric on the one hand. On
the other hand, they are fragile, sensitive and creative.

 They are searching for individual identity. Identity has to be forged among classmates and
friends; peer approval may be more important for the students than the attention of the
teacher. They also need self-esteem.

 They are disruptive in class since they feel boredom and also because they bring problems
into class from outside school.

 They have a great capacity to learn, a great potential for creativity, and a passionate
commitment to things which interest them.

 We need to provoke student engagement with material that is relevant and involving.
They must be encouraged to respond to texts and situations with their own thoughts
and experiences, rather than just by answering questions and doing abstract learning
activities.

 They are undergoing a process of transition that includes great changes in their bodies and
their minds.

 Personalize and help them practice their new “self”

 They mourn child’s body loss.

 They exaggerate narcissism. They know they want to be someone but they don’t know who.

 Help them acknowledge changes!

 They feel threatened by the world.

 Don’t humiliate them and help them build their own self-confidence.

 Adults are no longer models to be folllowed.

 Be who you are but also be in control.

 Use positive behavior management.
67
  Have a low awareness of the social skills basic to cooperative instruction.

 Group them and help them to be cooperative.

 Have problems to concentrate and attention spans are still short.

 Use quick pace and variety.

 They have not yet developed organized ways of focusing on, taking in and processing
information and are not able to handle abstract rules and concepts.

 Keep the metalanguage to the right level.

 Crave for authenticity and meaning.

 Update so that you can use what they know about the now.

What our students want:

They want to be involved in activities tha include:

 Topics of current interest (information, technology, sports) personally relevant to them.

 Variety, since they get bored so easily.
 A measure of learner autonomy and individual choice.
 Movement around the classroom and use of their sometimes awkward bodies.
 Interaction with others and avoidance of individual pressure (one person tested and put on
the spot)
 Opportunities to express their inner, conflicting feelings in a safe way.

What the system requires:

 Know how to use the grammar, syntax, phonological aspects and vocabulary of the
language. (Grammatical/Linguistic Competence)

 Know how to use and respond to language appropriately, given the setting, the topic and the
relationships among the people communicating. (Sociolinguistic/Pragmatic Competence)

 Know how to interpret the larger context and how to construct longer stretches of language
so that the parts make a coherent whole. (Discourse Competence)

 Know how to recognize and repair communication breakdowns, how to work around gaps in
one’s knowledge of the language, and how to learn more about the language in the context.
(Strategic Competence)

Teaching them means:

o Having from 30 to 40 students in a room at one time, all of them with different needs, some
with learning disabilities, a few with severe behavior problems and most of whom don’t even
want to be there.

o Completing daily, weekly, or monthdy lesson plans according to institutional standards.

68
 o Attending never-ending faculty and staff meetings to “supposedly” analize constantly new
regulations.

o Preparing and grading exams.

o Studying and choosing textbooks.

o Having conferences with parents.

o Drilling classes for earthquakes.

o Tutoring those who are kept behind.

o Providing a supportive and stimulating environment at all times.

They are indeed a very difficult group to teach!!!!

WHY?

 They vandalise.
 Harass others and display violent behavior.
 Display suicidal tendencies.
 Fail to comply with rules.
 They have addictions.
 They cut classes repetitively.
 They are caught shoplifting.
 They may use weapons.
 They display sexual nature misbehavior

Adults are:

 Autonomous and self-directed.

 Experienced concerning instruction.
 Goal oriented and relevancy-oriented.
 More disciplined than teenagers but critical.
 Sometimes frustrated L2 learners.
 Afraid of making mistakes and trying new behaviors in front of peers.
 Competitive.

Assumptions about age and language learning:

 Younger children learn languages better than older ones; children learn better than adults.

 Foreign language learning in school should be started at as early ages as possible.

 Children and adults learn languages basically the same way.

 Adults have a longer concentration span than children.

 It is easier to interest and motivate children than adults.

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Positive characteristics of adult learners:

 They can engage with abstract thought.

 Beware of too many generalizations!

 They have a whole range of life experiences to draw on.

 They have longer attention and concentration spans.

 Keep your activities short and sweet!

 They have expectations about the learning process, and may already have their own set
patterns of learning.

 They bring quite an important amount of self-confidence to the classroom, but are afraid that
they might lose their dignity.

 Don’t understimate their emotional fragility!

 Adults tend to be more disciplined.

 They can divert from the “here and now.”

 Keep tasks authentic and meaningful.

 They have strongly established learning styles and preferences.

 They are proud of their independence.

 Help them accept responsability for their own learning but don’t attack their pride.

 They are often prepared to struggle despite boredom.

 They have a specific purpose for learning.

 Try to satisfy their needs and point out the immediacy of application of the language
learnt.

 They come into the classrooms with a rich range of experiences which allow teachers to use
a wide range of activities with them.

 They have a clear understanding of why they are learning and what they want to get out of it.

 Many adults are able to sustain a level of motivation by holding onto a distant goal.

Drawbacks when teaching adults:

 They can be critical of teaching methods.

 They have many preoccupations.

 Provide them with a relaxing atmosphere and make them feel welcomed.

 They may be hostile to certain teaching and learning activities.

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  They feel anxoius about having the use of their first language banished.

 Allow the use of the mother tongue when you feel it is necessary.

 They may have experienced failure or criticism at school resulting in anxious under-confident
learners. They suffer the fear of failure.

 They worry that their intellectual powers may be diminishing with age.

 Be patient!

Relationship between teacher and adult students:

 Authority – subjects to authority.

 Assessor – assessed.
 Transmitter – receivers.
 Motivator – people to be motivated.
 Activator – people to be activated.
 Counselor – clients.
 Seller of servicies – buyers of services.
 Resource – users.

Good teachers of adults are aware:

 That adults are prepared to stick with an activity for longer periods.

 That they enjoy more indirect learning through reading, listening, and communicative
speaking and writing.

 That they can learn consciously when this is appropiate.

 That adult L2 linguistic processes are more vulnerable to the effect of the L1.

 That they approach the L2 systematically, and they attempt to formulate linguistic rules.

 That they draw on their own life experience.

 That they are motivated in many cases to learn for a specific purpose the language as a tool
or means: meaningfulness.

 That the proper level of challenge presented by exercises is important in order to diminish
the fear of failure.

 That there are different learning styles that cater for different learners.

 That there is diversity even in adult groups.

 That they too like to play, sing and have fun. Why not?

We can address teenagers’ and adults’ needs by:

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  Letting students bring their outside interests and knowledge into the classroom through
cross-circular work.

 Encouraging pair and groupwork.

 Reducing anxiety.

 Respecting their silence

 Not treating them like children.

 Lettiing them participate in project and task-based work.

 Providing suitable contexts and relevant purposes for communication.

 Catering for diversity.

 Encouraging cooperative learning.

 Grading the level of challenge.

 Offering variety.

 Providing them with opportunities o self-assess their progress.

 Building an atmosphere of respect.

 Enjoying the experience!

“Top 10 in teaching”

1. Love and enjoy teaching.

2. Take into account the characteristics of your students.

3. Prepare your classes with anticipation.

4. Motivate students.

5. Be enthusiastic.

6. Be empathetic.

7. Provide meaningful contents for the real life of the students.

8. Keep updated.

9. Be open –minded with suggestions.

UNIT 3
10. Be critical with yourself.
Content Organization & Course Design

Sociopolitical and Institutional Contexts

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 Age and proficiency are two major contextual variables that will affect every aspect of your
lesson or curriculum. However, two other domains emerge for the language teacher –
sociopolitical and institutional contexts.

Sociopolitical contexts

 Among some of the social and political issues are:

o correctness and appropriateness

o registers and styles
o acceptable speech varieties in a community
o regional and national standards of language
o national language policy
o international varieties of English

 There are three broad categories to consider whenever you step into a language classroom.

1. Second (ESL) and Foreign (EFL) Language Contexts.

There is a distinction between second and foreign language contexts:

 Second language learning contexts are those in which the classroom target language
is readily available out there. Teaching English in the United States or Australia clearly
falls into this category.

 Foreign language contexts are those in which students do not have ready-made
contexts for communication beyond their classroom. They may be obtainable through
language clubs, special media opportunities, books or occasional tourist. Teaching
English in Japan or Morocco or Thailand is almost always a context of English as a
foreign language.

2. English as an International Language (EIL)

Two basic issues for English teachers have emerged:

1. English is increasingly being used as a tool for interaction among nonnative

speakers. Most English language teachers across the globe are nonnative
speakersm which means that the norm is not monolingualism, but bilingualism.

2. English is not frequently learned as a tool for understanding and teaching US or

British cultural values. Instead, English has become a tool for interantional
communication in transportation, commerce, banking, tourism, technology, diplimacy,
and scientific research.

3. Language Policy Issues.

Two commonly used terms characterize the status of one’s native language in a society
where a second language is learned.

1. Substractive: a native language is referred to as subtractive if it is considered to be

detrimental to the learning of the second language

2. Additive: additive bilingualism is found where the native language is held in prestige
by the community or the society.

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 Most EFL programs are additive since the native language is the accepted norm. Moreover,
English is usually valued.highly as a tool for upward mobility.

Institutional contexts

 One of the most important contexts of language teaching is the institution in which you are
teaching. ESL/EFL classes are found in a variety of educational establishments. Even within
one “type” of institution, multiple goals are pursued. For example language schools in many
countries offer courses in conversation, academic skills, English for specific purposes,
vocational/technical English and other specifications.

 Elementary and Secondary Schools

 Language policies and programes in elementary and secondary schools differ greatly from
country to country. In EFL countries, English is sometimes a required secondary school
subject and almost always one of several foreign language options. In certain countries,
English is even required in elementary schools.

 A number of models are currently practiced in the United States for dealing with nonnative
English-speaking students in elementary and secondary schools. Some of these models
apply to other countries too.

1. Submersion: the first way of treating nonnative speakers is really a lack of treatment.
Students are “submerged” in regular content area classes with no special foreign
language instruction. The assumption is that they will “absorb” English as they focus on
the subject matter. As they sometimes don’t succeed either in English or the content
areas, schools may provide a pull-out program in which students leave their regular
classroom and attend speacial tutorials or an ESL class.

2. Immersion: pupils attend specially designed content-area classes. All the students in
class speak the same native language and are at similar levels of proficiency in English.
The teacher has some knowledge of the students’ first language and culture. Immersion
programs are found more commonly in EFL contexts than in ESL contexts. In most
immersion programs, pupils are in an additive billingual context and enjoy the support of
parents and the community.

3. Sheltered English: this is a specialized form of immersion program. It differs from

immersion in that students come from varying native language backgrounds and the
teacher is trained in both subject-matter content and ESL methodology. Also, students
often have a regular ESL class, as part of the curriculum.

4. Mainstreaming: in some submersion programs, students first receive instruction in ESL

before being placed into content areas. Once teachers and tests conclude that students
are proficient enough to be placed into ongoing content classes, they are mainstreamed
into the regular curriculum. This ESL instruction should be content-centered so that
pupils will not be at a disadvantage once they are placed in an ongoing class.

5. Transitional bilingual programs: transitional programs teach subject-matter content in the

native language, combined with an ESL component. When teachers and tests determine
that they are ready, students are transitioned into regular all-English classes.
.
o Advantage: permit students to build early cognitive concepts in their native
language and then cross over later to the dominant language.

o Disadvantage: students are often mainstreamed before they are ready, before
their academic and linguistic skills have been sufficiently built.

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 6. Maintenance bilingual programms: students continue throughout their school years to
learn at least a portion of their subject matter in the native language.

o Advantage: stimulates the continued development of pupils’ native languages

and builds confidence and expertise in the content areas.

o Disadvantage: includes discouraging the mastery of English and the high cost of
staffing maintenance classes in budgetary hard times.

7. Enrichment bilingual programs: students take selected subject-matter courses in a

foreign language while the bulk of their education is carried on in their native language.
In this way, students “enrich” themselves by broadening their cultural and linguistic
horizons.

 Institutions of Higher Education.

 English language teaching programs exist in a number of different institutions. There are a
number of purposes for which languages are thought.

 There are six broad types of curricula that are designed to fit students’ goals.

1. Pre-academic programs: they are designed for students who anticipate entering a
regular course of study at the college level. These are intensive programs since students
have class for twenty to twenty-five hours per week, usually for a quarter or a semester.
The focus varies in such programs from rather general language skills at the advanced-
beginner level to advanced courses in reading, writing, study skills, and research.

2. EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs: this term is applied to any course,
module or workshop in which students are taught to deal with academically related
language and subject matter.

3. ESP (English for Special Purposes) programs: these are programs that are specifically
devoted to professional fields of study. ESP courses are differentiated from
Vocational/Technical English in that ESP refers to disciplines in which people can get
university majors and degrees, while Voc/Tech refers to trades and other certificate
programs.

4. Voc/Tech (Vocational and Technical) programs: English targets those who are learning
trades (carpenters and electricians, for example), arts (such as photography), and other
occupations not commonly included in university programs.

5. Literacy programs: they are designed to teach students whose native language
reading/writing skills are rather nonexistent or very poor. This requires energy and
motivation on the part of the students and special training on the part of the teacher to
teach at this challenging level.

6. Survival/Social curricula: includes short courses that introduce adults to conversational

necessities . This curricula is designed to teach adults a complete range of language
skills for survival in the context of the second language.

 When determining how to plan lessons, consider these institutional factors:

 the extent to which institutional regulations demand a certain curriculum content.

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  the extent to which budgetary and bureaucratic constraints dictate class size,number of
hours, etc.
 the extent to which an administrator or supervisor “forces” tou to teach in a certain way.
 the textbook designed to your course.
 the support and feedback that you get from fellow teachers.
 how other teachers in your institution teach and the extent to which they may subtly
coerce you into teaching “their” way.
 the number of hours you must teach in order to make a living and how that affects your
energy level.
 the conditions of you classroom (size of the room, lighting, furniture, etc)
 whether or not your English course is required and the effect that has on the motivation
of your students.

English for Specific and Academic Purposes

1) The origins of ESP

 ESP is an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method
are based on the learners’ reasons for learning .
 ESP was not a planned and coherent movement, but rather a phenomenon that grew out of
a number of converging trends.

 We can identify three main reasons for the emergence of ESP:

1. The demands of the Brave New World.

o After Second World War in 1945, technology and commerce generated a demand
for an international language. For many reasons, especially the economic power of
the United States, this role fell to English.

o The effect was to create a mass of people wanting to learn English since English was
the key to the international currencies of technology and commerce. The new
generation of learners knew specifically why they were learning a language:
businessman who wanted to sell their products, mechanics who had to read
instructional materials, doctors who needed to keep up with developments in their
field, etc.

o This development was accelarated by the Oil Crises of the early 1970s which
resulted in a massive flow of funds and Western expertise into the oil-rich countries.
English suddenly became big business and comercial pressures began to exert an
influence

o The general effect of all this development was that English became subject to the
wishes, needs and demands of people other than language teachers.

2. A revolution in linguistics.

o Influential new ideas began to emerge in the study of language. Traditionally the aim
of linguistics had been to describe the rules of English usage, that is, the grammar.
However, the new studies discovered the ways in which language is actually used in
real communication.

o One finding was that the language we read and write varies considerably, and in a
number of different ways, from one context to another. Eg: there are many
differences between the English of commerce and that of engineering. The idea was

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 simple; if language varies from one situation of use to another, it should be possible
to determine the features of specific situations and then make these features the
basis of the learners’ course.

o It was the late 1960s and early 1970s which saw the greatest expansion of research
into the nature of particular varieties of English. Most of the work at this time was in
the area of English for Science and Technology (EST) and for a time ESP and EST
were regarded as almoust synonymous.

o In short, the English needed by a particular group of learners could be identified by

analysing the linguistic chracteristics of their specialist area of work and study. The
guiding principle of ESP became “Tell me what you need English for and I will tell
you the English that you need”

3. Focus on the learner

o New developments in educational psychology emphasised the central importance of

the learners and their attitudes to learning.

o Learners were seen to have different needs and interests, which would have an
important influence on their motivation to learn and therefore on the effectiveness of
their learning. This lent support to the development of courses in which “relevance” to
the learners’ needs and interest was paramount.

2) The development of ESP

 ESP is not a monolithic universal phenomenon. ESP has developed at different speeds in
different countries.

 ESP has undergone five phases of development.

1. The concept of special language: register analysis.

o This stage took place mainly in the 1960s and early 1960s and was associated with the
work of Peter Strevens and John Swales.

o Operating on the basic principle that the English of Electrical Engineering constituted a
specific register different from that of Biology or of General English, the aim of the
analysis was to identify the grammatical and lexical features of these registers.
Teaching materials then took these linguistic features as their syllabus.

o The main motive behind register analysis was making the ESP course more relevant to
learners’ needs. The aim was to produce a syllabus which gave high priority to the
language forms students would meet in their Science studies (such as compound
nouns, conditionals, passives) and in turn would give low priority to forms they would
not meet.

2. Beyond the sentence: rhetorical or discourse analysis.

o Register analysis was rapidly overtaken by developments in the world of linguistics.

Whereas in the first stage of its development, ESP had focused on language at the
sentence level, the second phase of development shifted attention to the level above
the sentence.

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 o This stage focused on how sentences were combined in discourse to produce
meaning. Therefore, the concern of research was to identify the organisational patterns
in texts and to specify the linguistic means by which these patterns are signalled. These
patterns would then form the syllabus of the ESP course.

o The typical teaching materials based on the discourse approach taught students to
recognise textual patterns and discourse markers mainly by means of text-diagramming
exercises.

3. Target situation analysis.

o This stage aimed to establish procedures for relating language analysis more closely to
learners’ reasons for learning.

o Given that the purpose of an ESP course is to enable learners to function adequately in
a target situation, then the ESP course should first identify the target situation and then
carry out a rigorous analysis of the linguistic features of that situation. The identified
features will form the syllabus of the ESP course. This process is usually known as
needs analysis

In the first two stages of the development of ESP all the analysis had been of the
surface forms of the language (whether at sentence level or above). The target
situation analysis approach did not really change this, because in its analysis of
learner need it still looked mainly at the surface linguistic features of the target
situation.

4. Skills and strategies.

o The fourth stage of ESP looks below the surface and considers not the language itself
but the thinking process that underlie language use.

o The principal idea behind the skills-centered approach is that underlying all language
use there are common reasoning and interpreting processes, which, regardless of the
surface forms, enable us to extract meaning from discourse. There is, therefore, no
need to focus closely on the surface forms of the language. The focus should rather be
on the underlying interpretive strategies, which enable the learner to cope with the
surface forms, for example guessing the meaning of words from context, using visual
layout to determine the type of text, exploiting cognates (words that are similar in the
mother tongue and in the target language).

o A focus on specific subject registers is unnecessary in this approach, because the

underlying processes are not specific to any subject register.

o In terms of materials, this approach generally puts the emphasis on reading and
listening strategies. The characteristic exercises get the learners to reflect on and
analyse how meaning is produced in and retrieved from written or spoken discourse.

o Taking their cue from cognitive learning theories, the language learners are treated as
thinking beings who can be asked to observe and verbalise the interpretative processes
they employ in language use.

5. A learning-centered approach

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 o This approach identifies three forces, which we might characterise as need, new ideas
about language and new ideas about learning.

o All of the stages outlined so far have been fundamentally flawed, in that they are all
based on descriptions of language use. The concern in each of the stages is with
describing what people do with language. But the concern in ESP is not with language
use, although this will help to define the course objectives. The concern is with
language learning. We cannot assume that describing what people do with language
will enable someone to learn it. If that were so, we would need to do no more than read
a grammar book and a dictionary in order to learn a language. A truly valid approach to
ESP must be based on an understading of the processes of language learning.

3) ESP: Approach not product

 In spite of their differences, the stages have all concentrated on the linguistic aspect of ESP:
they are all essentially language centered-approaches.

 The following tree represents some of the common divisions that are made in ELT.

 The analogy of a tree can help us to get a bit closer to a definition of ESP not so much
showing what ESP is, but rather by showing what ESP isn’t.

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 a) ESP is not a matter of teaching “specialised varieties” of English. The fact that language
is used for a specific purpose does not imply that it is a special form of the language,
different in kind from other forms. Certainly, there are some features that can be
identified as “typical” of a particular context of use and which, therefore, the learner is
more likely to meet in the target situation. But these differences should not be allowed to
obscure the far larger area of common ground that underlies all English use, and indeed,
all language use.

b) ESP is not just a matter of Science words and grammar for Scientists, Hotel words and
grammar for Hotel staff and so on. We need to distinguish, as Chomsky did with regard
to grammar, between performance and competence, that is between what people
actually do with the language and the range of knowledge and abilities which enables
them to do it.

c) ESP is not different in kind from any other form of language teaching, in that it should be
based in the first instance on principles of effective and efficient learning. Though the
content of learning may vary there is no reason to suppose that the processes of
learning should be any different for the ESP learner than for the General English learner.
There is, in other words, no such thing as an ESP methodology, merely methodologists
that have been applied in ESP classrooms, but could just as well have been used in the
learning of any kind of English.

The Learner’s roles and needs

Learners’ roles

 The different methods that we have seen imply different roles for the learners. Richards and
Rogers suggest the following roles:

Method Learner role

Oral/situational Learner listens to teacher and repeats; there

is no control over content or methods.

Audiolingual Learner reacts to teacher direction and has

little control. He has a passive, reactive role.

Communicative Learner has a reactive, negotiative role; he

should contribute as much as he gains.

Total Physical Response Learner is a listenener and performer; he

has little control over content and none over
methodology.

The Silent Way Learners learn through systematic analysis;

they must become independent and
autonomous.

Community Language Learners are members of a social group

Learning or a community; they move from depen-
dence to autonony as learning progresses.

The Natural Approach Learners play an active role and have high
degree of control over content language
production.
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Suggestopedia Learners are passive, they have little control
over content or method.

Other roles can include:

 experimenter
 researcher
 negotiator Although these labels are
 obeyer metaphorical, they do capture
 explorer the spirit of many classroom
 struggler task types.
 path-follower
 initiator

Learner Styles

 Tony Wright describes four different learning styles:

 The enthusiast: looks the teacher as a point of reference and is concerned with the goals of
the learning group.

 The oracular: also focuses on the teacher but is more oriented towards the satisfaction of
personal goals.

 The participator: tends to concentrate on group goals and group solidarity.

 The rebel: mainly concerned with the satisfaction of his/her goals.

 Keith Willing also describes four different kind of learners:

 Convergers: students who are solitary and prefer to avoid groups. They are independent and
confident in their abilities. They are analytic and can impose they own structures on learning.
They tend to be cool and pragmatic.

 Conformists: students who prefer learning about language over learning to use it. They tend
to be dependent and work in non-communicative classrooms, doing what they are told. They
prefer to see well-organised teachers.
 Concrete learners: They also enjoy the social aspects of learning and like to learn from
direct experience. They are interested in language use and language as communication
rather than as language as a system. They enjoy games and groupwork in class.

 Communicative learners: these are language use oriented. They are comfortable out of
class and show a degree of confidence and willingness to take risks. They are much more
interested in social interaction with other speakers of the language than they are with
analysis of how the language works. They operate without guidance of a teacher.

Learner’s role (according to David Nuron and Clarice Lamb)

 The following table sets out the role of the learner in relation to curriculum planning,
implementation and evaluation.

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 Learner roles in a learner-centered curriculum

Curriculum stage Role of learner

Planning Learners are consulted on what they want to learn and how
they want to go about learning. An extensive process of
needs analysis facilitates this process. Learners are involved
in setting, monitoring, and modifying the goals and objectives
of the programs being designed for them.

Implementation Learners’ language skills develop as learners actively use and

reflect on the language inside and outside the classroom.
They are also involved in modifying and creating their own
learning tasks and language data.

Assessment and Learners monitor and assess their own progress. They are
evaluation also actively involved in the evaluation and modification of
teaching and learning during and after the course.

 The next table relates to the experiential content domain. It demonstrates that, all other
things being equal, a classroom in which learners are more aware of the pedagogical goals
+ content of instruction is more-learner centered than one in which goals + content are left
explicit.

Learner-centeredness in the experiential content domain

Level Learner action Gloss

1 Awareness Learners are made aware of the pedagogical goals

and content of the course.

2 Involvement Learners are involved in selecting their own goals

and objectives from a range of alternatives on offer.
3 Intervention Learners are involved in modifying and adapting the
the goals and content of the learning program.
4 Creation Learners create their own goals and objectives.

5. Transcendence Learners go beyond the classroom and make links

between the content of the classroom and the world
beyond the classroom.

 The last table shows how the continuum can apply to the learning process domain.

Learner-centeredness in the learning process domain

Level Learner action Gloss

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1 Awareness Learners identify strategy implications of pedagogical
tasks and identify their own preferred learning styles/
strategies.

2 Involvement Learners make choices among a range of options.

3 Intervention Learners modify/adapt tasks.

4 Creation Learners create their own tasks.

5 Transcendence Learners become teachers and researchers.

Learners’ needs

 What do students need to know?

Meaning

 Vocabulary items generally have more than one meaning, so when students want to
decipher the meaning of a word, they need to take into account the context in which that
word is being used.

 Students also need to know about sense relation. They need to know meanings in relation to
other words. They need to know synonyms, antonyms, general and specific meaning, etc.

Word Use

 Students need to know that a word means can be changed or limitated by how it is used.

 Word meaning is governed by the use of metaphors, idioms, collocations.

 Students need to take into account that we often use words only in certain social and topical
contexts. They should know that what we say is governed by the style (using words
correctly) and the register (using words in formal/informal contexts)

Word Formation

 As words can change their shape and grammatical value, students need to know how to
twist words to fit different grammatical contexts. They should know:

o how syllables and preffixes work

o how words are spelt and how they sound
o they way words are stressed
o the use of words in oral and written production

Word Grammar

 The use of certain words can trigger the use of certain grammatical patterns. That is why,
students need to know about countable and uncountable nouns, singular and plural, phrasal
verbs, adjectives and adverbs, sentences and question formation, etc.

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 By being aware of all this, students will be more receptive to the contextual behavior of
words when they first see them in a text, and they will be better able to manipulate both
the meanings and forms of words.

Learner needs (according to Brindley)

1. Objective and subjective needs

o Objective needs: those that can be diagnosed by teachers on the basis of the analysis of
personal data about learners (language proficiency and patterms of language use).

o Subjective needs: those that cannot be diagnosed easily and sometimes can’t even be
stated by learners. These needs are often wants, desires, expectations.

2. Content and process needs

o Content needs: include the selection and sequences of such things such as topics,
grammar, funtions, notions and vocabulary (the domain of syllabus design).

o Process needs: refer to the selection and sequencing of learning tasks and experiences.(the
domain of methodology).

3. Initial and ongoing needs analysis

o Initial needs analysis: that carried out before a course begins (designed by curriculum
speacialists and subject panels).

o Ongoing needs analysis: refers to the often relatively informal analysis carried out by
teachers once a course has began.

The roles of the teacher

Jeremy Harmer

 We need to examine the teacher’s role not only in education generally, but in the classroom
itself.

 The teacher’s behaviour will depend on:

o how she feels about teaching

o what she is comfortable with
o the type of activity
o how students feel about the activity

 Within the classroom the teacher’s role may change from an activity to another or from one
stage of an activity to another. If teachers are fluent at making these changes their
effectiveness as teachers is greatly enhanced.

A.The teacher as Facilitator

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 Any role which the teacher adopts and which is designed to help students to learn is to
some extent facilitative. However, it is useful to adopt more precise terms than
facilitator:

1. Controller

o Teachers are in charge of the task and the activity taking place.

o Controllers take the role, tell students things, organise drills, read aloud, and
exemplify the qualities of a teacher-fronted classroom.

o They transmit knowledge from themselves to their students. This may be a

disadvantage since:

a. It denies students access to their own experiential learning.

b. Students do not have possibilities to speak.
c. There may be a lack of variety in activities and classroom atmosphere.

o Teachers make announcements, impose discipline, give explanations, and lead

question and answer sessions.

2. Organiser

o Teachers organise students to do various activities. This often involves giving

students information, telling them how to do an activity, putting them into pairs
and groups, and finally choosing things down when it is time to stop.

o They engage the students’ interest and ensure their participation.

o When organising something, teachers need to:

a. Get students involved, engaged and ready. Make it clear that something
“new” is going to happen and that the activity will be enjoyable or
interesting. Teachers should offer a rationale for the activity students are to
perform, they should say something like: ”Now we’re going to do this
because ...”

b. Give necessary instructions for the activity in a logical way so as not to

confuse the students and then tell them to give the instructionas back to
check understanding. Teachers should also demonstrate activities for
learners to understand better.

c. Initiate the activity. Students need to know how much time they have to do
the activity.

d. Stop the activity when the students have finished. Teachers summarise
comments and organize some kind of feedback.

3. Assessor

o Teachers assess students’ work. They see whether or not they are getting their
English right. Here they should offer feedback, correction and grade students in
various ways.

o They offer feedback on performance, hand out grades, and say whether students
can pass to the next level.

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 o Teachers tell students how and for what they are being assessed. They should
tell them what they need to concentrate on. For example: “Today we’re going to
concentrate on punctuation...”

o They judge students fairly. Most of the learners want credit for good performance
or constructive criticism for poor performance.

o They are sensitive to students’ possible reactions. A bad grade is a bad grade,
however it is communicated. But it can be made far more acceptable if it is given
with sensitivity and support.

4. Prompter

o Teachers encourage students to participate and suggest how they may proceed.

o They encourage students to think creatively rather than have them hang on our
every word.

o They occasionally offer words or phrases or suggest what could come next in a
paragraph a student is writing.

o They prompt students in monolingual groups to speak English rather than using
their mother tongue. They prompt students information they have forgotten.

o They prompt sensitively, encouraging and with discretion (help them only when
necessary)

5. Participant

o Teachers “stand back” from the activity in order not to dominate proceedings,
letting learners get on with the activity and only interviewing later to offer
feedback and correct mistakes.

o There are also times when teachers might want to join in an activity not as a
teacher, but also as a participant. They might want to take part in a discussion
because:

a. They can eliven things from the inside instead of always having to prompt
or organise from outside the group.

b. Students enjoy having the teacher with them, and for the teacher,
participating is more enjoyable than acting as a resource.

o The danger of teachers as participants is that they can easily dominate the
proceedings. This is due to the fact that the teacher is still frequently preceived
as “the teacher” and tends to be listened to with greater attention than his or her
students. It takes great skill and sensitivity to avoid this situation.

6. Resource

o Students might ask how to say or write something or what a word or phrase
means. This is where teachers can be one of the most important resources they
have.

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 o No teacher knows everything about a language, so when students ask for
complex imformation, teachers should offer guidance as to where students can
go to look for that information.

o Teachers encourage students to use resource materials for themselves, and to

become more independent in their learning generally. Thus, instead of answering
every question about what a word or phrase means, we can direct students to a
good monolingual dictionary.

o Teachers need to have the courage to say “I don’t know the answer to that right
now, but I’ll tell you next class.”
o Teachers need to resist the urge to spoon-feed students so that they become
over-reliant on them.

7. Tutor

o When students work on longer projects, tutors work with them individually or in
small groups, pointing them in directions they have not yet thought of taking. In
such situations, the roles of prompter and resource are combined.

o It is difficult to be a tutor in a very large group since the term implies a more
intimate relationship than that of a controller or organiser.

o When students are working in small groups or in pairs, teachers go round the
class and stay briefly with a particular group or individual to offer general
guidance.

o Tutors have a more personal contact with the students who have a real chance to
feel supported and helped. As a result, a general class atmosphere is greatly
enhanced.

8. Observer

o Teachers observe students so that they can give them useful group and
individual feedback.
o When observing studentsm teachers should be careful not to be so intrusive by
hanging on their every word, by getting to close to them, or by writing things
down all the time.

o Observers take notes on students’ performance of what they get wrong but also
what they do right.

o They observe for success to feel how well their students are doing.

o Teachers need to work and observe simultaneously, listening, watching, and

absorving so that they can create the best kind of rapport between themselves
and their students.

o Teachers observe students in order to give feedback. They also watch to judge
the success of different materials and activities so that they can make changes in
the future.

Which role?

The role that we take on is dependent on what it is we wish the students to achieve.
However, we need to switch between the roles, judging when it is appropriate to use
one or other of them. And then, when we have made that decision, we need to be aware 87
of how we carry out that role and how we perform.
B.The teacher as Performer

 Different teachers perform differently. Not only that, but any one teacher probably also
has many different performance styles depending on the situation.

 Instead of just saying what roles teachers should be playing, we can also describe how
they should be playing it. The following table describes how teachers should perform
according to certain activities.

Activity How the teacher should perform

1. Team Game energetically, encouragingly, clearly, fairly.

2. Role-play clearly, encourangingly, retiringly, supportively.
3. Teacher reading aloud commandingly, dramatically, interestingly.
4. Whole-class listening effciently, clearly, supportively.

C.The teacher as Teaching Aid

 Apart from the roles which we adopt in the classroom, and the way these roles are
performed, we are also a kind of teaching aid ourselves.
 We are especially useful when using mime and gesture, as language models, and as
providers of comprehensible input.

1. Mime and gesture

o It is very important to use mime, gesture and expression to convey meaning and
atmosphere. For example, fingers can be used to show how verbs are
contracted, and arms can be used to conduct choral repetition, Stress can be
shown through clapping or clincking fingers, and intonation can be explained
through a kind of drawing in the air!

o One gesture that is widely used, but which teachers should employ with care, is
the act of pointing to students to ask them to participate. This can be aggresive.

2. Language model

o Students get models of language form textbooks, reading materials, and from
audio and video tapes. But we can also model language ourselves. For example,
we can model the saying of a dialogue or a reading of a text.

o For such activities we should make sure that we can be heard and we should
animate our performance with as much enthusiasm as is appropriate for the
conversation we are modelling. We should maintain a natural rhythm and normal
intonation patterns.

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 o Many of the same requirements apply to reading aloud which can be extremely
motivating and enjoyable for a class. Poems, too, are very engaging when
teachers read them in class. In addition, reading passages aloud to students can
capture imagination and mood, but we must perform the reading in an interesting
and commited way.

3. Provider of comprehensible input

o An issue that confronts many teachers in classrooms is how much they

themselves should talk, and what kind of talk this should be. We need to
maximise student-talking time rather than teacher talking time. We don’t need the
language practice, they do.

o We should not forget that a vital ingredient in the learning of any language is
exposure to it. According to Stephen Krashen, the best kind of language that
students are exposed to is “comprehensible input”, that is language which
students can understand, but which is slightly above their own production level.
As teachers we should provide comprehensible input. We know how to talk at
just the right level so that students understand the meaning of what is being said.

o We need to be aware of how much we are speaking since students may become
bored by listening to the teacher all the time.

Factors Affecting Course Design

 Rudyard Kipling presents six honest serving men. Their names are What, How, Who, Why,
Where and When.

1. What does the student need to learn? What aspects of language will be needed and how will
they be described? What level of proficiency must be achieved? What kind of methodology
will be employed?

2. How will the learning be achieved? What learning theory will underlie the course? What kind
of methodology will be employed?

3. Who is going to be involved in the process? This will need to cover not just the student, but
all the people who may have some effect on the process: teachers, sponsors, inspectors,
etc.

4. Why does the students need to learn?

5. Where is the learning to take place? What potential does the place provide? What limitations
does it impose?

6. When is the learning to take place? How much time is available? How will it be distributed?

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1. Language Descriptions

 Language description is the way in which the language system is broken down and
described for learning purposes. Terms like structural, functional, and notional belong to this
area. They refer to ways of analysing and describing language. They say nothing about how
language items can be taught. So, it’s inappropriate to use these terms with “method” or
“approach” since these terms indicate a “way of” or an “attitude to” teaching.

 The ESP course makes use of explicit or implicit ideas about the nature of language. These
ideas are drawn from language descriptions by schools of thought of linguistics.

 There are six stages that show ideas about language that influenced ESP.

1. Classical or Traditional Grammar

o Descriptions of English and other languages were based on the grammar of classical
languages: Latin and Greek. These descriptions were based on an analysis of the
role played by each word in the sentence. Classical languages were case-based
languages where the grammatical function of each word in the sentence was made
apparent by the use of appropriate inflections. English then lost most of its case
markers and became a largely word-order based language.

o Since ESP emerged after the classical form was abandoned, its influence on ESP
was never strong. Nevertheless, it provided the teacher with a useful indirect source
of guidance: register analysis (terminology in a syllabus design) and knowledge of
classical description, that can deepen our knowledge of how languages operate.

2. Structural Linguistics

o The Structural or “slot and filler” form of language description had a strong influence
on language teaching after World War II.

o The grammar of the language is described in terms of syntagmatic structures which

carry the fundamental propositions (statements, interrogatives) and notions ( time,
number, gender). By varying words within this frameworks, sentences with different
meanings can be generated.

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 o Structural linguistics also led to the application of the structural syllabus: a powerful
way of selecting and sequencing language items. Items are graded so that simpler
structures precede the more complex ones.

o It provides the learner with a systematic description of the generative core of the
language – the infinite range of structures that make it possible to generate an infinite
number of novel utterances. But this strenght is also a weakness since it may fail to
provide the learner with an understanding of the communicative use of structures.

3. Transformational Generative (TG) Grammar

o In 1957, Chomsky argued that the structural description was too superficial because
it only described the surface structure of language and couldn’t explain relationships
of meaning. He concluded that these problems aroused because language was
being analized and described in isolation from the human mind which produced it.

o Chomsky maintained that language was a reflection of human thought patters and
said that grammar was the rules that enabled language users to generate surface
structures from the deep level of meaning.

o For ESP, the most important lesson to be drawn from Chomsky’s work was the
distinction between competence and performance. A simple way of seeing this
distinction is our capacity to understand words we’ve never met before. This process
wouldn’t be possible without the underlying competence.

o In the early stages, ESP put emphasis on describing the performance needed for
communication and the target situation, and paid little attention to the competence
underlying it. That is why the competence provides the general basis for further
reading.

4. Language Variation and Register Analysis

o If we view language as part of a communicative whole, it’s clear that language use
shows considerable variety. The whole communicative act is made up of a number of
contextually dependent factors. Language varies according to the context of use
which enables us to distinguish formal from informal, written from spoken, self-
sufficient language from context-dependent, etc.

o The concept of language variation gave rise to the type of ESP which was based on
register analysis. If language varies according to context, then it should be possible
to identify a kind of knowledge associated with a specific context, such as an area of
knowledge (legal English), an area of use (technical manuals), etc.

o Much ESP research was focused on determining the formal characteristics of various
registers in order to establish a basis for the selection of syllabus items. However,
register analysis has proved to be an insubstantial basis for the selection of syllabus
items because there’s no significant way in which the language of science differs
from any other kind of language.

o The assumption that language variation implies the existance of identifiable varieties
of language related to specific contexts of use has proved to be unfounded.

5. Functional Notional Grammar

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 o Functions are concerned with social behaviour and represent the intention of the
speaker or writer (advising, warning, threatening, describing). Notions reflect the way
in which the human mind thinks. They are the categories into which the mind and
language divides reality (time, frequence, duration, gender, number, location,
quantity and quality)

o The functional/notional view of language began to have an influence on language

teaching in the 1970s, largely as a result of the council of Europe’s effort to establish
some kind of equivalence in the syllabus for learning various languages. Equivalence
was difficult to establish on formal grounds since the structures of language showed
considerable variation.

o On functional/notional grounds , some approximate equivalence can be achieved

since notions and fuctions represent categories of human thinking and social
behaviour that vary across languages. Thus, in 1970 there was a move from
language syllabus organised on structural grounds to languages based on
functional/notional criteria.

o The move was strong in the development of ESP, largely on the pragmatic grounds
the majority of ESP students have had already done a structurally organised
syllabus, probably at school. Their needs were not to learn the basic grammar, but to
learn how to use the knowledge they already had.

o The attraction of the functional syllabus it is that it appears to be based in language

use in contrast to the structural syllabus, which shows only form.

o The functional syllabus has its own drawbacks;

 A lack of any kind of systematic conceptual framework doesn’t help students

organise their knowledge of the language.

 Functional syllabus is seen as a replacement of the older structural syllabus.

o A more constructive approach to describe language in structural or functional terms

is to see the two as complementary., with each supporting and enriching the other.
The relationship between the two would be structure + context = function.

6. Discourse Theoretical Analysis

o It had a profound effect in ESP. Emphasis moved to looking at how meaning is

generated between sentences. The context of the sentence is also important to
create meaning. For example:

Can I go out to play? Here, the propositional meaning of the sentence is the
It’s raining same. The notions (present time, for ex) are the same
too. But the sentence fulfills three different communi-
Have you cut the grass? cative purposes:
It’s raining
1. Parent/child: a refusal of the request
I think I’ll go for a walk 2. Husband/wife: reason or excuse
It’s raining 3. Among friends: advice or mild warning

o The meaning of the sentence “It’s raining” changes with the different contexts. This
change is brought about by two factors:

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 1) The sociolinguistic context: involves who is speaking to whom and why the
meaning changes according to the relationship between the participants in the
dialogue and according to their reason for speaking.

2) The relative positions of utterances within the discourse: an utterance acquires

meaning by virtue of what utterances it precedes or follows. This is discoursal
meaning.

Conclusion

The ESP teacher needs to recognize that all these stages are different ways of looking at
the same thing. All communication has a structural, functional and discoursal level, and
they are not mutually exclusive but complementary.

Describing a language is not the same as describing what enables someone to use or
learn a language. We must make a distinction between what people do
(performance) and what enables them to do it (competence). Similarly, we must not
confuse how people use a language with how people learn it.

2. Learning theories

1) Behaviourism: learning as habit formation

o The basic exercise technique for a behaviourist methodology is pattern practice in the
form of language laboratory drills. Such drills are still widely used in ESP.

o In modern ESP books provide a meaningful context for the drills.

2) Mentalism: thinking as rule-governed activity

o Learning consists of acquiring rules. The mind is a rule-seeker, that is, individual
experiences are used by the mind to formulate hypothesis.

3) Cognitive Code: learners as thinking beings

o Learners are active processors of information (Ausubel).

 They try to make sense of data

 Learning takes place when they impose meaningful interpretation or
patterns on the data.

o Basic teaching technique is a problem solving task: in ESP such exercises have often
been modelled on activities associated with the learners’ subject specialism.

o More recently, the cognitive view had an impact on ESP to teach reading strategies,
making students aware of strategies so that they can apply them to understanding texts
in the foreign language.

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 o Learners are thinking beings. Learning will take place when the matter to be learnt is
meaningful to the learners.

4) The Affective Factor: learners as emotional beings

o The learning of a language is an emotional experience and the feelings that the learning
process evokes have a crucial effect on the success or failure of the learning.

o The cognitive factor presupposes the affective factor of motivation because, before
learners actively think about something, they must want to think about it; and because
the emotional reaction to the learning experience is the essential foundation for the
initiation of the cognitive process.

o We can represent the cognitive/affective interplay in the form of a learning cycle:

Entry Point Learner wants to learn

Learner applies
cognitive powers to
Learner sees learning acquire knowledge
as an enjoyable and
satisfying experience

Learning is successful

Increased competente
enables learner to
learn more easily Learner’s competence
develops

o Unfortunately, the ESP world answers the question “what motivates my students?” with a
simpler answer: relevance to target needs. With needs analysis, there is more to
motivation han simple relevance to perceibed needs.

o ESP needs to be intrinsically motivating: it should satisfy students’ needs as learners as

well as their needs as potential target users of the language.

5) Learning and Acquisition

o For the second language learner both processes are very useful.

o A good ESP course will exploit both processes.

6) A model for learning

o The mind is a network of connections, like a road map.

3. Needs Analysis

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What is the difference between ESP and General English?

 What distinguishes ESP from General English is not the existence of a need but rather the
awareness of the need.

 In General English, learner needs can’t be specified and as a result no attempt is usually
made to discover learners’ true needs. Thus if we had to state the irreducible minimum of an
ESP approach to course design, it would be needs analysis, since it is the awareness of the
target situation – a definable need to communicate in English – that distinguishes the ESP
learners from the learner of General English.

What do we mean by needs?

 We mean the ability to comprehend and/or produce the linguistic features of the target
situation, for example the ability to understand the passive voice.

 We can make a basic distinction between target needs and learning needs.

1. Target needs

 They make reference to what the learner needs to know in the target situation. It
answers the question : what knowledge and abilities will the learners require in order
to be able to perform in the target situation? The target needs are concerned with
language use, with what people do with language. It is useful to look at the target
situation in terms of necessities, lacks and wants.

a. Necessities

o Necessities make reference to the type of need determined by the demans of the
target situation, that is, what the learner has to know in order to function
effectively in the target situation.

o For example, a businessman might need to understand business letters, to

communicate effectively at sales conferences, to get the necessary information
from sales catalogues, etc.

o It is a matter of observing what situation the learner will need to function in and
then analysing the constituent parts of them.

b. Lacks

o We also need to know what the learner knows already, so that we can decide
which of the necessities the learner lacks. One target situation necessity might be
to read texts in a particular subject area. Whether or not the learners need
instruction in doing this will depend on how well they can do it already.

o In other words, the target proficiency needs to be matched against the proficiency
of the learners. The gap between the two can be referred to as the learner’s
lacks.

c. Wants

o The learners too, have a view as to what their needs are. People build their
needs on the basis of data relating to themselves and their environment.

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 o Learners may well have a clear idea of the “necessities” of the target situation:
they will certainly have a view as to their “lacks”. But it is quite possible that the
learners’ views will conflict with their perceptions of other interested parties:
course designers, sponsors, teachers. For example:

 A Brazilian salesman needs to be able to talk on the telephone to

customers and other collegues. He also needs to read catalogues and
business letters. Although his spoken English is very fluent, it is not very
accurate. Therefore, his real need is for greater accuracy in spoken
conversation. However, this salesman feels that his spoken English is
very good, and he resents the implication that it is not.

This case study shows that there is no necessary

relationship between necessities as perceived by
sponsor or ESP teacher and what the learners want
or feel they need. Bearing in mind the importance
of learner motivation in the learning process,
learner perceived wants cannot be ignored.

Gathering information about target needs

 Apart from identifying the linguistic features of the target situation, there are a
number of ways in which information can be gathered about needs. The most
frequently used are:

 questionnaires
 interviews
 observations
 data collection (eg: gathering texts)
 informal consultations with sponsors, learners and others.
 It is desirable to use more than one of these methods. It is also important to
remember that needs analysis is not a once-for-all activity. It should be a continuing
process, in which the conclusions drawn are constantly checked and re-assessed.

 The following box outlines the kind of information that the course designer needs to
gather from an analysis of target needs.

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 A TARGET SITUATION ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK

WHY is the language needed?

for study
for work
for training
for a combination of these
for some other purpose (status, examination, promotion)

HOW will the language be used?

medium: speaking, writing, reading, etc.
channel: e.g. telephone, face to face.
types of texts or discourse: e.g. academic texts, lectures, informal conversations,
technical manuals, catalogues.

WHAT will the content areas be?

subjects: e.g. medicine, biology, architecture, shipping, commerce, engineering.
level: e.g. technician, craftsman, postgraduate, secondary school.

WHO will the learner use the language with?

native speakers or non-native speakers.
level of knowledge of receiver: e.g. expert, layman, student.
relationship: e.g. colleague, teacher, customer, superior, subordinate.

WHERE will the language be used?

physical setting: e.g. office, lecture theater, hotel, workshop, library.
human context: e.g. alone, meetings, demonstrations, on telephone.
linguistic context: e.g. in own country, abroad.

WHEN will the language be used?

concurrently with the ESP course or subsequently.
frequently, seldom, in small amounts, in large chunks.

2. Learning needs

 They make reference to what the learner needs to do in order to learn. Therefore, the
learning needs are concerned with language learning.

 Learning needs is the route which tells us how to get from the starting point (lacks) to
the destination (neccesities or wants).
 The needs, potential and constraints of the route (i.e. the learning situation) must also
de taken into account, if we are going to have any useful analysis of learner needs.

 We should not give students long and dull texts in ESP. It would be more appropriate
to look for texts that are more interesting or humorous in order to generate the
motivation needed to learn English.

 Students need tasks that are enjoyable, fulfilling, manageable, generative, etc. Tasks
are oriented by the target situation, but their specific contents are a response to
learning needs.

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  In the target situation, students may need to read long and complex texts, but their
motivation to do so may be high for many reasons (the like the subject in general, they
may be very good at their subject but poor at English, they may respect the subject
teacher or boss, etc). Learners may be well motivated in the target lesson or in their
work, but they would not like to encounter the same material in an ESP classroom.

 The target situation can determine the destination, but we must choose a route
according to the conditions of the learning situation, the learners’ knowledge, skills
and strategies, and their motivation to learn.

Analysing learning needs

A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSING LEARNING NEEDS

WHY are the learners taking the course?

o compulsary or optional
o apparent need or not
o Are status, money, promotion involved?
o What do learners think they will achieve?
o What is their attitude towards the ESP course? Do they want to improve their
English or do they resent the time they have to spend on it?

HOW do learners learn?

o What is ther learning background?
o What is their concept of teaching and learning?
o What methodology will appeal to them?
o What sort of techniques are likely to bore/alienate them?

WHAT resources are available?

o number and professional competence of teachers.
o attitudes of teachers to ESP.
o teachers’ knowledge of and attitude to the subject content.
o materials
o aids

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 WHO are the learners?
age/sex/nationality
What do they know already about English?
What subject knowledge do they have?
What are their interests?
What is their socio-cultural background?
What teaching styles are they used to?
What is their attitude to English or to the cultures of the English-speaking world?

WHERE will the ESP course take place?

Are the surroundings pleasant, dull, noisy, cold, etc.?

WHEN will the ESP course take place?

time of the day
every day/once a week
full time/part time
concurrent with need or pre-need.

Don’t forget!!!!

Both target situation needs and learning needs must be taken into account in needs
analysis. Analysis of target situation needs is concerned with language use. But language
use is part of the story. We also need to know about language learning. Analysis of the
target situation can tell us what people do with language. What we also need to know is
how people learn to do what they do with language. We need, in other words, a learning-
centered approach to needs analysis.

Approaches to ESP Course Design

 Course design is the process by which new data about a learning need is interpreted in order to
produce an integrated series of teaching-learning experiences, whose ultimate aim is to lead the
learners to a particular state of knowledge. That is, the use of theoretical and empirical
information to produce a syllabus, to select materials according to that syllabus, to develop a
methodology for teaching those materials and to estrablish evaluation procedures.

 There are three main approaches to ESP course design: language-centred, skills-centred and
learning-centred.

1. Language-centred course design

 It is the simplest kind of course design and the most familiar to English
teachers.

 It aims to draw as direct a connection as possible between the analysis of the

target situation and the content of the ESP course. It proceeds as follows.

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a) This procedure starts from the learners and their needs. Although it might be
considered a learner-centred approach, it is s learner-restricted approach: the learner
is simply used as a means of identifying the target situation. Instead of the whole
English, a restricted area of language is taught (not the case of General English). In
this model, the learning needs of the students are not accounted for at all.

b) It is a static an inflexible procedure since it takes little account of the conflicts and
contradictions that are inherent in any human endevour. Any procedure must have
flexibility, feedback channels, and error tolerance built in so that it can respond to
unsuspected or developing influences.

c) This model appears to be systematic because of the systematic presentation of

language. However, the fact that knowledge as been systematically analized and
systematically presented does not imply that it will be systematically learnt. Learners
have to make the system meaningful to themselves.

d) It gives no acknowledgement of data about needs analysis or pedagogical materials.

One of the primary principles of good pedagogical materials is that they should be
interesting. But this relevant factor is not considered to be important at all. “It doens’t
matter if it is boring. It is ESP.
e) The language-centred analysis of target situation data is only at the surface level. It
reveals very little about the competence that underlies the performance.

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  The language-centred approach has many weaknesses. It fails to recognize the fact that
learning is not a straightforward, logical process.

2. Skills-centred course design

 This approach provides opportunities for learners to employ techniques and strategies.

 Its aim is to make learners better processors of information, to make them users of
language rather than learners of language.

 Students do not have texts in their native language and they need to read them in English.
That is why this approach also aims to develop students’ ability to read in English.

 The skills-centred approach is founded on two fundamental principles: one theoretical and
one pragmatic.

1. The basic theoretical hypothesis is that underlying any language behaviour, there are
certain skills and strategies which the learner uses in order to produce or
comprehend discourse. A skills-centred approach aims to get away from the surface
performance data and look at the competence that underlies the performance.
Therefore, a skills-centred course will present its learning objectives in terms of both
performance and competence.

2. The pragmatic basis derives from a distinction made between goal-oriented courses
and process-oriented courses. If the ESP course is designed in terms of goals, there
is a tacit admission that a large number of students will fail the course. Since ESP is
intended to enable people to achieve a purpose, it is at best a little odd to frame the
course in such a way as to almost predict failure. The process-oriented approach
tries to avoid this problem by removing the distinction between the ESP course and
the target situation. Both of them are seen as a continuum of constantly developing
degrees of proficiency with no cut-off point of success or failure. So the emphasis on
the ESP course is not on achieving a particular set of goals , but on enabling the
learners to achieve what they can within the given constraints.

The process-oriented approach make students aware of their own abilities and
potential, and motivate them to tackle target texts on their own after the end of the
course.

 We might represent the skills-centred model as follows:

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  The role of needs analysis in a skills-centred approach is twofold:

1. It provides a basis for discovering the underlying competence that enables people to
perform in the target situation.

2. It enables the course designer to discover the potential knowledge and abilities that
the learners bring to the ESP classroom.

 The skills-centred approach takes the learner more into account than the language-
centred approach:

o It views language in terms of how the mind of the learner processes it rather than as
an entity itself.

o It tries to build on the positive factors that the learners bring to the course, rather than
just on the negative ideas of “lacks”.

o It frames its objectives in open-ended terms , so enabling learners to achieve at least

something.

 In spite of his concern for the learner, the skills-centred

approach still aproaches the learner as a user of language rather than as a learner of
language.

3. Learning-centred course design

Why learning-centred instead of learner-centred?

 Learning is seen as a process in which the learners use what knowledge or skills they
have in order to make sense of the flow of new information. Learning, therefore, is an
internal process, which is crucially dependent upon the knowledge the learners already
have and their ability and motivation to use it. However, learning should be seen in the
context in which it takes place. Learning is not just a mental process, it is a process of
negotiation between individuals and society. Society sets the target and the individuals
must do their best to get as close to that target as is possible.

 In the learning process, then, there is more than just the learner to consider, i.e. the
classroom situation, target needs and needs analysis. For this reason we reject the term
learner-centred and we adopt the term learning-centred instead, to indicate that the
concern is to maximise learning.

 In the language-centred approach, the learner is discarded and the target situation
analysis determines the content of the course with little reference to the learner. The
skills-centred approach, emphasises the learner, but it still makes the ESP learning
situation too dependent on the target situation. The learning-centred approach says that
what the two other approaches claim is not enough because it is necessary to look
beyond the competence that enables someone to perform in order to discover not the
competence itself, but how someone acquires that competence. We might see the
relationship in the following diagram:

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 This diagram shows that a learning-centred approach to course design takes the learner
into account at every stage of the design process This has two implications:

1. Course design is a negotiated process. There is no single factor to determine the

content of the course. The ESP learning situation and the target situation will both
influence the nature of the syllabus, materials, methodology and evaluation
procedures.

2. Course design is a dymamic process. It does not move in a linear fashion from initial
analysis to completed course. Needs and resources vary with time. The course
design, therefore, need to have built-in feedback channels to enable the course to
respond to developments

 The learning-centred design process is shown in this diagram:

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 The course design process should be dymamic and interactive. In particular, factors
concerned with learning must be brought into play at all stages of the design process.
We have called this a learning-centred approach – an approach with the aim of
maximising the potential of the learning situation.

Goals and Objectives

 We should apply what has been learned in the needs analysis for the formulation of program
goals and objectives.

Goals

 They are long-term and broad statements that provide general signposts for course
development. They should be achieved by the end of the whole course destination.

 They are general statements concerning desirable and attainable program purposes and aims
based on perceived language and situation needs. (Brown)

 We can also say that goals:

o are general statements of the program’s purpose

o should focus on what the program hopes to accomplish in the future, and particularly what
the students should be able to do when they leave the program.
o can serve as one basis for developing more precise and observable objectives.
o should never be viewed as permanent

 Goals make take different shapes: They can be:

o Language and situation-centered: e.g. how to fill out forms, read a menu and order a
meal.
o Functional: how to speak in social situations with a focus on greetings, conversational
openers, polite rejoinders, and farewells.
o Structural: how to learn the grammatical system.

 Examples of goals:

 Understand conversational English

 Develop oral language skills that will prepare them to participate in class discussions,
make oral presentations before an audience, and respond to questions, as well as to
continue to improve through self-evaluation of speech.
 To establish and maintain social relationships through exchanging information, ideas,
opinions, attitudes, feelings, and plans.

 Goal statements can serve as a basis for developing more specific descriptions of the kinds of
learning behaviors the program wil address. These more specific descriptions are called
instructional objectives.

Objectives

 They are specific objectives that are determined for a specific area, unit, course, activity. They
are short term ways to arrive at a destination.

 They specify what learners should be able to do as a result of instruction.

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 They are specific statements that describe the particular knowledge, behaviors, and/or skills that
the learner will be expected to know or perform at the end of a course or program.

 Objectives have three essential characteristics:

o Performance: what the learner will be able to do.

o Conditions: important conditions under which the performance is expected to occur.

o Criterion (the quality or level of performance that will be considered acceptable) or

standards (setting out how well they should perform)

Example: By the end of the course, students will be able to write the full forms of selected
abbreviations (performance) drawn from pages 6-8 of the course textbook
(conditions) with 80 percent accuracy (criterion)

 There are two types of objectives:

1. Terminal objectives: final learning outcomes you will assess. Eg: students will be able to
request information about airplanes, arrivals and departures.

2. Enabling objectives: steps to reach terminal objectives. Eg: students will read and
understand airline schedules timetable.

 Examples of objectives:

 Working in pairs, learners will provide enough information for their partner to draw their
family tree. They will provide enough information for a three-generation family tree to be
drawn.
 Students will extract and record estimated minimum and maximum temperatures from a
taped radio whether forecast. They must accurately record four of the six regions covered
by the forecast.
 While watching a videotaped conversation between two native speakers, students will
identify the various topics discussed and points at which they are changed. All topics and
changed points are to be identified.

The Syllabus

 A syllabus provides a focus for what should be studied, along with a rationale for how that
content should be selected and ordered. It’s a global order of presentation. (Dean Brown)

 Before making the syllabus we should consider:

1. The students: their age, the gender, their interests, their needs (who)

2. The institution: private/state, religious/non-religious (where)

3. Goals and objectives (why)

4. Concepts, procedures and attitudes (what)

5. May indicate a time schedule (when)

6. May indicate a preferred methodology (how)

7. May recommend materials (what)

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 Purpose of syllabus: to break down the mass of knowledge to be learnt into manageable
pieces.

 A syllabus design is different from a curriculum design. In the latter, the designer is not only
concerned with what will be taught and in what order, but also with the planning,
implementation, evaluation, management and administration of education programs.

 Each syllabus needs to be developed on the basis of certain criteria:

o Learneability: some structural and lexical items are easier for students to learn tahn others.
Thus we teach easier things first and then increase the level of difficulty. Eg: teach some
and any on their own, and then introduce a whole range of quantifiers (much, many, few)

o Frequency: at beginning levels we should include items that are more frequent in the
language, than ones that are only used occasionally by native speakers. Teach the verb see
first, that is more frequent than the verb understand.

o Coverage: some words and structures have greater coverage (scope of use) than others.
Thus we might decide to introduce the going to future before the present continuous with
future reference.

o Usefulness: the reason that words like book or pen figure so highly in classrooms is because
they are useful words in that situation. We need to teach words that are useful in the context
of what students are linguistically able to talk about.

Types of syllabus

1. Grammar/structural syllabus

 This is the commonest type of syllabus. This type of syllabus focuses on grammatical
forms. The sequencing of structures in based on the idea of starting with easy structures
and gradually progressing to more difficult ones. In some cases the sequencing starts
with the most frenquent structures and gradually moves to the less frequent ones.

Example of Structural Syllabus

Chapter 1: Verb Tenses

The simple tenses
The progressive tenses
The perfect tenses
The perfect progressive tenses

Chapter 2: Modal auxiliaries and similar expressions

Chapter 3: The passive

Chapter 4: Gerunds and infinitives

2. Topical syllabus

 Language is organised around different topics, eg. the whether, sport, survival, literature,
music and so on. These topics can be subdivided into items, eg. whether: whether
changes, whether and mood, damage that the whether can cause, etc.

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  The topics can be based on students’ interests. The can also be based on students’
communicative needs
Example of Topical Syllabus

Unit I: Trends in Living

1. A Cultural Difference Being on Time

2. Working Hard or Hardly Working
3. Changing Life-Styles and New Eating Habits

Unit II: Issues in Society

4. Loneliness
5. Can Stress Make You Sick?
6. Care of the Elderly: A Familiy Matter

3. Situational Syllabus

 This type of syllabus focuses on selcting and sequencing different real-life situations. It is
based on common situations like the following: at a party, at the beach, at the airport, in
a taxi, etc.

 The selection of situations is usually based on situations that the students will encounter
in their daily lives.

 It is appropriate for bussiness and tourism.

 Choosing key situations may be problematic. Everything depends on the context where
students will use the language, on who the students are, and on where they are learning.

Example of Situational Syllabus

Introductions
Getting acquainted
At the housing office
Deciding to live together
Let’s have coffee
Looking for an apartment
At the pier

4. Functional Syllabus

Functional syllabus focuses on semantic uses. They are organised around language
functions such as inviting, promising, offering, interrupting, seeking and giving
information, saying good bye, etc.

The syllabus designer should choose ways of expressing each function. For example, for
offering, the following expressions can be used: Would you like me to ...? Do you want
some help? Let me give you a hand, and so on.

Authors select functions according to students’ usefulness.

Example of Functional Syllabus

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 1. Talking about yourself, starting a conversation,
making a date.
2. Asking for information: question techniques,
answering techniques, getting more information.
3. Getting people to do things: requesting,
attracting attention, agreeing and refusing.
4. Talking about past events: remembering,
describing experiences, imagining.
5. Conversation techniques: hesitating, preventing
interruptions and interrupting politely.

5. Notional Syllabus

It is organised around abstract conceptual categories called general notions. General
notions include concepts like distance, duration, quantity, quality, location, size and so
on.

This type of materials organisation is related to functional organisation and serves as a

general set of categories within which functions form subcategories.

The author selects general notions based on their perceived utility, and then sequences
them according to chronology, frenquency, or the utility of the notions involved.

Notional and functional syllabus are the same thing. However, the are being used separately
here because one is organised around general notions and the other organised around
language functions.

Example of Notional Syllabus

Unit 1 Properties and Shapes

Unit 2 Location
Unit 3 Structure
Unit 4 Measurement 1 (of solid figures)
Unit 5 Process 1 Function and Ability
Unit 6 Actions in Sequence

6. Lexical Syllabus

It is organised on the basis of vocabulary and lexis. It can be very complex since there are
many facets to lexis, such as:

o the vocabulary related to topics (art, clothes, crime)

o issues of word formation (suffixes and other morphological changes)
o word-grammar triggers (verbs which are followed by certain syntactic
patterns)
o compound lexical items (walking-stick)
o connecting and linking words (when, if)
o semi-fixed expressions (would you like ...? if I were you ...)
o connotation and the use of mataphor

Another problem with lexical syllabus is the relationship between lexis and grammar. Should
phrasal verbs be taught as multi-word lexical items or as a grammatical class?

A truly lexical syllabus has not yet been shown to be feasible.

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 7. Skills-based Syllabus

 It is organised around language or academic skills that students need in order to use and
continue to learn the language. Eg. reading for the general idea, reading for specific
information, guessing vocabulary from context, using prefixes and suffixes, finding main
ideas, etc.

The selection of skills is based on the author’s perception of their usefulness, while their
sequencing is usually based on the chronology, frequency, or relative usefulness of the
skills.

Example of Skill-based Syllabus

Scanning
Key words
Topic sentence
Reference words
Connectors

8. Task-based Syllabus

 It is organised around different types of tasks that the students may be required to perform in
the language. Such tasks might include reading job ads, making appointments, writing a
resume, filling out a job application, being interviewed, solving a problem, etc. The
selection of the tasks is based on their perceived usefulness to the students.

Jane Willis lists six task types that can be used with almost any topics. These are: listing,
ordering and sorting, comparing, problem solving, sharing personal experience, and
creative tasks.
As with situations and topics, it is difficult to know how to grade tasks in terms of difficulty.

Example of Task-based Syllabus

1 Writing notes and memos

2 Writing personal letters
3 Writing telegrams, personal ads, and instructions
4 Writing descriptions
5 Reporting experiences
6 Writing to companies and officials

9. The Multi-Syllabus Syllabus

This type of syllabus is a common solution to the competing claims of the different syllabus
types we have looked at. Instead of a program based exclusively on grammatical or
lexical categories, for example, the multi-syllabus syllabus shows any combination of
items for grammar, lexis, language functions, situations, topics, tasks, different language
skill tasks or pronunciation issues.

The Plan

 What we take into account before planning:

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 Curriculum

approach cycle context

goals

Syllabus: a public document, a comprensible list which:

Takes into account our students’ needs (Who?/ Where?)

Expresses the purposes, intended outcomes of a course and the ways they will
be achieved (goals and objectives) (Why?)
Specifies the content to be taught (What?)
May indicate a time scheduled (When?)
May indicate a preferred methodology (How?)
May recommend materials (What?)

Jeremy Harmer

 The best teachers are those who think carefully about what they are going to do in their classes
and who plan how they are going to organise the teaching and learning.

Planning, textbooks and the syllabus

 Many institutions present the syllabus in terms of the main textbook to be used. Where a
textbook is involved there are obvious advantages for both teachers and students:

o Textbooks contain lively and interesting material

o They provide a sensible progression of language items
o Summarise what has been studied so that students can revise grammatical and functional
points.
o They are systematic about the amount of vocabulary presented to the students.
o They allow students to study on their own outside the class.

 But textbooks can also have an adverse effect on teaching.

o They tend to concentrate on the introduction of new language and controlled work: a teacher
relying too heavily on a textbook will not provide roughly-tuned input or output practice.

o They tend to follow the same format from one unit to the next which involves a rigid
sequence.

o Its overuse may lead students to find the study of English routinary, monotonous and boring.

o Textbooks don’t take into account students’ individualities.

o They may not have a balance of skills and activities

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  Discerning teachers with time to spare can move around the
Solutions material selecting what they want to use and discarding parts
that seem inappropriate.

 Using variety will prevent an English class from being

monotonous and boring.

 Teachers need to work out the best ways to use their books,
they should never let the text book use them.

Planning principles

 The two planning principles behind good lesson planning are variety and flexibility.

Variety

 Means involving students in a number of different types of activity and where possible
introducing them to a wide selection of materials.

 Means planning so that learning is interesting and never monotonous for the students.

 The aim is to provide variety of different learning activities to help individual students to get to
grips with the language. Teachers who vary their teaching may be able to satisfy most of the
students at different times.

 Variety should apply to a series of classes and also to a single class period. We should not
expect, for example, to engage students in reading comprehension for a whole class. We might
base the class on one reading passage and introduce different activities (group discussion,
questions, games) that can be done with that passage.

 The teacher who believes in variety will have to be flexible since the only way to provide variety
is to use a number of different techniques.

Flexibility

 Comes into play when dealing with the plan in the classroom. The flexible teacher will be able to
change the plan if what has been planned is not appropriate for the class on that particular day.

Good lesson planning is the art of mixing techniques, activities and materials in
such a way that an ideal balance is created for the class.

What teachers should know

 Before teachers can start to consider planning their classes they need to know a considerable
amount about three main ideas: the job of teaching, the institution and the students.

1. The job of teaching: teachers need to know:

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 a) The language for the level: teachers should be able to use the language they have to
teach and know the rules and factors which affect its use.

b) The skills for the level: they should know the skills they are going to ask their students to
perform.

c) The learning aids available for the level: teachers need to know the aids fot the level
being taught: wall pictures, flashcards, charts, videos, the board, etc.

d) Stages and techniques in teaching: they should know the difference between accurate
reproduction and communicative activities. They should know how to recognize the
stages in the book.

e) A repertoire of activities: they should have varied plans and achieve balance in their
activities.

f) Classroom management skills: teachers should adop different roles, use different
student groupings and maintain discipline.

2. The institution

a) Time, lenght, frequency: teachers should know at what time, for how long, and how often
classes take place.

b) Physical conditions: they should know the physical conditions of the place that they
teach. For example, they should know if there is a socket for a plug in the classroom
when using tape recorders.

c) Syllabus: teachers need to be familiar with the syllabus the institution has for the levels
being taught.

d) Exams: they should know the types of exams the students will how to take and when.

e) Restrictions: they should be aware of any restrictions imposed by the institution upon
their teaching.

3. The students: teachers need to know :

a) Who the students are: age (children, adolescents, adults), sex (men or women), social
background (rich or poor), and occupation.

b) What they bring to the class: motivation and attitude (towards the language and its
culture), educational background (educational experiences, different learning styles, if
they are successful students or not), knowledge (if they know something about English,
how well they perform in their mother tongue, knowledge of the world and current
affairs), interests (the students interests are the primary ingredients to motivation).

c) What the students need: teachers need to know what their students need English for and
use this knowledge for course design. They also need to pay attentio to what the
students want.

The pre-plan

 Teachers who are knowledgeable about the institution, the profession and the students, are
ready to start making a plan. However, before making a plan, they need to think what they are
going to do in a general way, that is, they need to make a pre-plan.

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 Based on our knowledge of the students and the syllabus we can consider four main ideas in
the pre-plan: activities, language skills, language type and subject and content.

 The concept of pre-plan and how it operates is summarised in the following figure.

 The four elements of the pre-plan are:

a) Activities

o This term makes reference to a general description of what the students are going to do. A
game, the introduction of new language, listening, oral compositions are all activities.

o When planning activities is vital to consider the students and what they have been doing
recently. For example, if recent work has been tiring and serious, the teacher may include
and activity that gives students an enjoyable time.

o Teachers will also need to consider activities in terms of the class period. They should
balance different activities during that period.

b) Language skills

o Teachers will have to decide what language skills to include in the class according to the
syllabus and the activities. They will also make their choice on the basis of their students’
needs and what their students have ben doing recently.

c) Language type

o Teachers will have to decide what language is to be focused on during the class. Much will
depend on the language in the syllabus. For example, they may want their students to “talk
about the past” using a variety of past tenses or in general to concentrate on “inviting”

d) Subject and content

o Teachers who know who their students are and what they bring to the class will be in a
much better position to choose subject and content than a teacher who does not. This

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 knowledge is vital since one of language’s main functions is to communicate interests and
ideas.
Two of these four areas are not concerned with decisions about language, but are
based on what will interest a motivate the students. Teachers who concentrate o
activities and subject and content will benefit the students far more than those who
only concentrate on language skills and types.

The plan

 The plan has five major components: description of the class, recent work, objectives, contents
and additional possibilities.

a) Description of the class: the description of the class embraces:

o a description of the students

o a statement of time, frequency and duration of the class
o comments about physical conditions and/or restrictions

b) Recent work: this includes:

o the activities the students have been involved in

o the subject and content of their lessons
o the language skills and type that they have studied

c) Objectives:

o Objectives are the aims that teachers have for the students and are written in terms
of what the students will do or achieve.

o They can be written in general terms (e.g. “the objective is to relax the students”), in
terms of skills (e.g. “to give students practice in extracting specific information from a
text”), and in terms of language (e.g. “to give students practice in the use of the past
simple tense using regular and irregular verbs, questions and answers”).

o The written objectives will be more or less specific depending on how specific the
teacher’s aims are.

o They are written in infinitive.

d) Contents: they make reference to exactly what we are going to do in the class. The
“Contents” section has five headings:

1) Context: means “what the situation is: what the subject of the learning is”. Here we write
what context we will be using for the activity.

2) Activity and class organisation: we indicate what the activity will be and say whether the
class will be working in lockstep, pairs, groups or teams.

3) Aids: we indicate whether we will be using the blackboard or a wall picture, the tape
recorder or the textbook, etc.

4) Language: here we describe the language that will be used. If new language is to be
introduced we will list some or all of the models. If the activity is an oral communicative

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 activity we might only write “unpredictable”. Otherwise we may write “advice language”,
for example, and give some indication of what kind of language items are expected.

5) Possible problems: many activities can be expected to be problematic in some way. We

should be aware of certain problems that some activities may cause and consider ways
of solving them.

e) Additional possibilities

o Here we write down other activities we could use if it becomes necessary. For
example, if we get through the plan quicker than we thought or if one of our activities
has to be stopped because it is not working well, we can use these extra activities.

The specimen lesson plan

A. Description of the class

Level: Intermediate

Students between the ages of 16-25. 21 women, 9 men. (6 secretaries, 5 housewives, 10

university students, 3 teachers, 1 doctor, 1 businessman, 4 secondary students).

The class takes place from 7.45 – 9.00 pm. on Mondays and Wednesdays. The students are
generally enthusiastic, but often tired: concentration sometimes suffers as a result. Students have
completed approximately 200 hours of English.

B. Recent work

 Students have been studying the passive – discovery activities followed by language practice.
 Writing complete passive sentences about e.g. the world’s first postage stamp, the V W Beetle,
etc.
 Listening work (listening for detailed comprehension)
 Writing notes based on the listening.


C. Objectives

 To create interest in the topic of buildings: to promote discussion.

 To reaise expectations and create involvement in a reading tasks.
 To read to comfirm expectations.
 To study relevant words.
 To prepare a description of a famous building.

D. Contents

Objective 1: (Estimated time: 15 minutes)

(a) Context Students’ own lives – buildings

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(b) Activity/class Discussion (buzz groups) in small groups. Students are asked to agree on the
Organisation most famous buildings in the world and they say how they make them feel.

(c) Aids None

(d) Language All and any

(e) Possible Students may not have much to say. The teacher will be prepared to prompt if
Problems necessary – or shorten the activity.

Objective 2: (Estimated time: 10 minutes)

(a) Context “Creating expectations” about the Empire State Building.

(b) Activity/class Whole class contributes suggestions to the teacher who writes them up in 3
Organisation columns on the board.

(c) Aids Board, chalk or board pen, etc.

(d) Language All and any; “buildings” vocabulary

Students don’t know anything about the Empire State Building! The teacher
(e) Possible can prompt with “Is it tall?”, “Where is it?”, etc.
Problems

Objective 3: (Estimated time: 25 minutes)

A text ab
(a) Context ut the Empire State Building

Students read individually and then check in pairs to see if the

(b) Activity/class questions/doubts written on the board have been settled by the information in
Organisation the text. The teacher then leads the feedback session and discusses with the
whole class.

(c) Aids The text: the “expectations” chart on the board

(d) Language All and any – especially vocabulary related to buildings.

The “expectations” questions may not be answered in the text. The teacher
(e) Possible will have prepared a series of questions for detailed comprehension.
Problems

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Objective 4: (Estimated time: 10 minutes)

(a) Context Words about different kinds of buildings.

In pairs students have to put “buildings” words (e.g. block of flats, skycraper,
(b) Activity/class house, palace, cottage, etc.) in order of hight, overall size, privacy, worth, etc.
Organisation The teacher discusses their conclusions.

(c) Aids Wordlist/textbooks

(d) Language Discussion language. “Building” words

Students don’t know any of the words. Maybe they know all of them. The
(e) Possible teacher assesses the situation and is prepared for more explanation or to cut
Problems the activity short and move on.

Objective 5 ( Estimated time: 15 minutes)

(a) Context Buildings – the world/students’ lives

Teacher and students talk about paragraph organisation of a text about a

(b) Activity/class famous building. Students get into groups to plan a composition about a
Organisation particular building. They are then asked to write the composition for
homework.
The board and/or handout and/or textbook with notes/hints about paragraph
(c) Aids organisation. Students’ notebooks, etc.

Teacher will try to elicit passives and building vocabulary when discussing
(d) Language organisation.

Students may not know much about any famous building! The teacher has
(e) Possible some information about other famous buildings, e.g Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal,
Problems etc. to help or just in case.

E. Additional possibilities

 Find the differences. The teacher gives each pair two pictures of urban landscapes – with
different buildings, etc. They have to find at least ten differences between their pictures without
looking at each other.
 Describe and draw. In pairs one student tells another student to draw a building. Then they do it
the other way round.
 A co-operative writing exercise in which a group of students write a story starting “When she
saw the building for the first time she knew there was something wrong.”

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The Lesson Plan ( Brown)

Fomat of a lesson plan

 A lesson is considered to be a unified set of activities that cover a period of classroom time,
usually ranging from 40 to 90 minutes.

 The essential elements of a lesson plan should be:

1. Goals

o You should be able to identify an overall goal that you will attempt to accomplish by the
end of the class period.

2. Objectives

o You need to state explicitly what you want students to gain from the lesson. Explicit
statements help you to:

a) be sure that you know what it is you want to accomplish

b) preserve the unity of your lesson
c) predetermine whether or not you are trying to accomplish too much
d) evaluate students’ success at the end of the lesson

o In stating objectives, distinguish between terminal and enabling objectives.

Terminal objectives Enabling objectives

They are final learning outcomes that you will They are interim steps that build upon each
need to measure and evaluate. Examples: other and lead to a terminal objective. Examples

o Students will successfully request o Students will comprehend and produce the
information about airplane arrivals and following ten new vocabulary items.
departures. o Students will read and understand an airline
schedule.
o Students will produce questions with when,
where, and what time.

o Enabling objectives will vary according to the students proficiency level and what they
have already learned in the course.

3. Materials and equipment

o You should know what you need to take with you or to arrange to have in your
classroom (tape recorders, posters, handouts, books, etc).

4. Procedures

o You need to make sure your plan includes:

a. an opening statement or activity as a “warm up”

b. a set of activities and techniques in which you have considered appropiate
proportions of time for:

I. whole class work

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 II. small group and pair work
III. teacher talk
IV. student talk

c. closure

5. Evaluation

o You need to determine whether or not your objectives have been accomplished.

o Evaluation is an assessment, formal or informal, that you make after students have
sufficient opportunities for learning, and without this component, you have no means for
(a) assessment of the success of your students or (b) making adjustments in you
lesson plan for the next year.

6. Extra-class work

o Students not necessarily do extra-class work at home: homework. Extra-classwork

needs to be planned carefully and communicated clearly to the students.

o You can find some extentions of classroom activity that will help students to do some
learning beyond the class hour.

Guidelines of a lesson plan

1. How to begin a plan

a. Choose what to teach.

b. Look over the textbook chapter.
c. Determine what the topic and purpose of the lesson will be and write them down as the
overall goal.
d. State one to three terminal objectives for the lesson.
e. Of the exercises that appear in the textbook, decide which ones you will do, change
and add to, all based on the objectives you have stated.
f. Write a skeletal outline of what your lesson will look like.
g. Anticipate step by step procedures for carrying put all techniques, especially those that
involves changes and additions. State the purpose of each technique and/or activity as
enabling objectives.

2. Variety, sequencing, pacing and timing

o You need to look at how your lesson holds together. Four considerations com into play
here:

a. There should be sufficient variety in techniques to keep the lesson lively and
interesting. This keeps minds alert and enthusiasm high.

b. Different techniques and activities should be sequenced logically. Elements of a

lesson will build progressively toward accomplishing the ultimate goals. Tasks that
require knowledge gained from previous exercises should be appropriately
sequenced.

c. The lesson as a whole should be paced adequately. Pacing can mean a number of
things, it means that:

 activities are neither too long nor too short

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  you need to anticipate how well your various techniques “flow” together
 how well you provide a transition from one activity to the next

d. The lesson should be appropriately timed, considerin the number of minutes in the
class hour. Timing is an element that should build into a lesson plan:

 If your planned lesson ends early, have some backup activity ready to insert.
 If your lesson isn’t completed as planned, be ready to end a class on time
and on the next day pick up where you left off.

3. Gauging difficulty

o Figuring out in advance how easy or difficult certain techniques will be is something that
usually must be learned by experience.

o Tasks themselves can cause this difficulty, therefore, you need to make your directions
clear by writing them out in advance.

o Another source of difficulty is linguistic. If you can follow the i+1 principle of providing
material that is just little above, but not too far above students’ ability, the linguistic
difficulty should be optimal.

4. Individual differences

o Several steps can be taken to account for individual differences:

a. Design techniques that have easy and difficult aspects or items.

b. Solicit responses to easier items from students who are below the classroom norm
and to harder items from those above the norm.
c. Try to design techniques that will involve all students actively.
d. Use judicious selection to assign members of small groups so that each group has
either a deliberately heterogeneous range of ability or a homogeneous range (to
encourage equal participation).
e. Use small group and pair work time to circulate and give extra attention to those
bellow or above the norm.

5. Student talk and teacher talk

o You need to make sure that there is a balance between student talk and teacher talk in
your lesson plan. Try not to talk too much and give students a chance to talk, to
produce language, and even to initiate their own topics and ideas.

6. Adapting to an established curriculum

o Your primary task is following an established curriculum and adapting to it in terms of

your particular group of students, their needs, and their goals, as well as your own
philosophy of teaching.

o As you plan lessons, your first concern is that the class hour must contribute to the
goals that a curriculum is designed to pursue. If you don not have such overall course
goals, you should devise some for yourself so that you can keep your course focused
on attainable, practical ends. To do so, consider the following factors:

1. Learner factors

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 a. Who are the students (age, education, occupation, general purpose in taking
English, entering proficiency level)?

b. What are the specific language needs of the students (to read English
specific texts, to serve as a tour guide, etc)?

2. Institutional factors

a. What are the practical constraints of the institution you are teaching in.
(consider budget, classroom space and size, etc.)?

b. What supporting materials (textbooks, audio-visual aids overhead projector,

etc) are available?

7. Classroom lesson “notes”

o You need to consider what sort of lesson “notes” you will carry into the classroom with
you. It is not advisable to have pages and pages of notes because you could get too
focused on details and never free yourself for spontaneity. You need to reduce your
plans to a manageable minimum.

Development of units of work

Defining “units of work”, “task based learning” and “tasks”

1. Units of work

 A unit of work is a series of class hours which are centred round a theme or interest area. The
language learning objective is to develop students’ ability to:

 Do something in the foreign language which they were unable to do before.

 Do something in the foreign language better than they could do before.

 The main characteristics of a unit of work are:

 It takes a minimum of three to five class hours.

 It is constructed as a coherent sequence of interrelated tasks which lead to a previously
defined final task.
 In order to carry out the tasks in the unit it may be essential for students to learn new
language (new vocabulary, grammar, fuctions), or it may be possible for students to rely
on previous knowledge , which is then recycled.
 It allows an on-going evaluation of the learning process.
 The work of the whole school year can be a sequence of units of work.

2. Task based learning

 In task based learning, the basic and initial point of organisation is the task ; classwork is
organised as a sequence of tasks, and it is tasks that generate language to be used, not
vice versa. So, in TBL what teachers ask students is that they carry out a series of tasks, for
which they will need to learn and recycle some specific items of language. The main focus is
on the tasks to be done and language is seen as the instrument necessary to carry them out.

3. Tasks

 There are two types of tasks: communication and enabling tasks.

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1. Communication tasks

a) A communication task is a piece of classwork which involves all the learners in:

 the comprehension of the foreign language (spoken or written)

 the production of the foreign language (spoken or written)
 oral interaction in the foreign language

b) A communication task is a piece of classwork during which learners’ attention is

principally focused on meaning rather than on form.

c) A communication task is a piece of classroom work which resembles activities which our
students or other people carry out in every day life, thus producing processes of
everyday communication.

d) A communication task is a piece of classwork which has a structure consisting of:

 a specified working procedure which establishes how the task is going to be carried
out.
 appropiate data, materials
 a communicative purpose: what are we communicating and why
 a concrete outcome which can be different for different members of the class

e) A communication task is a piece of classwork which is usually part of a sequence. This

sequence often creates a context for the task.

f) A communication task is a piece of classwork which both teachers and learners can
evaluate, in relation to both process and outcome. Eg. Did it work? How did it work? Was
the purpose achieved? Are we satisfied with the outcome?

g) Tasks done in an English classroom are classwork having the ultimate purpose of
developing students’ communicative competence in English. Tasks, therefore, have a
pedagogical purpose.

2. Enabling tasks

o They act as support for communication tasks. Their purpose is to provide students with the
necessary linguistic tools to carry out a communication task.

o Their main focus is on linguistic aspects (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, functions

and discourse) rather than on meaning.

o They are overt language learning experiences, whose aim is to enable students to
communicate as smoothly and effectively as possible.

o Types of classroom work that may be classified as enabling tasks:

a) Presentation of necessary new language (functions, grammar, vocabulary, phonology,

discourse features); checking that the new language has been understood; records of
new language learnt kept by students.

b) Controlled pre-communication practice or awareness-raising tasks (drills, written

exercises focusing on form, etc.) usually focused on accuracy:

 done immediately following presentation of new language, or as part of recycling of

previously learnt language.
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  aimed at facilitating a specific aspect of a communication task which is to be done
immediately afterwards.
 improving any of the four skills.

c) (after doing a comunication task) Checking and discussion of outcome(s) and

difficulties encountered.

d) Sistematisation/globalisation of linguistic content previously dealt wth in a fragmented

way (grammar, functions, vocabulary, phonology, discourse features)

o Enabling tasks have a structure consisting of:

 a specific working procedure

 appropriate materials
 a concrete language learning purpose (learning x in order to be able to communicate
y)
 a concrete learning outcome

A framework for planning units of work stage by stage

STAGE 1: Determining the theme

 There are no set themes for learning a language. All themes offer the opportunity to use and
learn language. Thus we need to choose themes that motivate students to use and learn the
language, themes that match their interests and experiential worlds. The more relevant
themes are, the higher motivation and involvement will be.

 A good choice of theme will also emphasise the instrumental value of language. Language
will be learnt/recycled/reinforced/developed further in order to hear, read, find out, speak,
write about a theme that students find stimulating and relevant.

 Some guidelines for selecting themes:

a) Avoid grammatical terminology like the “simple present” or “comparatives”.

b) Think of :

o Things that people in real life talk about, read, listen to, dream about, imagine,
things that they know and would like to share or things that they don’t know and
would like to find about.

o Specific situations in which people do specific things through language

(travellling, shopping, etc.)

c) Ask students to suggest and choose themes. In this way, the theme will match closely
their own experiential world, interests and preferences.

STAGE 2: Planning the final task(s)

 Here we plan the task(s) that the students will do at the end of the unit. The final task(s)
should be determined very early in the planning process since everything to be done in the
unit will derive from the final task(s).

 The final task generates the language to be used (learnt or recycled) and determine the
procedures to be followed.

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  Final tasks are communication tasks that will serve as indicators of the development of
communicative competence in a given class.

 Final tasks are divided into three categories:

a. Final tasks in which there is a tangible end product (series of posters, brochures, a
classroom or school newspaper, letters to penfriends or any other written texts; audio or
video recordings) produced right at the end of the unit, or at different stages within the
unit. The end product is then presented in a relevant way. Eg. posters with information
and illustrations about the theme (eg Space travel)

b. Final tasks in which the people in the classroom interact – taking the classroom as a real
social context where things happen and people have things to say to each other.
Teachers and students deal with aspects of their own lives and experience at school and
outside school; they exchange information, discuss an interesting issue, take decisions
that will affect classroom or school life. Eg. carry out a class survey on “who does the
housework at home?”. Collate findings, display them and discuss.

c. Final tasks in which students take part in a stimulation or in a series of stimulations. This
is very appropriate for themes related to specific situations but also applicable to other
types of themes. Eg. students decorate the classroom as a shopping centre or
supermarket and act as shop assistants and buyers.

 A good choice of final tasks will ensure student motivation and involvement. To ensure this , it
is essential that students know from the beginning of the unit what the finals task(s) will be.

STAGE 3: Determining unit objectives

 Final tasks offer us global communicative objectives for the unit. These objectives include
what specific things students are going to do in the final task and what abilities they are going
to develop throughout the unit.

 Useful verbs for specifying these objectives are: produce, understand, find out, extract
specific information, ask/tell/give information, discuss, agree, sing, play, etc.

 Example: “A News Programme”

GLOBAL COMMUNICATIVE OBJECTIVES

During the unit students will develop, with a degree of communicative

competence in accordance with their level, the ability and knowledge
necessary to:

 prepare and produce a news programme, and record it on cassette or

video.
 extract specific information form the news programmes they listen to or
watch.

 After stage 4 has been completed, a second set of objectives – specific linguistic objectives –
can be added. These objectives will refer to the linguistic content that will be learnt, recycled,
or develop further in order to achieve the global communicative objectives.

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  Teachers who need to keep detailed records of unit objectives might like to use the unit
objectives record sheet below:

a. GLOBAL COMMUNICATIVE OBJECTIVES

During the unit students will develop, with a degree of communicative

competence in accordance with their level, the ability and knowledge necessary
to:

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

b. SPECIFIC LINGUISTIC OBJECTIVES

During the unit, in order to achieve the global communicative objectives specified
above, students will develop their knowledge of the linguistic content.

 The students have an important role to play in relation to objectives. It is crucial that students
should be aware of the unit objectives from the beginning of the unit. The unit objectives will
be:

 the goal towards which students will be working throughout the unit
 an important instrument for developing students’ responsability for their own learning
 the main instrument on which students will base their self evaluation
 together with the theme and the final task, an important element in developing students’
motivation and involvement.

 The teacher can also ask students to write their own objectives for the unit.

STAGE 4: Specifying content

 Stages 1, 2 and 3 are general statements that describe what we intend to do, and the details
of how this is going to be achieved are worked on stages 4, 5 and 6.

a. Establishing thematic aspects to be dealt with

o We should narrow down the theme for the unit with sub-themes. We shoud ask the
question: what aspects of the theme will be dealt with in the unit and in the final task?
For instance, in “A News Programme”, include the weather report, a sports event, an
item connected with ecology, etc.

o The thematic aspects can be decided by the teacher alone or with the students.
However, at elementary levels, the theme may be so simple and limited that this step is
not necessary. Eg. in “our birthdays”, the thematic content could just be birthday dates.

b. Specifying linguistic content determined by thematic aspects

o Thematic aspects will determine the linguistic content. The questions to be asked are:
what language do students need in order to develop the thematic aspects? What
functions and notions, what grammar, what vocabulary, what discourse features, what
phonological aspects will they need to learn, recycle, reinforce, develop further? What

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 procedural language will students need for planning, organising and carrying out the
tasks to be done in the unit, trying to minimise the use of their mother tongue?

c. Students’ role in this stage

o Students should be aware of the linguistic content they are going to develop from the
beginning of the unit. This content is linked with objectives in that one of the objectives
of the unit will be to develop the linguistic content which will enable students to carry
out the final task.

o Students can think about and suggest necessary content. They will express it as
functions, as vocabulary or as grammar.

STAGE 5: Planning the process

 The question to be asked in this stage is: how can we organise and facilitate the learning
process which will ensure the realisation of the final task and the achievement of objectives?

Four steps emerge as necessary:

a) To decide on the communication tasks that are appropriate in order to lead students
towards the final task; and thus to specify enabling tasks needed so that students
can learn/recycle/reinforce the specified content.

b) To select/adapt/produce the most appropriate classroom materials to carry out these

tasks.

c) To structure these tasks so that they have a purpose, a clear procedure and an
outcome.

d) To sequence the tasks to fit into class hours – that is, plan individual lessons which
lead to the final task. Communication tasks and enabling tasks with a specific focus
on the linguistic system will be combined all through these lessons.

 Following this procedure, we will have a series of lessons planned to fit into class hours.

STAGE 6. Planning evaluation: instruments and procedures

 Evaluation is an integral part of the learning process which should be planned in advance.
The role of evaluation is to give teachers and students feedback that will determine
adjustments and re-planning of the work in hand to ensure that learning takes place
effectively and efficiently. Evaluation should be a continuous process.

 Other aspects that can be evaluated in a unit are: classroom procedures, tasks carried out,
materials used, materials produced, how people in the classroom interact and participate,
learning achieved, abilities and attitudes developed, etc.

 Evaluation: different aspects to be considered

o Who evaluates?

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  Teacher, students peers or others

o What is evaluated?

 Process: classroom procedures, tasks, materials, learning strategies developed,

students’ and teacher’s roles, interaction, participation and contribution.

 Product: students’ performance, achievement of objectives, resulting materials.

o How is evaluated?

 Through evaluation instruments such as: tasks, students-produced materials, tests;

diaries, questionaries, interviews; students’ self- assessment and feedback forms,
students’ profiles, teacher’s observation of students, etc.

Summary!

Example!!

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A rationale for thematic task based units of work

1) What we learn in a foreign language classroom

 In a foreign language classroom we learn to develop communicative competence which is the

result of the fusion of formal and instrumental knowledge.

o Formal knowledge: students learn grammatical and fuctional content and are evaluated
through content tests. This knowledge, in other words, is specified in terms of functional,
grammatical and lexical content. It also suggests other categories such as phonological,
discourse, strategic, and sociolinguistic. This formal knowledge is built up through enabling
tasks to be done at different points in the unit.

o Instrumental knowledge: students use the content for real communication since they
participate in a series of communication tasks. It refers to all the procedures (listening
selectively, speaking fluently, coping with difficulties during performance) involved in the
realisation of communication tasks.

These two dimensions of knowing a language are not constructed separately but
in a global. Interrelated way. The key to successful learning is to find ways of
weaving together formal and instrumental knowledge.

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2) How we learn: a cognitive perspective

Schemata theory and the classroom

 A schemata is a structure made up of data, which represents a block of knowledge, stored in

our memory. Schematas can refer to objects, ideas, norms, actions, events, etc. They can
reresent both formal and instrumetal knowledge and prove very useful for the construction of
comunicative competence. Two types of schemas can be described:

o Formal schemas:

a. Schemas related to theme: such as the concept “playing chess” as a free time
activity.
b. Linguistic schemas: the functions, grammar, vocabulary, etc. to carry out the task.
c. Event schemas: an oral presentation whose schemas would be its logic and
structure. Eg. students from one of the group speak to the whole class, the other
students listen, groups take turns, questions are asked at the end of the
presentation, etc.

d. Schemas related to social norms, social values, to attitudes relevant to the themes
and task.

o Instrumental schemas: refer to the procedures through which students carry out the task.
They are action schemas. They are related to procedures inherent in the production and
understanding of spoken language, such as:

a. Organisational schemas: such as the concept “playing chess” as a free time activity.
b. Encoding schemas: encoding of the message through functional, lexical and
grammatical choice.
c. Production schemas: pronunciation, intonation, stress, fluency, speaking strategies.
d. Decoding schemas: decoding of the message through understanding of vocabulary,
extraction of the relevant information from the message, other listening strategies,
etc.
e. Other schemas: related to procedures inherent in the event schemas “speaking to
the whole class”, such as control of anxiety, catching and keeping the attention of the
audience, establishing eye contact with the members of the audience, taking turns,
etc.

Concepts, Procedures and Attitudes

Concepts

 They make reference to the declarative/formal knowledge. Concepts are what students need to
know at the end of a course.

 They are organised around oral communication and written communication.

CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE

Oral text Discourse structure, social relationships, vocabulary and

topics related to social interaction (greetings)

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 Semantic notions of place (here, there), habits (present
Oral Communication simple), action in process (present continous), possession
Semantics (have/has got), intention, existance (there is/are), verbs to
express permission, hability, possibility, obligation (modals).
Present and future tenses. Anaforic and cataforic reference.

Linguistics Phonology, morphology, sintax. Intonation, rhythm, accent.

Exponents Intelligibility.

CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE

Written Cohesion and coherence. Vocabulary and topics related to

text the text selected by the teacher or the institution.

Semantic notions of place (here, there), habits (present

Written Communication simple), action in process (present continous), possession
Semantics (have/has got), intention, existance (there is/are), verbs to
express permission, hability, possibility, obligation (modals).
Present and future tenses. Anaforic and cataforic reference.

Linguistics Orthography, morphology and sixtax.

Exponents

Procedures

 Procedures make reference to the instrumental or procedural knowledge. It’s what students
are able to do. As concepts, they are organised around oral communication and written
communication.

PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE

 Recognition and production of oral simple texts with communicative

purposes according to context and audience.

 Comprehension and production of vocabulary related to the selected

topics.
Oral Communication
 Expressions of specific notions through linguistic exponents.

 Reflection upon oral language to develop further pragmatic and

linguistic startegies (what language is appropriate to different
situations)

 Recognition of different texts types and their communicative value.

 Detection of information structure (estructura del texto)

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  Expression of specific notions through written linguistic exponents.
Written Communication
 Development of reading and writing strategies.

 Use of monolingual dictionaries

 Reflection upon written language to develop further pragmatic and

linguistic strategies.

Attitudes

 They involve attitudes, valuation and significant dispositions for the development of people,
social interaction and learning.

General attitudes for EGB cycle

 Self-confidence to solve communicative tasks by applying personal strategies.

 Disposition to explore learning styles.

 Respect and acceptance of institutional regulations.

 Respect and acceptance of linguistic diversity and rejection of ethnic and cultural
discrimination.

 Valuation of linguistic and ethnic diversity.

 Valuation of cooperative work.

Task Based Language Teaching

Background

 This approach is based on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in
language teaching. It is presented as a logical development of Communicative Language
Teaching since it draws on several principles of that approach.

1. Communication principle: activities that involve real communication promote learning

2. Task principle: activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks
promote learning.

3. Meaningfulness principle: language that is meaningful to the learner supports the learning
process.

 Tasks are proposed as useful vehicles for applying these principles. Language learning is
believed to immerse students in tasks that require them to negotiate meaning and engage in
naturalistic and meaningful communication.

 Key assumptions of task-based instruction:

 The focus is on process rather than product

 Basic elements are purposeful activities and tasks that emphasise communication and
meaning.

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  Learners learn language by interacting communicatively and purposefully.
 Activities and tasks can be either those that learners might need to achieve in real life or
those that have a pedagogical purpose specific to the classroom.
 Activities and tasks are sequenced according to difficulty.
 The difficulty of a task depends on a range of factors including the previous experience of
the learner, the complexity of the task, the language required to undertake the task, and the
degree of support available.

 Definitions of “task”:

o TBLTA proposes the notion of “task” as a central unit of planning and teaching. A task is
an activity or goal that is carried out using language, such as finding a solution to a puzzle,
reading a map and giving directions, making a telephone call, writing a letter, etc.

o Skehan claims that tasks are activities which have meaning as the primary focus. Success
in tasks is evaluated in terms of an outcome, and tasks generally bear some resemblance
to real-life language use

o Nunan says that a task is a piece of classroom work which involves learners in
comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their
attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form

o In 1950, task analysis focused on solo psychomotor tasks for which little communication
and collaboration was involved. However, attention then turned to team tasks, for which
communication is required. Four major categories of team performance function were
recognized:

1. Orientation functions (processes for generating and distributing information necessary

to task accomplishments to team members)
2. Organizational functions (processes necessary for members to coordinate actions
necessary for task performance)
3. Adaptation functions (processes occurring as team members adapt their performance
to each other to complete the task)
4. Motivational functions (defining team objectives and “energizing the group” to
complete the task)

Theory of language

A. Language is primarily a means of making meaning

o TBLT emphasises the central role of meaning in language use.

B. Multiple models of language inform TBI

o TBLT is not linked to a single model of language, but rather draws on the structural,
functional and interactional models of language.

a. Structural model: determines the linguistic criteria of tasks. Language is seen as less
to more complex.

b. Functional model: there is a distinction between task goals and social goals. Task
goals are principally educational goals which have a clear didactic function. Social
goals are those that require the use of language simply because of the activity in
which the participants are engaged. There is a three-wey functional distinction of
tasks: personal, narrative and decision-making tasks.

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 c. Interactional model: distinguishes between interactional activity and communicative
goal.

C. Lexical units are central in language use and language learning

o Vocabulary is used to include the consideration of lexical phrases, sentence stems,

prefabricated routines, and collocations, and not only words as significant units of
linguistic lexical analysis and language pedagogy.

o Speech processing is based on the production and reception of whole phrase units
larger than the word which do not require any internal processing when they are “reeled
off”. Fluency concerns the learner’s capacity to produce language in real time without
undue pausing for hesitation.

D. “Conversation” is the central focus of language and the keystone of language acquisition

o Speaking and trying to communicate with others is considered the basis for second
language acquisition, hence, the majority of tasks that are proposed within TBLT involve
conversation.

Theory of learning

A. Tasks provide both the input and output processing necessary for language acquisition.

o Tasks provide full opportunities for both input and output requirements, which are
believed to be key processes in language learning.

o Negotiation of meaning is the necessary element in second language acquisition. Tasks

are believed to foster processes of negotiation, modification, rephrasing , and
experimentation that are at the heart of second language learning.

o The task is the pivot point for stimulation of input-output practice, negotiation of meaning,
and transactionally focused conversation.

B. Task activity and achievement are motivational

o Tasks are also said to improve learner motivation and therefore promote learning. This is
because they require the learners to use authentic language, they have well-defined
dimensions and closure, they are varied in format and operation, they typically include
physical activity, they involve partnership and collaboration, they may call on the
learner’s past experience, and they encourage a variety of communication styles.

C. Learning difficulty can be negotiated and fine tuned for particular pedagogical purposes.

o Specific tasks can be designed to facilitate the use and learning of particular aspects of
language.

o In designing and selecting tasks there is a trade-off between cognitive processing and
focus on form. That is, if the task is too difficult, fluency may develop at the expense of
accuracy. Tasks should be designed along a cline of difficulty so that learners can work
on tasks that enable them to develop both fluency and language form.

Objectives

 Goals in TBLT are ideally to be determined by the specific needs of particular learners.
Selection of tasks should be based on a careful analysis of the real-world needs of learners.

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The syllabus

 TBLT is more concerned with the process dimensions of learning than with the specific content
and skills that might be acquired through the use of these processes. A TBLT syllabus
specifies the tasks that should be carried out by learners within a program:

1. Real-world tasks, which are designed to practice or rehearse those tasks that are found to
be important in a needs analysis and turn out to be important and useful in the real world.
Eg: using the telephone. Another example of real-world tasks can be grouped according to
theme:

Theme: planning a vacation

Tasks:

o decide where you can go

o booking a flight
o choosing a hotel
o booking a room

2. Pedagogical tasks, which have a psycholinguistics basis in SLA theory and research but do
not necessarily reflect real-world tasks. Eg: an information gap task.

 The ordering of tasks also has to be determined. We can sequence tasks according to
difficulty, but task difficulty is a concept that is not easy to determine. The following list
illustrates the difficulty of operationalizing the notion of task difficulty:

1. Procedures or what the learners have to do to derive output from input

2. Input text
3. Output required

a) Language items: vocabulary, structures, discourse structures, processability, and so

on.
b) Skills, both macro-skills and subskills
c) World knowledge or “topic content”
d) Text handling or conversation strategies

4. Amount and type of help given

5. Role of teachers and learners
6. Time allowed
7. Motivation
8. Confidence
9. Learning styles

Types of learning and teaching activities

 Willis proposes six type tasks, the processes involved and their corresponding outcomes:

TASK PROCESSES INVOLVED OUTCOME

Listing o Brainstorming, in which learners draw

(listing tasks tend on their own knowledge and
to generate a lot experience. o Completed lists
of talk as learners o Fact-finding, in which learners find o Draft mind maps
explain their things out by asking each other or

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 ideas) other people and referring to books
o Sequencing items, actions or events
in a logical or chronological order o Set of information or data
Ordering and o Ranking items according to personal ordered and sorted according to
sorting values or specified criteria specific criteria presented in
o Categorizing items in given groups or charts, tables, oral
grouping them under headings presentations, discussions and
o Classifying items in different ways, debates.
where the categories are given (or
not)
Comparing
(these tasks in- o Matching to identify specific points o Descriptions, narrative
volves comparing and relate them to each other accounts, following of
information of a o Finding similarities ans things in instructions, sets of information
similar nature but common on a common theme that can be
from different o Finding differences compared/contrasted, diagrams,
sources) reports, rewriting of texts.
Problem solving o Analysing real or hypothetical
(these tasks make situations, reasoning and decision
demands upon making. o Finding and presenting solutions
people’s intellec- o Expressing hypotheses, describing by planning, comparing,
tual and reasoning experiences, comparing alternatives discussing, making decisions,
powers) and evaluating and agreeing a justifying.
solution in real life problems.
o Predicting the ending of short extracts
from texts.
Sharing personal
experiences
(these tasks en-
courage learners
to talk more freely o Narrating, describing, exploring and o Anecdotes, personal
about themselves explaining attitudes, opinions, reminiscences, surveys on
and share their reactions opinions, preferences, personal
experiences with reactions.
others)

Creative tasks
(these tasks are
sometimes called o Brainstorming, fact-finding, o Diaries, poems, songs, reports,
Projects and sequencing, ranking, categorizing, radio/TV programmes,
involve pairs or classifying, matching, finding documentaries, class
groups of learners similarities and differences, analysing magazines or newspapers,
in creative work. real or hypothetical situations, leaflets, brochures, models, etc.
They can involve reasoning and decision making and
combinations of many others.
task types: listing,
comparing, etc.)

 Tasks can also de identified according to the type of interaction that occurs in task
accomplishment:

1. Jigsaw tasks: these involve learners combining different pieces of information to form a
whole.

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 2. Information-gap tasks: one students or group of students has one set of information and
another student or group has a complementary set of information. They must find out what
the other party’s information is in order to complete the activity.
3. Problems-solving tasks: students are given a problem and a set of information. They must
arrive at a solution to the problem.

4. Decision-making tasks: students are given a problem for which there are a number of
possible outcomes and they must choose one through negotiation and discussion.

5. Opinion exachange tasks: learners engage in discussion and exchange of ideas. They do
not need to reach agreement.

 Other characteristics of tasks are:

1. One-way or two-way: whether the task involves a one-way exchange of information or a two-
way exchange.
2. Convergent or divergent: whether the students achieve a common goal or several different
goals.
3. Collaborative or competitive: whether students collaborate to carry out a task or compete
with each other on a task.
4. Single or multiple outcomes: whether there is a single outcome or many different outcomes.
5. Concrete or abstract language: whether the task involves the use of concrete or abstract
language.
6. Simple or complex processing: whether the task requires simple or complex cognitive
processing.
7. Simple or complex language: whether the linguistic demands of the task are simple or
complex.
8. Reality-based or not reality-based: whether the task mirrors a real world activity or is a
pedagogical activity not found in the real world.

Learner roles

1. Group participant: many tasks will be done in pairs or small groups.

2. Monitor: tasks should facilitate learning. Class activities have to be designed so that
students have the opportunity to notice how language is used in communication. Learners
need to attend not only to the message in task work, but also to the form in which such
messages typically come packed.

3. Risk- taker and motivator: many tasks will require learners to create and interpret messages
for which they lack linguistic resources and prior experiences. Practice in restating,
paraphrasing, using paralinguistic signals, and so on, will often be needed. The skills of
guessing from linguistic and contextual clues, asking for clarification, and consulting with
other learners may also need to be developed.

Teacher roles

1. Selector and sequence of tasks: the teacher adapts and creates the tasks, forming these
into an instructional sequence in keeping with learner needs, interests, and language skill
level.

2. Preparing learners for tasks: some sort of pre-task preparation is important. Such activities
might include topic introduction, clarifying task instructions, helping students learn or recall
useful words and phrases to facilitate task accomplishment. Such preparation may be
inductive and implicit or deductive and explicit.

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 3. Consciousness-raising: students need to attend or notice critical features of the language
they use and hear. This is referred to as “Focus on Form”. This means employing a variety
of form-focusing techniques, including attention-focusing pretask activities, text exploration,
guided exposure to parallel tasks, and use of highlighted material.

The role of instructional materials

 Pedagogic materials: materials are limited only by the imagination of the task designer.
Several teacher resource books are available that contain representative set of sample task
activities that can be adapted for a variety of situations.

 Relia: authentic task supported by authentic materials are used wherever possible. The task
types that are used are newspapers (students examine the newspaper and prepare a job-
wanted ad using examples for the classified section), telivision (after watching an episode of
an unknown soap opera, students list the characters and their possible relationship with
other characters in the episode) and the internet (students conduct a comparative analysis
of three Internet booksellers, listing prices, mailing times, and shipping charges, and choose
a vendor, justifying their choice).

Procedure

Intensive conversation course for Japanese college students (students do a role-play)

Pretask

Introduction to topic and task

o T helps Ss to understand the theme and objectives of the task, for example, brainstorming
ideas with the class, using pictures, mime, or personal experience to introduce the topic.
o Ss do a pretask, for example, topic-based odd-word-out games.
o T may highlight useful words and phrases, but would not preteach new structures.
o Ss can be given preparation time to think about how to do the task.
o Ss can hear a recording of a parallel task being done.
o If the task is based on a text, Ss read part of this.

The task cycle

Task

o The task is done by Ss and gives Ss the chance to use whatever language they already have
to express themselves.
o T walks round and monitors, encoraging communication in the target language.
o T helps Ss to formulate what they want to say, but will not correct errors.
o The emphasis is on spontaneous, exploratory talk and confidence building.
o Success in achieving the goals of the task helps Ss’ motivation.

Planning

o Ss draft and rehearse what they want to say or write.

o T goes round to advise Ss on language, suggesting phrases and helping them to polish and
correct their language.
o If the reports are in writing, T can encourage peer editing and use of dictionaries.
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 o The emphasis is on clarity, organization, and accuracy.
o Individual Ss often take this chance to ask questions about specific language items.

Report

o T asks some pairs to report briefly to the whole class so everyone can compare findings, or
begin a survey.
o T chairs, comments on the content of their reports, rephrases, but gives no overt public
correction.

Posttask listening

o Ss listen to a recording of fluent speakers doing the same task, and compare the way in which
they did the task themselves.

The language focus

Analysis

o T sets some language focused.tasks, based on the texts students have read or on the
trnscripts of the recordings they have heard.
o Examples: find words related to the title of the topic or text. Read the transcript, find words
ending in s or ‘s, and say what the s means. Find all the verbs in the simple past form. Say
which refer to past time and which do not. Underline and classify the questions in the
transcript.
o T starts Ss off, then Ss continue.
o T goes round to help and Ss can ask individual questions.
o T then reviews the analysis, writing relevant language up on the board and Ss take notes.

Practice

o T conducts practice activities, based on the language analysis work already on the board, or
using examples from the text or transcript.
o Practice activities include: choral repetition of the phrases identified, memory games on
erased examples, sentence completion, matching the past tense verbs with the subject or
objects they had in the text, etc.

A Framework for Task Based Learning

1. Defining tasks

 Tasks are activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative
purpose (goal) in order to achieve an outcome.

Goals and outcomes

o The teacher should select topics and tasks that will motivate learners, engage their attention,
present a suitable degree of intellectual and linguistic challenge and promote their language
development.

o All tasks have a specified objective that must be achieved. They are “goal-oriented”. In other
words, the emphasis is on understanding and conveying meanings in order to complete the
tasks successfully.

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 o All tasks should have an outcome. The outcome can be further built on at a later stage in the
task cycle. An example of an activity than lacks an outcome would be to show students a
picture and tell them to write four sentences describing the picture. Here, there is no
communicative purpose, only the practice of language form. In tasks that have an outcome,
students focus first on meaning and then on the best ways to express that meaning
linguistically.

Meaning before form

o Learners are free to choose whatever language forms they wish to fulfil the task goals.

o The teacher should encourage all attempts to communicate in the target language. Learners
need to experiment with language on their own, and to take risks. Fluency in communication
is what counts. In later stages of the task framework accuracy does matter, but it is not so
important at the task stage.

o All learners need to experiment and make errors. They need to treat errors as a normal part
of learning. Explain them that it is better to get something wrong, than not to say anything.

o Language is a vehicle for attaining task goals, but the emphasis is on meaning and
communication, not on producing language forms correctly.

o An activity involving repetition of target patterns is not a task since students focus on
producing right forms not on communicating.

o Role plays: some of them have an outcome to achieve and some others do not. Role plays
that involve problem solving are tasks since students communicate with each other, share
their points of view, and really mean what they say (eg. a bussiness simulation or a shopping
game). However, role plays in which students are just acting out predifined roles, practicing
specified laguage forms, are not tasks.

Tasks and skills practice

o Teachers following a task-based cycle naturally foster combinations of skills depending upon
the task. The skills form an integral part of the process of achieving the task goals, they are
not being practised singly. Carrying out a task demands meaningful interaction of some kind.

o You can select tasks that make students practice relevant skills according to their future
language needs.

2. Varieties of task

Six types of tasks

1. Listening
2. Ordering and sorting
3. Comparing already explained on
4. Problem solving pages 154 and 155
5. Sharing personal experiences
6. Creative tasks

Closed and open tasks

o Closed tasks: they are highly structured and have very specific goals. They have very precise
instructions and the information is very restricted. There is only one possible outcome, and

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 one way of achieving it. Eg. students work in pairs to find seven differences in two pictures
and write the down (in two minutes).

o Open tasks: they are more loosely structured, with a less specific goal. Eg. comparing
memories of childhood journeys, or exchanging anecdotes on a theme.
o Other types of tasks come midway between closed and open. Eg. logic problems usually
have a specific goal and one answer or outcome, but learners have different ways of getting
there.

Starting points for tasks

1. Personal knowledge and experience: many tasks are based on the learner’s personal and
professional experience and knowledge of the world.

2. Problems: here the starting point is the statement of the problem. Students engage better in
a task and interact more confidently if they have some minutes to think individually before
discussing possible solutions with the rest.

3. Visual stimuli: tasks can be based on pictures, photographs, tables or graphs. Eg. describing
the differences between two pictures, giving students some pictures to develop a story, etc.

4. Spoken and written texts: recordings of spoken English and reading texts can also make
good task material. Eg. learners read or listen to the first part of a story and then discuss and
write an ending.

5. Children’s activities: action games, miming and guessing are effective with young learners.
Children enjoy making things, drawing and colouring, practising magic tricks, preparing
snacks, etc.

6. Combinations of starting points: combinations of two or more starting points are useful in
some cases. Eg. combining visual data and personal or professional experience.

3. Language use in tasks

 We are so used to working with written language that we often do not realise what spoken
language is.

Spontaneous language

o This type of language contains unfinished utterances, backing, repetition, use of erm ... er;
linking devices and signal words (in fact, but, and); follow up words (yeah, oh, mm, okay) to
show that the message has been understood; questions without verbs (okay? anything else?
what?); etc.

o This is the language used by native speakers and involves understading each other with
looks and gestures. Students need to understand spontaneous speech and we need to show
them that native speakers do not speak in whole prefectly-formed grammatical sentences.

o Tasks should expose learners to spontaneous language and allow them to use it since they
will need to cope with it in real life.

Planned language

o If your are speaking to a large audience, or writing for someone other than a close friend or
family member, it is natural to plan what you are going to say or write.

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 o The more public, or more permanent, the circumstances of communication are, the more
likely we are to aim at a clear, accurate and well-organised presentation.

4. Learning from tasks

 Advantages of using TBL:

o It gives learners confidence to try out the language they know without fear of being wrong
or being corrected in front of the class.

o It gives learners experience of spontaneous interaction.

o It gives learners a chance to notice how others express similar things.

o It gives learners chances to negotiate turns to speak, initiating and responding to

questions, and reacting to other’s contributions.

o It engages learners in using language purposefully and co-operatively, concentranting on

building meaning, not just using language for display purposes.

o It makes learners to participate in complete interaction, not just one-off sentences.

o It gives learners more chances to try out communication strategies like checking,
understanding, paraphrasing, reformulating other people’s ideas, and supplying words and
phrases for other speakers.

o It helps learners gradually to gain confidence as they rely on co-operation with their fellow
students to achieve the goals of the tasks mainly through use of the target language.

Components of the TBL Framework

1. General Overview

 The framework consists of three phases: pre-task, task cycle and language focus.

a) The pre-task phase introduces the class to the topic and task, activating topic-related
words and phrases.

b) The task cycle offers learners the chance to use whatever language they already know in
order to carry out the task, and then improve that language, under teacher guidance,
while planning their reports of the task. Feedback from the teacher comes after the report.
Either before or during the task cycle, students might listen to recordings of other people
doing the task, or read a text connected with the task topic, and relate this to their own
experience of doing the task. Within the framework, there is a natural progression for the
holistic to the specific.

c) The last phase allows a closer study of some of the specific features occurring in the
language used during the task cycle. Here learners focus on the specific language forms
that carry the meaning they have already processed.

 Language learners need both variety and security. A wide range of topics, texts and tasks
types gives learners, and a framework such as this on, also gives them security.

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Teacher roles in the framework

o The teacher is generally a facilitator. Facilitating learning involves balancing the amount of
exposure and use of language, and ensuring they are both of suitable quality.

o The emphasis is on learners doing things, often in pairs or groups, using language to achieve
the task outcomes and guided by the teacher.

o Although learners do tasks independently, the teacher still has overall control and the power to
stop everything if necessary. The teacher sets tasks up, and ensures that learners understand
and get on with them.

o The teacher is also the course guide, explaining to learners the overall objectives of the course
and how the components of the task framework can achieve these.

The flexibility of the framework

o There are many ways in which the components within the framework can be adapted to suit
learners’ needs.

o For example, if the topic is familiar and the tasks are short, there may be room for two task
cycles within the lesson. If the topic is new and unfamiliar, or is the task is longer or more
complex, the framework can be split between two lessons.

2. Pre-Task Phase

The pre-task phase

A. Advance preparation

o You can plan to do a task from a coursebook or resource book or design your own task. If a
task is taken from a coursebook, much of the advance preparation will be done for you. A
good text book will have ideas for introducing the topic and task and will include
preparatory activities for learners to do. If you design your own task, there will be a certain
amount of preparation to do. Eg. finding suitable pictures, working out vocabulary, etc.

o Although preparing tasks can be a hard work, you can always use those tasks again with
different classes.

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 o Once students are used to task-based learning, they can work independently without much
teacher intervention. However, you will be helping them to edit and improve their own work
as they plan their written reports in class.

B. Introducing the topic

o You will need to help learners define the topic area. For example, topics such as families,
school and work, are familiar to most people and easy for them to understand. Students
can have different views on what some topics are about.

C. Identifying topic language

o You will need to help learners recall and activate words and phrases that will be useful
during the task. You may also need to introduce some topic-related words and phrases that
students are unlikely to know.

o Encourage learners to pool topic-related words or phrases they already know and write
them on the board. If the task involves reading and talking about a text, you can pick up
words and phrases that are vital for the understanding of main themes.

D. Pre-task language activities

o Pre-task activities to explore language should involve all learners. Give them relevant
exposure, and create interest in doing a task on this topic.

o Some of the pre-task language activities are:

a. Classifying words and phrases: write words and phrases connected with the topic
and task on the board. Talk about them as you write since this will provide good
exposure.

b. Odd one out: write sets of related words and phrases, inserting one item in each set
that doesn’t fit.

c. Matching phrases to pictures: you need a set of pictures related to your topic and two
or three phrases for each picture. Students have to say which phrases go with each
picture.

d. Memory challenge: take the pictures down and students must match the phrases to
the pictures from memory.

e. Brainstorming and mid-maps: write the main topic words in the centre of the board.
Students call out other words and phrases and decide where to write them.

f. Thinking of questions to ask: students ask questions, they exchange them with one
another and classify them all.

g. Teacher recounting a similar experience: the teacher tells students a personal

experience and the students have to say if anything similar has ever happened to
them.

E. Giving task-instructions

o You have to ensure that all learners understand what the task involves, what its goals are
and what outcome is required. They will want to know how they should begin, what each
person should do, how much time they have and what will happen once they have finished.

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 o The more specific the goal, and hence the instructions, the more likely students are to feel
secure about doing the task. Try to make the goal as specific as possible by using numbers
for example, find seven differences/give two reasons.

o There are alternative ways to ensure that students know how to do the task, and these
provides different kinds of learning opportunities.

a. Students read the instructions by themselves: if your textbook has instructions that
are specific enough, tell your students to read them on their own since this will help
them to be independent.

b. Teacher demonstrates the task with a good student: ask a good student to do the
task with you. You may need to talk to the chosen student about this before the
lesson to give him/her time to think about it.

c. Teacher plays audio or video recordng of fluent speakers doing the task: it could be
better to let the learners do the task their own way first and then hear the recording
afterwards, especially if the recording will give the solutions away.

d. Teacher shows the class what previous students have achieved: teacher shows
students what tasks students have done in previous years.

o Remember that instruction-giving is a truly communicative use of the target language since
it provides valuable exposure and a chance for learners to grapple with meaning.

F. Allowing preparation time

o Sometimes we should allow learners to prepare themselves individually for certain tasks
since, in this way, language use will be richer in terms of complexity and variety of syntax,
vocabulary, and fluency. However, other times, you may want students practice speaking
spontaneously as they would have to in many real-life situations. In this case, omit the
preparation time.

o During the preparation time, learners will be able to plan how to tackle the task, think of
what to say and how to say it.

Managing learner talk

A. Patterns of interaction and turn-taking

o Typical interaction patterns:

 individual students carrying out a task on their own

 individual students circulating, talking to different students
 students doing a task singly, then exchanging ideas in pairs
 students in pairs
 students in groups
 teacher working with groups or pairs in turn
 teacher working with the whole class

o There are three different ways of turn-taking patterns. The task could be done:

1. In groups, where there is an “ambassador” who goes to another group to explain what
his own group has decided, and to compare outcomes.
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 2. With one student chairing a group discussion, to ensure all members have a chance to
express an opinion.

3. With each students beginning it in advance, for homework. In class, they explain their
decisions to a partner, and reach a concensus. Two pairs then exchange views and
reach a final concensus.
B. Mixed level classes

o Teachers who have mixed level classes find that the same tasks can be done quite
adequately by learners at different developmental stages. Weaker students can benefit
from hearing what better students say, and better students can improve through having to
paraphrase and explain.

o The frequency with which you change groups depends on the age, status, needs, and
feelings of the learners themselves.

C. Talkative students

o Some students perceive tasks as vehicle for self-expression and so dominate in any group
or pair situation.

o Try asking a talkative student to be the group chaiperson, whose job is to make sure that
everyone else get equal chances to talk. If you notice some students hardly talking at all,
use pair rather than group work for a spell.

D. Controlling larger classes

o Big classes may be a problem since it is not easy to monitor all the students. Larger
classes involves higher levels of noise, and you will have to be considerate of your
neightbours.

o Try some short tasks done in whispers. Decide on a signal which means that students
should lower their voices. Look for tasks that are quieter and easier to control.

E. Balancing target language and mother tongue

o Explain to students that if they want to communicate in the target language, they need to
practice. Make them realise that doing a task is a learning oppportunity, a chance to
practice in privacy before having to talk in front of the whole class.

o Banning the mother tongue use altogether is not advisable. The mother tongue can be
used on some occasions in a way which is systematic, supportive and relevant to the task
goals. For example: to say words students don’t know, to fill gaps, to explain something
complex, etc.

o If you feel that students are still using mother tongue when they could be using the target
language, try to find out the reason. For example, adolescents may feel silly interacting in
a strange language.

o Perhaps the tasks you are setting are too difficult. Try setting some simple ones until
students have got used to interacting in the target language. Praise and encourage.

o Teaching them whole phrases such as Sorry, what did you say? Wait a minute! Can you
start? Your turn, and so on.

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 o With encouragement, students will use more and more the target language.

3. The Task Cycle

The task stage

 The task stage is a vital opportunity for all learners to use whatever language they master,
working simultaneously, in pairs or small groups, to achieve the goals of the task.

A. The teacher as monitor

o The hardest thing to do at first is to stop teaching during the task stage and just monitor.
You should let the learners get on with the task on their own, don’t go round and help.

o The teacher should:

 make sure that all the pairs and groups are doing the correct tasks
 encourage all students to take part
 forgive errors of form
 interrupt only if there is a major communication breakdown
 control if students talk in their mother tongue and not in English
 act as time keeper

o After the task, the teacher should comment positively on the way students have done the
task.

After the task

A. Why tasks are not enough

o The task component helps students to develop fluency in the target language and
strategies for communication. To achieve the goals of the task, their main focus is on
getting their meaning across, rather than on the form of the language itself.

o Through tasks, students may become better communicators and learn new words and
phrases from each other, but they also need to internalise grammar. That is why another
stage is needed after the task which is supplied by the report stage, where learners
naturally strive for accuracy and fluency together.

B. Creating a need for accuracy

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 o In the report stage, students report briefly in spoken or written form on some aspect of their
task. In doing this, students talk or write for a more public audience. For this public use,
students will want to use their best language and avoid making mistakes. They will feel the
need to oraganise clearly what they want to say, use appropriate language and check that
it is correct. The report stage gives students a natural stimulus to upgrade and improve
their language, to communicate clearly and in accurate language appropriate to the
circumstances.

o In planning their report, students have time to create anew, experiment with language,
dictionaries and grammar books. This will drive their language development forward and
give them new insights into language use.

The planning stage

 This stage describes how to help learners plan their reports effectively and maximise their
learning opportunities.

A. Setting up the planning stage

o After you have stopped the task, you need to do the following:

1. explain that you will want someone from each pair or group to report their findings to
the class.
2. be very clear about the purpose of the report, i.e. what kind of information students are
going to look or listen for in each other’s reports and what they will then do with that
information.
3. explain who the report is for and what students can hope to achieve through their
writing.
4. be clear about what form the report will take (oral or written form)
5. make sure students know what resources they have – dictionaries, grammar books,
other resource books.
6. tell students how long their presentation should be.
7. set them a time limit.
8. give specific roles to students who do not participate.

B. The teacher as language adviser

o During the planning stage, the teacher’s main role is that of language adviser, helping
students shape their meanings and express more exactly what they want to say. Take into
account the following guidelines:

1. check all students know what they are supossed to be doing and why.
2. take into account that learners will learn best if they work things out for themselves, rather
than simply being told. The planning stage is a good opportunity to encourage learner
independence.
3. comment on good points and creative use of language.
4. suggest positive ways learners could improve their work at a general level.
5. for errors, try to get students correct themselves.
6. make sure learners know how to use dictionaries
7. encourage students to help each other

o Stop the planning stage once most pairs or groups have more or less finished, then get
students ready to make their presentations.

The report stage

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  This stage presents less of a learning opportunity than the planning stage, but without the
incentive of the report, the larning process of planning, drafting and rehearsing would not
happen.

 A report might last from 20 to 30 seconds or up to two minutes.

 Always be encouraging. Focus on all the things your students are getting right. Notice and
comment on the areas in which they are showing improvement. Positive reactions will
increase their motivation and their self-esteem.

A. The teacher as chairperson

o During the report stage, the main role of the teacher is that of chairperson, to introduce the
presentations, to set a purpose for listening, to nominate who speaks next and to sum up at
the end.

 Oral presentations

o Make sure there is a clear purpose for listening and that everyone knows what it is
and what they will do with the information after the report.

o Make a mental note of points to sum up while listening to the presentations. Don’t
correct during the presentations, you can correct at the end.

o If the report becomes repetitive, stop it! But ask the other pairs if they have anything
to add.

o Allow time for a summing up at the end.

 Written presentations

o Make decisions on the following before starting the report stage:

 Will you want students to remain seated while they read each other’s work?
 Can students get up and display their writings on the wall?
 Do you want to keep the writing anonymous?
 Eeven if the writing has been done for an audience outside the class,
students should still have a chance to read what others have written.
 Purposes should initially focus on content, but they can have a linguistic focus
too.
o As your students read, you could join in with them, and make notes to use in your
summing up.

 Audio and video presentations

o Take into account the following questions:

 Will you record all the reports, or just a few? Will the recording be during the
oral presentation, or will the students record it in their groups to play back to
the class?
 Could you get students to make the recording in their own time and bring
them to the class?
 Do you want to play back every recording or just some?
 Will the whole class hear/watch or just the people who have recorded?
 What purpose will you set for listening/viewing?.

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  Summing up and giving feedback

o When summing up, it is important to react first to the content of the reports.

o The question of language feedback is controversial. In some classes, students will

expect feedback on the quality of the language they have used. Although correction
can help learners to find alternative ways of expressing themselves, public correction
needs to be handled very carefully because it could undermine learner’s confidence.

o Make sure you give feedback tactfully and positively. Give examples of good
expressions you have heard, or ones students have used for the first time, and
mention other good points. Give students the chance to correct themselves.

o End the report phase on a positive note. It is important to acknowledge the effort
students put into the presentations, as well as showing a keen interest in what they
have said or written.

Writing in the task cycle

 This section examines how writing helps learners, and looks at the processes involved in
planning or drafting a piece of writing.

A. Meeting learners’ needs

o Most students need to write a foreign language only for examination purposes (essays,
letters and summaries), while a few need to write as part of their jobs. It’s worth finding out
what your students need or want to be able to write, then you can design or look for tasks
that suit their needs.

o Some learners may benefit more from additional exposure and language-focused tasks
since many people learn a language without ever having written anything.

o However, language students need to write for other reasons. Writing often helps people to
clarify ideas and create new ones. It also forces learners to examine aspects of their
current grammatical knowledge and adapt and exploit it so that it will carry the meanings
they wish to express.

o In the task-based approach, writing constitutes a natural part of the cycle. Several kinds of
writing are involved. Sometimes it is used for private notes, to help students remember
what was said or read; sometimes for drafting and creating; sometimes for public
consumption at a report stage.

B. Planning what to write

o Stages people go through when writing something important or difficult:

 think what to say

 write some notes and ideas
 explain to someone what you’ve got to write
 reflect on the circumstances that led you to write
 show someone your near-final draft and ask for comments
 prune it back and tidy it up
 think about layout and format
 evaluate the feedback you’ve had and decide what to change
 write a final draft
 read it through to check for omissions and spelling
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 o Writing is a lengthy process. It is not always easy to express in writing what we mean. But
this process can promote learning and thus it is worth learners spending time on it.

C. Doing a written task

o In some cases the end product of the task cycle must be a polished written document. It
could take the form of a letter, a story ending or a list of recommendations, depending on
the agreed outcome of the task. This end product will first be introduced orally or through
reading in the pre-task phase, then discussed as an integral part of the task stage, drafted
collaboratively at the planning stage and finalised for the report stage.

o The planning stage for a written report may be longer than that needed for an oral
presentation, and the pre-task and task cycle may look like this:

D. Writing for a wider audience

o Foreign language writing is often done for display, so that it can be graded rather than for
any real communicative purpose.

o To make a change, to give students a real sense of purpose and to raise motivation, we
should think of other audiences (tourists, visitors, parents, other classes in other schools,
friends, etc.) that might benefit by reading something your students have written. Could
your class “publish” something for other classes to read or listen to, or even for wider
distribution outside school?

E. ESL and one-to-one: task cycle adaptations

o Not only the type of task can influence the nature of the task cycle, the task cycle will also
vary depending on the teaching situation where it is used.

o If you are teaching English in Britain or in the USA, your learners will have many
opportunities for informal, private talk outside lessons, which is similar in doing tasks with
them. They may be quite confident speaking English, but they will need more emphasis
and time on the planning and reporting stages, to help them see where and how their
English can be improved.

o In one-to-one lessons, there is no class to act as audience for a public report. So how can
you stimulate a natural need for accuracy? One way is to ask students to prepare their
report which they then record on audio cassette for homework. They bring it to the next
session, and play it to you. Another way is to have one session a week where all one-to-

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 one students meet and report to each other about something they’ve discussed in their
lessons

o Occasionally you could ask students to record themselves giving mini-presentations on

video, with an audience in mind. This makes them work really hard and become aware of
language areas they need to improve.

4. Language Focus

 Language focus is the last phase of TBL. It follows the report stage of the task cycle and adds
an opportunity for explicit language instruction.

 There are four starting points for analysis activities that can be handled in a learner-centred
way.

 The purpose of activities is to highlight specific language features from texts or transcripts
used earlier in the task cycle. They encourage students to focus their attention on forms of
the language which they have already used for meaning.

From meaning to form

 Within the TBL framework, tasks and texts combine to give students a rich exposure to
language and also opportunities to use it themselves.

 Through the task cycle, the emphasis has been on students understanding and expressing
meanings in order to achieve task outcomes and report their findings. In addition to exposure,
use and motivation, learners also benefit from instruction focused on form. This will not
necessarily be teacher-led, though the teacher will introduce the activities, be on hand to help
students do them and review them at the end.

A. Analysis and practice

o Most of the activities entail an element of analysis. The aim is to get students to identify
and think about particular features of language form and language use in thier own time
and level.

o A certain amount of form-focused practice, integrated with analysis activities, may also help
students pronounce and memorize useful phrases and common patterns.

Language analysis activities

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  These are sometimes called consciousness-raising activities, language awareness activities
or metacommunicative tasks, that focus explicitly on form and use.

 Analysis activities should not consist of decotextualized presentation and practice of language
items in isolation.

 They involve learners in a study of language forms that were actually used or needed during
the cycle. So students are familiar with the meanings expressed, and now have the chance to
study the forms which realize those meanings.

 Analysis activites aim to promote:

 observation through identification

 critical investigation of linguistic features

 There are always specific goals to stimulate purposeful analysis.

 Analysis activitites give learners time to systematize and build on the grammar they already
know, to make and test hypotheses about the grammar and to increase their repertoire of
useful lexical items.

 Individual learners will probably have gained slightly different insights into how language
works. Thereafter, they will be more likely to notice further examples.

A. Setting up analysis activities

o Ensure the focus and purpose of each activity is clear.

o Give an example or maybe two, and do the beginning of the activity with the whole class.

B. Monitoring analysis activities

o Learners continue the analysis in pairs or individually. You should go round and see how
they are getting on. Help out if they are not sure what to do, but avoid temptation of doing it
for them. If they have no doubt, hold back.

o Students will not necessarily notice the same things as you but will pick out things that are
new to them and can fit into their picture of the target language.

o Some teachers allow low-level learners to speak in their first language at the analysis
stage.

C. Reviewing analysis activities

o This is where you take the lead again. Once most learners have finished the activity, stop
them all and go through it as class. Ask different students for examples and write them on
the board. Ask them for further examples they know.

o Most students benefit from keeping personal language notebooks.

o In the course of carrying out and reviewing the analysis activities, learners will have
practiced saying target words and phrases and hearing them repeated in different contexts.

o If students have problems with pronunciation, get the class to report them in chorus.

o At the end of the reviewing stage, get students do choral reading from the board.
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Starting point for analysis activities

 It is a good idea to begin with an activity that focuses on the words and phrases expressing
meanings related to the main theme running through the text. Then tackle on two or three
using different starting points. Some can be set for homework.

 Analysis activities can be adapted for different levels of learners.

A. Meaning: themes, notions and funtions

o The main themes in a text or transcript are revealed in the lexis. Identifying the theme
words and phrases will help students to notice lexical repetition and how this can form
cohesive ties through the text.

o In a bussiness or finalcial text, phrases expresing the notions of indrease/decrease may

appear frequently.

o In a problem-solving task, there may be several ways of reaching agreement that would
form a useful function focus.

o Activites starting from these points are excellent for broadening students’ vocabulary and
increasing their repertoire of lexical items.

B. Words or parts of words

o The most 20-30 common words (many are grammatical words) may form the basis of
classroom activities.

o A study of form and uses of the very common words will cretainly help to consolidate
learners’ developing picture of the grammar of the target language.

o The parts of words are: -ing, -s, -ed.

o Analysis tasks starting from words or parts of words involve learners in:
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  classifying according to grammatical functions
 exploring meanings and effects of alternative choices of form
 identifying the odd one out.
 exploring collocation

C. Categories of meaning and use

o Once learners have met several uses of a common word, you can give a number of familiar
examples to build a revision activity. Start by giving the common categories of meaning or
use of a word or phrase, and then ask learners to match each example to a category (eg.
place and time).
D. Phonology: intonation, stress and sounds

o Learners need practice in recognizing how spoken language is chunked and in hearing
which word carries the main stress in each chunk.

o They should be listening for tone units and stressed words.

o Learners find that practice in recognizing tone units and key words can help their
comprehension.

o Exercises which focus on stress and intonation are more effective than those focusing on
discrete sounds.

o Pronunciation is probably best acquired in situations where meaning is paramount.

o To practice discrete sounds, choose words that come from a familiar spoken source.

Language practice activities

 Practice activities can combine naturally with analysis work. They are useful for consolidation
and revision.

 Practice activities on their own are unlikely to give learners deeper insights into meaning and
use of grammatical patterns, or speed up acquisition of these patterns; but they may provide
confidence and a sense of security. They may be a good way to learn typical lexical phrases.

 It is best to cover a wide range of items and aim at small improvements in each, recognizing
that language learning is an organic process. Common words, phrases and patterns are
continually recycled.

 Practice activities can be based on features of language that have already occured in
previous texts and transcripts or in analysis activities. Some are purely oral, some require
writing in preparation for an oral stage, some are mainly written. They can be done singly, in
pairs or groups, as team competition or teacher-led sessions with the whole class.

The language focus phase leads naturally out of the task cycle. The aim of analysis activities is
to draw learners’ attention to the surface forms realizing the meanings they have already become
familiar with during the task cycle and so help them to sistematize their knowledge and broaden
their undestanding.

Once the purpose of the analysis activity is clear, the teacher should let learners get on with

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learning and making discoveries by themselves, without interference.

During the teacher-led review stage, students listen to and benefit from each other’s ideas on
classification.

Finally, you can choose to end the teaching cycle on a quiet, reflective note, perhaps with
students writing their personal selection of useful words and phrases in their notebooks, or perhaps
with a choral practice activity. Either way should give learners a sense of security and
consolidation.

The PPP Paradigm

 A typically PPP lesson normally proceeds like this:

Presentation Stage

Teacher begins by presenting an item of language in a context or situation which helps to clarify its
meaning. Presentation may consist of pattern sentences given by the teacher, or short dialogues
illustrating target items acted out by teacher, read from textbook, or heard on tape.

Practice Stage

Students repeat target items and practice sentences or dialogues, often in chorus and/or pairs, until
they can say them correctly. Activities include pattern practice drills, matching parts of sentences,
completing sentences or dialogues and asking and answering questions using pre-specified forms.

Production Stage

Students are expected to produce in a “free” situation language items they have just learnt,
together with other previously learnt language. This “free” situation can be a role play, a simulation
activity or even a communication task.

 A PPP paradigm begins with the presentation and practice of a small sample of language,
with the focus on a particular form. The language is tightly controlled, and the emphasis is
on getting the new form correct. When the teacher asks a question, the reply is often
required to conform to the target pattern. Finally, the students are given a chance to produce
the new pattern in a “free” situation.

Some problems with PPP

 There are several problems with this paradigm

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 1. Sometimes learners manage to do the task or role play at the production stage without
using the target form at all. This may be because their own developing language
systems are not yet ready to cope with its use or because they don’t need the new
pattern to express the meanings they want. They can, after all, use what language they
like at the “free” stage.

2. Sometimes they tend to overuse the target form and make very stilted and unnatural
conversations, e.g. what will you do tomorrow? Tomorrow I will go to my aunt’s house. I
will go by bus. I will see my cousins. I will play football with them. Learners who do this
are probably still “in practice mode” – they are trying to display control of the new form
rather than express their own meanings. They are not actually concerned with
communication.

3. PPP gives an illusion of mastery as students can often produce the required forms
confidently in the classroom, but once outside, or in later lesson, they either do not use
them at all or use them incorrectly.

 The PPP cycle derives from the behaviourist view of learning which rests on the principle
that repetition helps to “automate” responses, and that practice makes perfect.

 Although rich and varied exposure helps language develop gradually and organically out of
the learner’s own experience, the PPP cycle restricts the learner’s experience of language
by focusing on a single item. By relying on exercises that encourage habit formation, it may
actually discourage learners from thinking about language and working things out for
themselves.

 The irony is that the goal of the final “P” – free production – is not often achieved. How can
production be “free” if students are required to produce forms which have been specified in
advance?

Comparing PPP and TBL

 The following diagram allows us to compare a typical PPP lesson with a typical TBL one,
bearing in mind the key conditions of learning.

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 TBL offers a holistic language experience where learners carry out a communication task,
using the language they have learnt fro previous lessons or from other sources. Only after
the task cycle learners’ attention is directed towards specific features of language form. TBL
framework offers much more opportunities for free language use and the linguistic content
of the language focus phase is far richer.

 The way students use and experience language in the task cycle is redically different:

o All three components (task, planning and report) are genuinely free of language
control and learners rely on their own linguistic resources.

o The task supplies a genuine need to use language to communicate.

o In all three components language is used for a genuine purpose - there are outcomes
to achieve for the task.

o The report allows a free exchange of ideas, summarising learners’ achievements.

o The planning stage encourages learners to consider appropriateness and accuracy of

language form in general, rather than the production of a single form.

o There is a genuine need to strive for accuracy and fluency as learners prepare “to go
public” for the report stage.

 The TBL framework solves another general language teaching problem – that of providing a
context for grammar teaching and form-focused activities. PPP and TBL procedures are
different here too.
o In a PPP cycle, the context has to be invented. In a TBL framework, the context is
already established by the task itself. By the time learners reach the language focus
phase, the language is already familiar.

o TBL encourages students to think and analyse, not simply to repeat, manipulate and
apply.

o Listening and reading – both part of the TBL framework – provide a more varied
exposure to natural language than examples made up to illustrate a single language
item as in a PPP cycle.

o The exposure in TBL framework will include a whole range of words, collocations,
lexical phrases and patterns in addition to language forms pre-selected for focus.
Students will realise that there is more to language than verb tenses and new words.

o In a PPP cycle, it is the teacher who pre-selects the language being taught. During the
TBL analysis stage, learners are free to ask about any aspects of language they
notice.

o A PPP cycle leads from accuracy to fluency; a TBL cycle leads from fluency to
accuracy.

o In TBL, all four skills are naturally integrated. PPP only provides a paradigm for
grammar and form-focused lessons.

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SUMMARY

TBL begins by providing learners with a holistic experience of language and then helps them
analyse this language in order to help them learn more efficiently. PPP provides discrete language
items in a vacuum and then looks for some activity to practice them.

From PPP teaching plan to TBL learning framework

 A PPP lesson plan sets out a narrowly predetermined set of objectives and procedures for
the teacher, and is usually seen and discussed from the teacher’s point of view. A TBL
lesson offers a more flexible framework, enabling learners to move from language
experience to language analysis.

 In a PPP lesson, teachers are at centre stage, orchestrating the class. In TBL, teachers have
to learn to set things up and then to hold back, intervening only when needed and reviewing
each phase at the end.

Difference between task and activity

Brown

 A TASK refers to a specialized form of technique or series of techniques closely allied with
communicative curricula, and as such must minimally have communicative goals. It’s focus
in on the authentic use of language for meaningful communicative purposes beyond the
language classroom.

 An ACTIVITY may refer to virtually anything that learners do in the classroom. It refers to a
reasonably unified set of students’ behaviors, limited in time, preceded by some direction
from the teacher, with a particular objective. Activities include role plays, drills, games, peer-
editing, small group information gap exercises, etc. The activity implies some sort of active
performance on the part of the learners, it is generally not used to refer to certain teacher
behaviors like saying “Good morning”, or maintaining eye contact with the students, or
writing a list of words on the blackboard.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 An ACTIVITY is an action, it’s what the students do. They get involve in activities related to
language, to forms, so the outcome of an activity is only linguistic.

 A TASK is an activity in which the outcome is not only linguistic. A task is something that
resembles real life. So it is an activity that is authentic and with a real life-like outcome.

Examples

1. Students listen to an extract about “movies” and complete the following chart:

Movies
Name
Type of movie
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 Topic
Prize

 This is an activity because it has a linguistic outcome. Students complete the chart a
concentrate only on language.

2. Students listen to the same extract and complete the same chart above. However, students
can send a message to friends that are not in the class, and tell them what of those movies
they can watch. They agree on a day and hour to watch the movie.

 This is a task because sending messages is part of our every day lives. In this case,
students are involved in an activity than involves a real-life outcome.

UNIT 4

Developing Communicative Proficiency

Teaching Pronunciation

Harmer

A. Pronunciation Issues

 Some teachers make little attempt to teach pronunciation in an overt way and only give
attention to it in passing. However, pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of
different sounds and sound features, but can also improve their speaking inmeasurably, their
comprehension and intelligibility.

 Being aware of pronunciation issues will be of immense benefit to students, not only to their
own production, but also to their own understanding of spoken English.

a) Perfection versus intelligibility

o Do we want our students to sound like native speakers or just to make themselves
understood? The degree to which students acquire perfect pronunciation seems to
depend very much on their attitudes to how they speak and how well they hear. In the
case of attitude, many students do not want to sound like native speakers; they may
wish to be speakers of English as an international language. Maybe they do not want to
lose their identity and that is why they retain their own accent.

o Under the pressure of such cultural considerations, teachers consider intelligibility as the
primary goal of pronunciation teaching. This suggests that some pronunciation features
are more important than others. For example, some sounds have to be right if the
speaker is to get a message across (they should not confuse the sounds in the words
“they” and “day”).

o Stressing words and phrases correctly is vital if emphasis is to be given to important

parts of messages and if words are to be understood correctly. Intonation is an important
meaning carrier too.

b) Problems

o Two particular problems ocurr in much pronunciation teaching and learning:

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  What students can hear: some students have great difficulty hearing pronunciation
features we want them to reproduce. They need to distinguish among sounds, if not,
it would be impossible to produce them. For example, Spanish speakers need to
distinguish the difference between /b/ and /v/.

Solutions: Show students how sounds are made through demonstration,

diagrams and explanation.

Draw sounds to their attention every time they appear on a

tape or conversation.

 The intonation problem: most of us (teachers) can hear when someone is being
enthusiastic or bored, when they are surprised, or when they are asking a question
rather than confirming something they already know. So we need to give students
opportunities to recognise such moods and intentions and then imitate the way these
moods are articulated.

The key to successful pronunciation teaching, however, is not so much getting students to produce
coorrect sounds or intonation tunes, but rather to have them listen and notice how English is
spoken. The more awate they are the greater the chance that their own intelligibility levels will rise.

c) The phonemic alphabet: to use or not to use?

o It is perfectly possible to work on the sounds of English without ever using any phonetic
symbols. For example, we can get students hear the difference between ship and sheep
just by saying the words enough times. However, it may make sense for students to be
aware of different phonemes, and the clearest way of promoting this awareness is to
introduce the various symbols.

o There are other reasons for using phonemic symbols too. When using dictionaries,
students can read the symbols and know how the word is said. When students know the
symbols it is easier to explain what mistake has occurred and whay has happened. We
can also use the symbols for pronunciation tasks and games.

d) When to teach pornunciation

o Teachers have to decide when to include pronunciatio teaching into lesson sequences.
Consider the following alternatives:

 Whole lessons: teachers have students do recognition work on intonation patterns,

work on the stress in certain key phases, and perform a short play extract. Making
pronunciation the main focus of the lesson does not mean that the whole lesson
should be spent in pronunciation work: students may listen a tape, working on
listening skills before moving to the pronunciation part. They may also work on
aspects of vocabulary and then on pronunciation.

 Discrete slots: teachers insert short, separate bits of pronunciation work into lesson
sequences. Over a period of weeks they work on the individual phonemes, and,
other times, they spend a few minutes on a particular aspect of intonation, for
example.

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  Integrated phases: teachers get students to focus on pronunciation issues as an
integral part of the lesson. For example, when listening to a tape, we can draw
attention to pronunciation features on the tape, having students work on sounds
and imitating intonation patterns.

 Opportunistic teaching: teachers teach pronunciation because it has “come up”, so

we spend a minute or two on some pronunciation issue that has arisen in the
course of an activity.

B. Examples of Pronunciation Teaching

e) Working with sounds

o Ask students identify which words in a list have the sound /ɜː/, for example, (bird, worm,
curl). We could also show the position of the lips when tis sound is made and get
students to make the sound.

o Students can listen to pairs or words and practice the difference between /ʃ/ and /tʃ/, for
example, as in wasing and watching. Then they practice each sound separately (cheap,
chair, child) and (wish, cash, ship).

o Teachers can also use a phonemic chart with all the symbols. The teacher can say a
sound or a word and the students have to recognize and point to the sounds on the
chart.

o Another technique for teaching sounds is to play bingo.

f) Working with stress

o By shifting stress around in a phrase or a sentence we can change emphasis in

meaning. When students meet new words, the teacher can mark the stress of those
words. They can also draw students’ attention to stress issues showing where the weak
vowel sounds occur in words, rather than focusing on the stressed syllabus. We can
draw attention to the schwa /ə/ in words like about and common, for example.

o We can get our students listen to a tape and make contrasts in meaning: “to him not to
her”. We can also use cuisenaire rods to demonstrate stress patterns.

I’ll ring you next WEEK

o For stress in words, we can ask students to put words in correct columns depending
upon their stress patterns, for example:

information discovery
consultation recovery
g) Working with intonation

o We need to draw our students’ attention to the way we use changes in pitch to convey
meaning, to reflect the thematic structure of what we are saying, and to convey mood.

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 o Show them how different meanings can be conveyed by changing the intonation of
words or phrases.

o Make them identify the main stress in phrases and to hear falling and rising intonation.
Then ask them to repeat the phrases with the right intonation.

It’s MINE She’s from ROME

I THINK so Is it YOURS?

h) Sounds and spelling

o The fact that there is no complete one-to-one correspondence between letters and
phonemes causes many problems for learners.

o Ask students to listen to a tape and see how many different pronunciations they can find
for the ou spelling, for example, in words like the following:

could rough country

sound foul thought
ground though house

i) Connected speech and fluency

o The sounds of words change when they come into contact with each other. We should
make students aware of this.

o There is a three-stage procedure for teaching students about features such as elision
and assimilation.

1. Comparing: we can start by showing students sentences and phrases and having
them pronounce the words in isolation, eg. /I/ /am/ /going/ /to/ /see/ /him/ /tomorrow/.
Then play the tape of someone saying this sentence in normal connected speech
/I’mgoingtoseehimtomorrow/ and ask students what differences they can hear.
2. Identifying: we have students listen to recordings of connected speech and then
students have to write out a full grammatical equivalent of what they heard.

3. Production: in our modelling and teaching of phrases and sentences we will give
students the connected version, including constractions where necessary, and get
them to say the phrases and sentences in this way.

Fluency is also helped by having students say phrases and sentences as quickly as
possible, starting slowly and then speeding up. Getting students to perform dialogues and
play extracts will also make them aware of speaking customs and help them to improve
their fluency.

Brown

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D. Teaching pronunciation: then and now

 Views on teaching pronunciation changed drammatically over the last half of the twentieth
century.

 In the 1970s: pronunciation instruction became somewhat accidental to a course of

study.

 In the mid 1980s: because of the greater attention of grammatical structures as

important elements in discourse and to the explicit specification of pedagogical tasks that
a learner should accomplish, it became clear that pronunciation was a key to gaining full
communicative competence.

 Rather than attempting only to build a learner’s articulatory competence from the bottom up,
a top-down approach is taken in which the most relevant features of pronunciation – stress,
rhythm and intonation are given high priority.

 Many learners of foreign languages feel that their ultimate goal in pronunciation should be
accent-free speech that it is undistinguishable from that of native speaker.

 Our goal as teachers of English pronunciation should be more realistically focused on clear,
comprehensible pronunciation.

E. Factors that affect pronunciation

o Native language: if you are familiar with the sound system of a learner’s native language,
you will be better able to diagnose student difficulties. Many L1 – L2 carryovers can be
overcome through awareness and effort on the learner’s part.

o Age: children under the age of puberty have an excellent chance of “sounding like a native”
if they have continued exposure to the language. Beyond the age of puberty, there is no
particular advantage attributed to age: “the younger, the better.”

o Exposure: one can live in a foreign country for some time but not take advantage of “being
with the people.” The quality and intensity of exposure are more important than mere lenght
of time.
o Innate phonetic ability: some people manifest a phonetic coding ability that others do not. If a
person has had exposure to a foreign language as a child, this ability is present whether the
early language is remembered or not. Some elements in learning are a matter of awareness
of your own limitations combined with a conscious focus on doing something to compensate
for those limitations. If pronunciation seems to be difficult, with some effort and
concentration, they can improve their confidence.

o Identity and language ego: another influence is one’s attitude toward the speakers of the
target language and the extent to which the language ego identifies with those speakers.
Learners need to be reminded of the importance of positive attitudes toward the people who
speak the language, but more important, students need to become aware of the second
identity that may be emerging with them.

o Motivation and concern for good pronunciation: this makes reference to the extent to which
learners’ intrinsic motivation propels them toward improvement. You can help learners to
develop motivation by showing how clarity of speech is significant in shaping their self-image
and in reaching some of their higher goals.

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 These six factors suggest that any learner can learn to pronounce English clearly and
comprehensibly.

F. A model for correction of speech errors

 One of the most frenquently posed questions by teachers who are new to the trade is: When
and how should we correct the speech errors of learners in the clasroom?

 One of the keys to successful language learning lies on the feedback that a learner
receives from others.

 What follows is a model of how affective and cognitive feedback affects the message-
sending process.

AFFECTIVE COGNITIVE the point at which

FEEDBACK FEEDBACK error correction enters

Message causes the sender symbolizes

corrective
to abort the message feedback that
causes
getting across the learner to
make
some kind of alter-
makes the learner to ation in
production
adjust, alter, recycle
back, to try again in
allows the some way symbolizes
non-
sender to corrective
feedback
continue that says:
“I under-
attempting to stand the
message”
get the message
across

 To administer error treatment, cognitive feedback must be optimal in order to be effective.

Too much negative cognitive feedback – a barrage of interruptions and corrections – often
leads learners to shut off their attempts of communication. They perceive that their
production is wrong and they have little hope of getting anything right.

 Also, too much of positive cognitive feedback – willingness to let errors go uncorrected to
indicate understanding when it doesn’t exist – serves to reinforce the errors of the learner.

 The task of the teacher is to discern the optimal tension between positive and negative
cognitive feedback: providing enough green lights to encourage continued communication
and providing enough red lights to call attention to those crucial errors.

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  The affective and cognitive modes of feedback are reinforcers to speakers’ responses
(Skinner’s operant conditioning model). As speakers receive “positive” reinforcement, they
will be led to internalize certain speech patterns. We must avoid punitive reinforcement –
correction that is viewed by learners as an affective red light: devaluing or insulting them.

G. When and how to treat errors in the classroom?

 A difference between local and global errors should be made:

 Local errors: they affect only a single constituent in the sentence and are not so likely to
create processing problems. So they need not to be corrected since the message is
clear and correction might interrupt a learner in the flow of productive communication.

 Global errors: the violate the overall structure of the sentence making it difficult to
process. So they need to be treated in some way since the message may otherwise
remain garbled.
 We must not stifle our students’ attempts at production by smothering them with corrective
feedback.

 It seems clear that students in the classroom generally want and expect errors to be
corrected. However, some methods recommend no direct treatment of error at all.

A sensitive and perceptive language teacher should make the language classroom a happy
optimum between some of the overpoliteness of the real world and the expectations that learners
bring with them to the classroom.

Your task as a teacher is to value learners, prize their attempts to communicate, and then to
provide optimal feedback for the system to evolve in successive stages until learners are
communicating more clearly.

Teaching Grammar

Brown

The place of grammar

 Grammar is a system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of

words in a sentence. Grammar refers to sentence-level rules. We should not confuse the term
grammar with rules governing the relationship among sentences, which we refer to as discourse
rules.

 Grammatical competence is necessary for communication to take place, but not sufficient to
account for all production and reception of language.

 Grammar is one of three dimensions of language that are interconnected. Grammar gives us the
form or the structures of language, but those forms need a second dimension, that of meaning
or semantics, and a third dimension, pragmatics. That is to say, grammar tells us how to
construct a sentence (word, order, verb and noun systems, phrases, clauses). Semantics tells
us something about the meanings of words and strings of words. Then pragmatic tells us about

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 which of several meanings to assign given the context of the sentence. Context takes into
account: who the speaker and the audience is, where the communication takes place, styles
and registers, etc.

 Grammar is not irrelevant in CLT framework. No one dimension is sufficient, all of then should
be interconnected.

To teach or not to teach grammar

 Reason, balance and the experience of teachers tell us that judicious attention to grammatical
form in the adult classroom is not only helpful, but essential to a speedy learning process.

 Celce Murcia offered six variable that can help you to determine the role of grammar in
language teaching. For each variable, the continuum runs from less to moe important.

Less Important FOCUS ON FORM More Important

Learner variables

Age Children adolescents Adults

Proficiency level beginners Intermediate Advanced
Educational Preliterate, no formal Semeliterate, some Literate, well-educated
background education formal education

Instructional variables

Skill Listening, reading Speaking Writing

Register informal Consultive Formal
Need/use Survival Vocational Professional
communication

1. Age: due to normal intellectual development, young children cannot profit from complex
grammar. Adults, with their abstract intellectual capabilities, can use grammar to advance
their communicative abilities.

2. Proficiency level: you should not teach too much grammar in beginning levels because that
can block the acquisition of fluency skills. At the advanced level, grammar is less likely to
disturb communicative fluency

3. Educational background: students who are non-literate may find it difficult to grasp the
complexity of grammatical terms and explanations. Highly educated students, on the other
hand, are cognitively more receptive to grammar focus and may insist on error correction to
help refine their fkuent skills.

4. Language skills: grammar work may be more suitable for improving written English than for
speaking, reading and writing.

5. Register: grammar is not so important in informal contexts, it is more important in formal

contexts

6. Needs and goals: if learners are headed towards professional goals, they may need to
stress formal accuracy more than learners at the survival level.

Issues about how to teach grammar

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1. Should grammar be presented inductively or deductively?

o Inductive approach: various language forms are practiced but learners are left to
discover or induce rules and generalizations on their own.

o Deductive approach: learners are given a rule or generalization by the teacher or

textbook and then they practice various instances of language to which the rule applies.

o Generally, an inductive approach is more in favour because:

 It keeps with natural langauge acquisition since rules are absorbed subconsciously
witl little or no conscious focus.

 It conforms to the concept of interlanguage development in which learners progress

through possible stages of rule acquisition.

 It allows students to get a communicative “feel” for some aspect of language before
getting overwhelmed by grammatical explanations.

 It builds more intrinsic motivation since students discover rules rather thn being told
them.

o However, there may be occasional moments when a deductive approach –or a blend
between the two- is indeed more appropriate.

2. Should we use grammatical explanations and technical terminology in a CLT classroom?

o The use of grammatical explanations and terminology must be aporoached with care. So
you should:

 Keep your explanations brief and simple. Use the mother tongue if students can’t
understand an explanation.

 Use charts and other visuals to depict grammatical relationships.

 Illustrate with clear, unambiguous examples.

 Account for varying cognitive styles among your students.

 Don’t teach exceptions to rules.

 If you don’t know how to explain something, do not give false information. Tell
students you will research that point and bring an answer the next class.

3. Should grammar be taught in separate “grammar only” classes?

o It is advisable to embed grammatical techniques into general language courses, rather

than singling grammar out as a discrete “skill” and treating it in a separate course.
However, in some curricula, certain class hours, workshops or courses for high
internediate or advanced learners are set aside for grammar instruction. Grammar can
provide a useful function under certain conditions:

 The grammar course should be explicitly integrated into the total curriculum so that
students can relate grammar to their other work in English.

 The rest of the curriculum controls the content of the grammar course. For example,
a significant potion of grammar should come from students’ work in other courses.
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  Grammar is contextualized in meaningful language use.

 The course is tailored as much as possible for particular individual problems

students are experiencing. For example, grammatical topics come from the students’
own performance in other classes, rather than being pre-set by a curriculum or
textbook.

4. Should teachers correct grammatical errors?

Examples of vocabulary teaching

Grammar techniques

1. Using charts: charts and graphs are useful devices for clarifying relationships. They are
useful for practicing certain grammar topic (adverbs of frequency, for example), and for
introducing tenses.

2. Using objects: objects brought into the classroom liven up the context and provide some
kinesthetic, hands-on dimension to your teaching. They are useful to teach the possessive to
beginning level students.

3. Using maps and drawings: maps make for practical and simple visual aids in the classroom.
They are useful for jigsaw, information gap, and other interactive techniques, they can also
serve to illustrate certain grammatical structures such as prepositional phrases (up the
street, on the left), question formation (How can I get ...? Can you tell me...?), and
imperatives (go, walk, look for).

4. Using dialogues: they are an age-old technique for introducing and practicing grammmatical
points.

5. Using texts: texts might be used to get at a certain verb tense or to illustrate a grammatical
category.

Teaching Vocabulary

Brown

 Rather than viewing vocabulary items as a long and boring list of words, vocabulary should be
seen in its central role in contextualized, meaningful language.

 The following are some guidelines about vocabulary instruction:

1. Devote time in your class for vocabulary learning: in interactive classrooms, sometimes we
get so involve in meaningful communication, that we don’t pause to devote some minutes to
words. This should not happen since words are basic building blocks of language. So, if you
are interested in being communicative, words are a priority.

2. Help students to learn vocabulary in context: rather than isolating words and 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.

3. Don’t overuse bilingual dictionaries: help students to resist the temptation to overuse
bilingual dictionaries. Nowadays, students use electronic dictionaries and get an instant

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 response. Unfortunately, this practice rarely helps students to internalize the word for later
recall and use.

4. Encourage students to develop strategies for determining the meaning of words: a number
of “clues” are available to learners to develop “word attack” strategies. Help students to
make associations and to infer the meaning of words by the context.

5. Engage in unplanned vocabulary teaching: when a students asks about a word or when a
word has appeared and you feel it deserves some attention, you should take advantage of
this and encourage your students to guess the meaning of that word.

Harmer

 The general principle of teaching vocabulary is to teach more concrete words at lower levels
and become more abstract gradually.

 Frenquency is very important when teaching vocabulary. Students need to know how
frenquently we use certain words.

What students need to know

1. Meaning: a word in English can have different meanings, so you should encourage
students to look at the context to work out those meanings.

2. Synonyms and antonyms. General words (vegetable) and specific words (carrot).

3. Word use: they need to know metaphors, collocations, idioms, style and register.

4. Word formation: students need to know parts of the speech, sufixes, prefixes, spelling and
pronunciation.

5. Word grammar: they need to know countable and uncountable nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs.

How to encourage students to learn a word

1. Use active and passive vocabulary. Active vocabulary refers to words that students have
already learnt and used. Passive vocabulary refers to words that students understand but
have not produced yet.
2. Interact with words: students remember words best when they like those words and when
they have some kind of relationship with those words.
3. Use discovery techniques: students should discover the meaning of words by the context.

Examples of vocabulary teaching

 Discussions and role plays using the words

 Matching pictures to words
 Classifying items into lists
 Playing taboo

The importance of dictionaries

o Dictionaries are one of the best resources for students to increase the number of words.
Bilingual dictionaries usually do not provide the information students need to know, which
could lead to errors in translation. Try to make your students use monolingual dictionaries.
As in lower levels this is not easy, try to make your students read for general understanding.

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Integrating the Four Skills

Brown

 In the context of a whole language approach to language learning, the trend in recent years has
been toward integrating the four skills.

Why integration?
Because:

o Production and reception are bound.

o Interaction requires both sending and receiving messages.
o Using language realistically requires integration.
o The four skills can reinforce each other.
o It’s not just the four skills, but the whole social personal emotional context in which
they occur.

 There are five models to teach integratively:

1. Content – Based – Teaching

o Integrates learning a subject with learning a second language.

o Teachers have to view their teaching from a different perspective: they are first teaching
geography or maths or culture, secondarily they are teaching language.
o Allows the integration of language skills since students have to:

 Read
 Discuss
 Solve problems
 Analize data
 Write opinions
 Write reports

o Places more emphasis on the content rather than language acquisition.

2. Theme – Based – Teaching

o Places equal emphasis on the content and on language acquisition.

o Offers students substantial opportunities to deal with topics of relevance and interest.
o The major principles underlying both theme-based and content-based instruction are:

The automaticity principle: students appear to learn languages without thinking

about them.
The meaningful learning principle: subsumes new information into existing
structures and memory systems and the resultive associative links create stronger
retention.
The intrinsic motivation principle: students perform a task because it is interesting,
funny and challenging, not because of rewards.

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 The communicative competence principle: what students need to know to become
communicatively competent in a speech community,

3. Experiential learning

o Students are given concrete experiences through which they “discover” language
principles by:

 trial and error

 processing feedback
 building hypotheses about language
 revising assumptions to become fluent

o This model is learner-centered since the learner:

 is “directly in touch”
 learns by doing
 takes charge of their own learning

o Teacher’s techniques:

 using props, realia, visuals, “show and tell” sessions

 playing games
 utilizing media

o Students’ techniques:

 hands on projects
 computer activities
 research projects
 cross-cultural experiences
 role plays and stimulation

4. The Episode Hypothesis

o The presentation of language is enhanced if students receive interconnected sentences

in an interest – provoking episode - rather than in a disconnected series of sentences.

o Suspense, drama and anticipation contribute to learning experience.

o Possible ways of integrating the skills:

 Episodes can be presented in written or spoken form, thus requires reading

and listening skills on the students’ part.

 Episodes can provide spoken or written questions that students respond by

speaking or writing.

 Episodes might be dramatized by students.

5. Task – Based – Teaching

o An approach in which:

 Meaning is primary.
 There is a communication problem to solve.

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  There is some sort of relationship to compatible real-world activities.
 Task competition has some priority.
 The assessment of the task is in terms of outcome.

o There are two types of tasks:

 Target tasks: things that students must accomplish beyond the classroom
(completing a resume, giving personal information, etc).

 Pedagogical tasks: form the nucleous of the classroom activity, and are
designed to teach students to perform the target tasks. They may include
both formal and functional techniques.

o Distinguishing feature: the priority is not the bits and pieces of langauge, but the
functional purposes of that language that are emphasized.

o By organizing your classroom around practical tasks that learners will use in “the real
world”, you’ll integrate reading, speaking, listening and writing in various ways, ways that
are natural and self-reinforcing.

Harmer

The importance of integrating skills

 There is a tendency in language classrooms to focus attention on one skill at a time. However, it
is important to integrate the skills.

 Activities in which the skills are integrated are important because:

o They provide opportunities for using language naturally, not just practicing it.
o Many pair and groupwork activities call for a variety of skills in order to involve all the
learners.
o Students seem to learn better when they are engaged on activities which involve more
than one skill.

 We should look for opportunities to knit skills together because this is what happens in real life.

Activities to integrate the skills

a) Questionnaries: two students collaborate on the production of the questionnaire (talk and
write). They then separate to use the questionnaire. This interviewing stage also involves
talking and writing (filling in the questionnaire). The pairs then get together to compare
results (reading and talking).

b) Quizzes: students collaborate on the production of the quiz (talking and writing) The quiz
may involve some reading in the form of checking of information. The quiz is then passed
to another pair or group, who read, talk and write. Finally, the quiz is passed back to the
students who wrote it, so that we get reading and talking.

c) Describe and note: one student describes a picture and other students try to draw, asking
questions as they do so. Students who are listening make notes, and then they compare
the notes. Finally they use their notes either to describe a picture orally or to produce a
written description.

d) Draw the picture: two or more students give instructions for drawing a picture or map. This
involves detailed discussion leading to writing. These instructions are then passed to other

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 students, who read, talk and then draw. The two pictures are then compared (leading to
more talk).

e) How much can you remember?: students look at a picture for one or two minutes and turn
it face down. Then they write down what they can remember. They compare their notes
and use them to produce an oral or written description of the picture. Finally, they turn the
picture over and compare it with their version.

f) Stories: the students work in groups to produce a scenario, which is then exchanged with
another group for roleplay work.

Receptive and Productive Skills

Receptive Skills

 They are the ways in which people extract meaning from the discourse they see or hear.

How do we read or listen?

o We employ our previous knowledge as we approach the process of comprehension. In

order to make sense of any text we need to have “pre-existent knowledge of the world.”
Such knowledge is often called “schema/schemata.” When we are stimulated by particular
words, contexts, discourse patterns; such schematic knowledge is activated, and, in this
way, we are able to recognize what we read or hear.

o Schematic knowledge in reading may first tell us what kind of text we are dealing with
which allows us to predict the form it may take at the text, paragraph and sentence level. In
conversation, speakers and listeners draw upon various schemata: genre, topic, discourse
patterns, etc.

o Schemata offers a far greater chance of success, and shared schemata make spoken and
written communication efficient.

Reasons for reading and listening

o Instrumental: reading and listening take place because they will help us to achieve some
clear aim.

o Pleasurable: it’s a pleasure for us reading a book, a magazine, a newspaper; and listening
to the radio or television.

Top down and bottom up processing

o Top-down: the reader or listener gets a general view of the reading and listening passage
by absorbing the overall picture.

o Bottom-up: the reader or listener focuses on individual words and phrases and achieves
understanding by stringing these detailed elements together to build up a whole.

It’s more useful to see acts of reading and writing as interactions between top-down and bottom-up
processing. Some times individual details help us understand the whole, and other times, our
overview allows us to process details.

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Different skills

o Identifying the topic: we should get an idea of what is being talked about.

o Predicting and guessing: we need to predict and guess what we are going to read or listen.
We should ask the question: “what is coming?”
o Reading and listening for general understanding: we should get the gist of the text, the
general idea (skimming).

o Reading and listening for specific information: we should concentrate on particular items
(scanning).

o Reading and listening for detailed information: we should understand everything in detail
such as instructions, directions, procedures, etc.

o Interpreting the text: we should see beyond the literal meaning of words in a passage.

Problems and solutions

o Problem: language: longer sentences and longer words, unfamiliar lexis. This will
demotivate students.

o Solutions:

1. Provide comprehensible input which aids language acquisition. Incomprehensible

input doesn’t.

2. Pre-teach vocabulary.

3. Encourage extensive reading and listening so that students develop automaticity.

4. Encourage intensive reading and listening: academic goal or purpose usually with
teacher tutoring.

5. Provide authenticity since students should read and listen to things they understand.
For beginners the language may be simplified, but it must not be unnatural.

Topic and genre

o Choose the right topic: select something that interests students and that includes variety.

o Create interest: talk about the topic, show pictures, make predictions, etc.

o Activate schemata: bring students’ schemata to the text.

o Vary topics and genres: expose your students to a variety of text types.

Comprehension tasks

o Help your students understand. We need to promote understanding , to use

comprehensible tasks. For teaching and testing we need to raise our students’
expectations.

Appropriate challenge

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 o It should be difficult but achievable. It should be purposeful and have a right match
between task and text.

Negative expectations

o Low expectations of listening and reading will not help our students. So we need to agree
on a purpose for reading and listening, and offer a challenging text to help them to read
and listen successfully.

Productive Skills

 They are language production processes which involve:

o Structuring discourse: In speech: following conversational patterns and the use of lexical
phrases. In writing: being coherent and cohesive.

o Following the rules: sociocultural rules (how to speak in different societies), turn-taking
(participants get their chance to speak); rules for writing (follow conventions, internet and
formal conversations).

o Different styles, different genres: level of intimacy (close/distant), and level of formality
(formal/informal).

o Interacting with an audience:

o Dealing with difficulty: this involves improvising, discarding, foreignizing and paraphrasing.

Characteristics

o Students should be operating towards the communicative end of the communication

continnum.

o Some controlled practice: for example, teaching students to take turns, to use correct
pronunciation, etc.

o Production activities provide evidence for students and teachers to assess.

Problems and solutions

o Problem: it’s difficult for students to produce language.

o Solutions:

1. Match the tasks with the language level

2. Provide a purpose to the task (some outcome)

3. Cultivate writing and speaking habits.

4. Help students to solve their problems.

Topic and genre

o Choose the right topics.

o Create interest.
o Activate schemata.
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 o Vary topics and genres.
o Supply key langauge.
o Plan activities in advance.

Reception and Production

o The two feed each other.

o Output and input: when a student produces a piece of language and sees how it turns out
the information is fed up into the acquisition process. Output becomes input.
o Texts are models: written an spoken texts are a visual way of providing models fro students
to follow.
o Texts are stimuli: they lead to develop other skills such as reading (read a text) ot speaking
(discussing the text)
o Reception is part of production: integrate skills rather than practice them in isolation.
o Production enables reception.

Teaching Listening

The importance of listening

 Through reception, we internalize linguistic information without which we could not produce
language. In classrooms, students always do more listening than speaking. Listening
competence is universally larger than speaking competence.

 Nowadays, it is very important to practice listening comprehension in our classrooms. However,

in the 1950s and 60s, teachers were concerned with spoken language, and the only thing
students did was performing oral drills. It was not uncommon for students to practice phrases
orally they didn’t even understand.

Listening comprehension in pedagogical research

 Listening in language learning and teaching became important in the late 1970s with James
Asher’s work on Total Physical Response. In TPR, learners were given great quantities of
language to listen to before they were encouraged to respond orally.

 Similarly, the natural approach recommended a “silent period” during which learners were
allowed to listen without being forced to speak until they were ready to do so.

 Stephen Krashen stressed the significance of comprehensible input, or the aural reception of
language that is just a little beyond the learner’s present ability.
 Researchers also stressed the importance of the learner converting input into intake. You can
be exposed to great quantities of input, but what counts is the linguistic information that you
glean from that exposure through conscious and subconscious attention, through cognitive
strategies of retention, through feedback and interaction. So the conversion of input into intake
is crucial in the role of listening in language learning.

 Listening is a highly refined skill that requires a learner’s attention to a battery of strategies for
extracting meanings from texts.

An interactive model of listening comprehension

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 One facet of listening comprehension is the psychomotor process of receiving sound waves
through the ear and transmiting nerve impulses to the brain. But this is just the beginning of an
interactive process.

 Eight processes are involved in listening comprehension. With the exception of the initial and
final processes, no sequence is implied here, they all occur in extremelly rapid succession.

1. The hearer processes “raw speech” (speech not yet organized into a form in which it can be
easily understood), and holds an ”image” of it in short-term memory. This image consists of
constituents of a stream of speech (phrases, clauses, intonation, and stress patterns).

2. The hearer determines the type of speech event being processed (a conversation, a speech,
a radio broadcast), and then “colours” the interpretation of the perceived message.

3. The hearer infers the objectives of the speaker taking into account the type of speech event,
the context and the content; and he also determines the intention of the speaker (to request,
to inform, to persuade, to deny and so forth).

4. The hearer recalls background information (or schemata) relevant to the particular content
and subject matter.

5. The hearer assigns a literal meaning to the utterance. Second language learners must learn
to go “beneath” the surface of language in order to interpret correctly.

6. The hearer assigns an intended meaning to the utterance. It is important to match the
perceived meaning with the intended meaning.

7. The hearer determines whether information should be retained in shor-term or long-term

memory. Short-term memory is important for calling for a quick oral response from the
hearer. Long-term memory is more common for processing information in a lecture.

8. The hearer deletes the form in which the message was origially received. The words,
phrases and sentences are quickly forgotten, you have no need to retain them. Instead, the
important information is retained conceptually.

Types of spoken language

 There are many forms of spoken language to incorporate into a language course when teaching
listening comprehension.

Monologues

o In monoloques (speeches, lectures, readings, news broadcasts), the hearer must process
long stretches of speech without interruption. The stream of speech will continue whether or
not the hearer comprehends.

 Planned monologues: usually manifest little redundancy and are, therefore, relatively
difficult to comprehend.

 Unplanned monologues: exhibit more redundancy and are easy to comprehend.

However, the presence of hesitations can either help or hinder comprehension.

Dialogues

o Dialogues involve two or more speakers.

 Interpersonal dialogues: they promote social relationships

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  Transactional dialogues: they convey propositional or factual information.

These two types of dialogues can be familiar (participants have a good deal of
shared knowledge (background information, schemata)) or unfamiliar (participants
are not familiar with each other so references and meanings have to be made
more explicit to assure effective comprehension).

o In dialogues, the hearer can be:

 A participant: the hearer can both interrupt and participate in the negotiation of
meaning.

 An “eavesdropper”: they hearer is unable to interrupt or participate in the negotiation

of meaning.

What makes listening difficult?

 A number of special characteristics of spoken language need to be taken into consideration

because they strongly influence the processing of speech. If students don’t pay attention to such
features, the listening process will be difficult for them.

1. Clustering

o In spoken language, due to memory limitations and our predisposition for “chunking” or
clustering, we break down speech into smaller groups or words. In teaching listening
cmprehension, you need to help students to pick out manageable clusters of words;
sometimes second language learners will try to retain long constituents (a whole
sentence or several sentences) or they will try to attend to every word in an utterance.

2. Redudancy

o Spoken language has a great deal of redundancy. In conversations, there are a lot of
rephrasings, repetitions, elaborations, and little insertions of “I mean” and “you know.”
Such redundancy helps the hearer to process meaning by offering more time and extra
information. Students should be aware that not every new sentence or phrase will
necessarily contain new information, and they should look at signals of redundancy.

3. Reduced forms

o Spoken language has many reduced forms. Reduction can be phonological (du ju laik it?
= dju laik it?), morphological (constractions like I’ll), syntactic (elliptical forms like “When
will you be back” “Tomorrow, maybe.”, or pragmatic (phone rings in a house and a child
says “Mom! Phone!.”) These reductions pose significant differences.

4. Performance variables

o In spoken language, hesitations, pauses, false starts, and corrections are common.
Learners have to train themselves to listen for meaning in the midst of such performance
variables.

5. Colloquial language

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 o Learners who have been exposed to standard written English sometimes find it
surprising and difficult to deal with colloquial language. Idioms, slang, reduced forms and
shared cultural knowledge are all manifested at some point in conversations.
Colloquialisms appear in both monologues and dialogues.

6. Rate of delivery

o Virtually every language learner initially thinks that native speakers speak too fast!
Learners need to comprehend language delivered at varying rates of speed and, at
times, delivered with a few pauses.

7. Stress, rhythm and intonation

o The prosodic features are very important for comprehension. Since English is a stress-
timed language, students can have difficulties when they listen to native speakers.
Intonation patterns are also very significant for interpreting questins, statements and
emphasis, and for understanding messages like sarcasm, endearment, insult,
solicitation, praise, etc.

8. Interaction

o Interaction will play a large role in listening comprehension. Conversation is subject to all
the rules of interaction: negotiation, clarification, attending signals, turn-taking, and topic
nomination, maintenance and termination. So, to learn to listen is also to learn to
respond and to continue a chain of listening and responding. Students need to
understand that good listeners (in conversations) are good responders, they know how
to negotiate meaning.

Some microskills of listening comprehension

 The following are microskills that learners need to perform as they acquire effective listening
strategies:

o Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English.

o Recognize English stress patterns, rythmic structure and intonation.
o Recognize reduced forms of words.
o Process speech at different rates of delivery.
o Process speech containing pauses, errors and corrections.
o Recognize grammatical word classes, patterns and rules.
o Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
o Infer participants, situations, goals using real-wordl knowledge.
o Distinguish between literal and implied meanings
o Etc.

Types of classroom listening performance

 Sometimes these types of performances are embedded in a broader technique or task, and
sometimes they are themselves the sum total of the activity of a technique.

1. Reactive

o A learner simply listens to the surface structure of an utterance for the sole purpose of
repeating it back to you. This kind of listening performance requires little meaningful
processing. The role of the listener here is that of a “tape recorder”, this role is very

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 limited since the listener is not generating meaning. Reactive listening is useful for brief
choral or individual drills exercises that focus on pronunciation.

2. Intensive

o Techniques whose only purpose is to focus on components of discourse (phonemes,

words, intonation, discourse markers, etc) may be considered to be intensive. Students
single out certain elements of the spoken language. They include the bottom-up skills
that are important at all levels of proficiency. For example:

 Students listen for cues in certain choral or individual drills.

 The teacher repeats a word or sentence several times to “imprint” it in the students’
mind.
 The teacher asks students to listen to a sentence or a longer stretch of discourse and
to notice a specified element, such as intonation, stress, a contraction, a grammatical
structure, etc.

3. Responsive

o Short stretches of teacher language is designed to elicit immediate responses. In such

listening, students should process the teacher talk immediately and to fashion an
appropriate reply. For example:

 asking questions (“how are you today?)

 giving commands (“take a sheet of paper and a pencil”).
 seeking clarification (“what did you say?”)
 checking comprehension ( “so was Sam happy or sad? why?”)

4. Selective

o In longer stretches of discourse such as a monologue of a couple of minutes, the task of

the students is not to process everything that was said, but to scan the material
selectively for certain information. The purpose of such performance is not to look for
global or general meanings, but to be able to find important information. Such activity
requires field independent on the part of the learner. Selective listening differs from
intensive listening in that the discourse is in relatively long lenghts. For example:

 speeches
 media
 stories and anecdotes
 conversations in which learners are “eavesdroppers”

o Students should listen for: people’s names, dates, certain facts or events, location,
situation, context, main ideas and conclusion.

5. Extensive

o Unlike the intensive processing, this sort of performance aims to develop a top-down,
global understanding of spoken language. Extensive performance could range from
listening to lenghty lectures, to listening to a conversation and deriving a comprehensible
message or purpose. This performance may require the student to invoke other
interactive skills such as note-taking or discussion for full comprehension.

6. Interactive

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 o This sort of performance can include all the other five types described above as learners
actively participate in discussions, debates, conversations, role plays and other pair and
group work. Their listening performance must be integrated with speaking.

Principles for designing listening techniques

1. In an interactive four-skills curriculum, make sure that you don’t overlook the importance of
techniques that especially develop listening comprehension competence.

o Remember that each of the separate skills deserve special focus in appropriate doses.
Create effective listening techniques to practice listening comprehension.

2. Use techniques that are intrinsically motivating.

o Appeal to listeners’ personal interests and goals. Take into account the experiences,
goals and abilities of you students. Also, remember that the cultural background of your
students can be both facilitating or interfering in the process of listening.

3. Utilize authentic language and contexts.

o Authentic language and real-world tasks enable students to see the relevance of
classroom activity to their long-term communicative goals. Students will more easily
engage in the activity if you introduce natural texts rather than artificial material.

4. Carefully consider the form of listeners’ responses.

o We can infer that certain things have been comprehended through students’ overt
responses to speech. We can check listening comprehension in different ways:

 doing: the listener responds physically to a command.

 choosing: the listener selects from alternatives such as pictures, objects and texts.
 ansewring: the listener answers questions about the message.
 transferring: the listener draws a picture of what is heard
 others: condensing, extending, duplicating, modeling, and conversing.

5. Encourage the development of listening strategies.

o Tell students to pay attention to the following strategies when listening:

 looking for key words

 looking for nonverbal cues to meaning
 predicting the speaker’s purpose by the context
 guessing at meanings
 seeking clarification
 listening for the general gist

6. Include both bottom- up and top-downlistening techniques.

o Bottom-up processing: proceeds from sounds to words to grammatical relationships to

lexial meanings, etc., to a final message. They typically focus on sounds, words,
intonation, grammatical structures an other components of spoken language.

o Top-down processing: is evoked from a bank of prior knowledge and global

expectations, and other background information that the listener brings to the text. They

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 are more concerned with the activation of schemata, with deriving meaning, with global
understanding, an with the interpretation of a text.

Listening techniques from beginning to advanced

 Techniques for teaching listening will vary according to the proficiency levels

Beginning Level Internediate Level Advanced Level

o Discriminating between o Recognizing fast o Use features of sentence

intonation contours in a speech forms. stress and volume to
sentece. o Finding the stress identify important
o Discriminating between syllable. information for note-
phonemes. o Recognizing words taking.
Botom –up o Selective listening for with reduced syllabes. o Bacome aware of
exercises morphological endings. o Recognize words as sentence-level features
o Selecting details from they are linked in the in lecture text.
the text (word speech stream. o Become aware of
recognition). o Recognizing pertinent organizational cues in
o Listening for normal details in the speech lecture text.
sentence word order. stream. o Become aware of lexical
and suprasegmental
markers of definitions.
o Identify specific forms of
information.

o Discriminating between o Analyze discourse

emotional reactions. structures to suggest
Top-down o Getting the gist of a effective listening
exercises sentence. strategies.
o Recognize the topic. o Listen to identify the
speaker of the topic.
o Finding main ideas and
supporting details.
o Making inferences.

o Build a semantic o Discriminating between

network of word register of speech and
associations. tone of voice.
o Recognize a familiar o Recognize missing
word and relate it to a grammar markers in
category. colloquial speech.
o Following directions. o Use knowledge of
Interactive reduced forms to clarify
exercises the meaning of an
utterance.
o Use context to build
listening expectation.
o Listening to confirm
your expectation.
o Use context to build
expectations. Use

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 bottom-up processing
to recognize missing
words. Compare your
predictions with what
you actually heard.

Teaching Speaking

Oral Communication Skills in Pedagogical Research

1. Conversational discourse

o The roles and techniques for teaching conversation are extremely diverse, depending on the
students, teacher, and overall context.

2. The place of pronunciation teaching

o There has been a controversy over teaching pronunciation since the majority of adult learners
will never acquire an “accent free” command of the foreign language. However, a language
paradigm that emphasizes whole language, meaningful contexts, and subconscious
adquisition should focus on pronunciation but in a different way.

3. Accuracy and fluency

o Both fluency and accuracy are important goals to pursue in CLT. Fluency is an initial goal in
many communicative language courses; and accuracy is achieved by allowing students to
focus on the elements of phonology, grammar, and discourse in their spoken output.

o We should take into account the extent to which our techniques should be message oriented
(teaching language use) or language oriented (teaching language usage).

4. Affective factors

o When learning to speak, learners are afraid of blurting things out that are wrong, stupid, or
incomprehensible. Some of them prefer to close their mouths and let other people think that
they are ignorant than to open them and remove all about. Our job as teachers is to provide
the kind of warm, embracing climate that encourages students to speak.

5. The interaction effect

o The greatest difficulty that learners encounter is the interactive nature of most
communication, that is, what to say, how to say things and when to speak.

Types of spoken language

 Make sure students can deal with both interpersonal and transactional dialogues (already
explianed on page 203), and that they are able to converse with a total stranger as well as
someone with whom they are quite familiar.

What makes speaking difficult?

 The same characteristics that make listening skills difficult apply to speaking, but here, the
learner is the producer.

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 1. Clustering

o Fluent speech is phrasal, not word by word. Learners can organize their output both
cognitively and physically through clustering.

2. Redudancy

o The speaker has an opportunity to make meaning clearer through the redundancy of
language. Learners can capitalize on this feature of spoken language.

3. Reduced forms

o Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc form special problems in teaching spoken
English. Students who don’t learn colloquial contractions can sometimes develop a
bookish quality of speaking.

4. Performance variables

o The process of thinking allows you to manifest performance hesitations, pauses,

backtracking and corrections. You can actually teach learners how to pause and
hesitate. For example, in English our “thinking time” is not silent, but rather we insert
certain “fillers”: uh, um, well, you know, I mean, etc.

5. Colloquial language

o Make sure your students are acquainted with the words and idioms and phrases of
colloquial language and that they get practice in getting these forms.

6. Rate of delivery

o The rate of delivery is very characteristic in fluency. Help learners to achieve an

acceptable speed along with other attributes of fluency.

7. Stress, rhythm and intonation

o This is the most important characteristic of English pronunciation. The stress-timed

rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important messages.

8. Interaction

o It is important that students have the creativity of conversational negotiation.

Some microskills of oral communication

 Many of the microskills that were presented for listening comprehension apply to speaking, but
some alterations have been made.

o Produce chunks of langauge of different lenghts.

o Produce differences between the English phonemes and allophones.
o Produce English stress patterns, rhythmic structure and intonational contours.
o Produce reduced form of words and phrases.
o Use lexical units to accomplish pragmatic purposes.
o Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery.
o Use strategic devices: pauses, fillers, self-corrections to enhance clarity.
o Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse
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 o Use facial features and body language to convey meanings.
o Etc.

 This list focuses on both the forms and the functions of language. Students need to be shown
the details of how to convey and negotiate meanings in language.

Types of classroom speaking performance

 Similar types of listening performance apply to speaking.

1. Imitative

o It makes reference to the human “tape recorder” speech, where learners practice an
intonation contour, trying to imitate a certain vowel, for example. Imitation of this kind is
not carried out for the purpose of interaction, but for focusing on particular elements of
the language.

o Drills are part of the communicative language classroom. Drills offer students an
opportunity to listen and to repeat certain strings of language that may present some
linguistic difficulty. However, you should not overuse them.

2. Intensive

o It is designed to practice some phonological or grammatical aspect of language.

Intensive speaking can be self-initiated or it can even form some part of some pair work
activity, where learners are “going over” certain forms of language.

3. Responsive

o It makes reference to short replies to teacher or student initiated questions or comments.

These replies are often sufficient and do not extend into dialogues. Such speech can be
meaningful and authentic. For example:

T: How are you today?

S: Fine, and you?
4. Transactional (dialogue)

o Transactional language is carried out for the purpose of conveying or exchanging

specific information. It is an extended form of responsive language. For example,
conversations may have more of a negotiative nature to them than merely responsive
speech. Such conversations could be part of group activity as well.

5. Interpersonal (dialogue)

o It is carried out more for the purpose of maintaining social relationships than for the
transmition of facts and information. These conversations can involve the following
factors:

 a casual register
 colloquial language
 slang
 ellipsis
 sarcasm
 a cover “agenda”

6. Extensive (monologue)

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 o Students at intermediate to advanced levels are asked to give extended monologues in
the form of oral resports, summaries, or perhaps short speeches, Here the register is
more formal and deliberative. These monologues can be planned or inpromptu.

Principles for designing teaching techniques.

1. Techniques should cover the spectrum of learner needs, from language-based focus on
interaction, meaning and fluency.

o We can easily slip into a pattern of providing interactive activities that don’t capitalize on
grammatical pointers or pronunciation tips. Make sure that your tasks include techniques
designed to help students to perceive and use the building blocks of language. Don’t
bore students with repetitious drills, make drilling as meaningful as possible.

2. Techniques should be intrinsically motivating.

o Try to appeal to students’ ultimate goals and interests, to their need for knowledge, for
status, for achieving competence and autonomy. Help them to see how activities will
benefit them. Tell them why you want them to do certain things.

3. Techniques should encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts.

o It takes energy and creativity to devise authentic contexts and meaningful interaction, but
with the help of teacher resource material it can be done. Even drills can be structured to
provide a sense of authenticity.

4. Provide appropriate feedback and correction.

o It is important that you get advantage of your knowledge of English to give the kinds of
corrective feedback that are appropriate at the moment.

5. Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening.

o Many interactive techniques that involve speaking will also include listening. Don’t lose
out opportunities to integrate these two skills since they can reinforce each other.

6. Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication.

o A typical classroom interaction is generally initiated by the teacher. We ask questions,

give directions, provide information and students are coditioned to “speak when spoken
to”. Part of oral communication competence is the ability to initiate conversations, so you
should give students opportunities to initiate oral communication.

7. Encourage the development of speaking strategies.

o Students should have the chance to practice the following strategies:

 asking for clarification (what?)

 asking someone to repeat something (excuse me?)
 using fillers (I mean, well) in order to get time to process
 using conversation maintenance cues ( uh huh, right, yeah, okay)
 using mime and nonverbal expressions to convey meaning

Techniques for teaching oral communication skills

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1. Pronunciation: rhythm and thought groups

o Teach students how to separate prepositional phrases and clauses. Students have to
listen as you read the sentences and they have to mark a slash where you pause. Then
they practice in pairs, pausing where they see a slash.

Eg: if you break a mirror,/ then you will have seven years bad luck,/ unless you throw
the broken pieces in a moving stream./

2. Pronunciation: intonation

o Make students listen to a conversation. Then put the transcription of the conversation on
the board and tell students to try to determine for each utterance whether the speaker
voice ends with a falling or rising pitch. Draw arrows next to each utterance and
play the conversation again.

o Ask students to explain what each sentence means. Then point out that a change in
pitch can indicate a change in meaning. For example: ready? With a rising pitch means
are you ready?, but with a falling pitch, it means I am ready.

3. Pronunciation: stress

o The teacher prepares cards with pictures covering colours, fabrics and items of clothing.
She then sets out a shop situation in which students have to ask for something in the
shop using correct stress and intonation. A dialogue should go like this:
Student: I’d like a red cotton dress, please.
Teacher: Here you are.
Student: No, I asked for a red cotton dress not a blue one.

4. Pronunciation: meaningful minimal pairs

o The teacher teaches pronunciation of minimal pairs in meaningful contexts. For example:

T: This pen leaks

S: Then don’t write with it.
T: This pan leaks.
S: Then don’t cook with it.

5. Grammar

o Students practice the hypothetical would. They should write a personal entry including:
school, job, friends, habits, hobbies and skills. Then they should decide which of these
they would or would not change if they were to live their lives again. After that,
encourage students to share their thoughts, ask questions and comment.

6. Discourse

o Find a cassette or video of people chatting naturally to help students recognize gambits.
Give students a list of expressions and make them listen to a tape so that they tick the
expressions they hear. For example:

Is that right? -------- That’s great! --------

Really? -------- Oh, dear! --------
Er ... hum -------- What a shame! --------

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 7. Strategy consciuosness raising

o Students should consider ways in which they can learn English outside the classroom.
They should plan a program to show how they could make use of the time to do extra
work in English. Then one person should present the plan to the rest of the class.

8. Interactive techniques

o Types of interactive techniques that teachers should take into account: interviews,
guessing games, jigsaw tasks, discussions, problem-solving activities, role-play, ranking
exercises and values of clarification.

9. Individual practice: oral dialogue journals

o For extra-class practice, many teachers recommend using oral dialogue journals so that
students can express themselves orally, convey real concerns and thoughts, practice
speaking , and get feedback from the teacher on both form and content.

Teaching Reading

Reasearch on reding a second language

 These are significant findings that will affect you and your approach to teaching reading
techniques:

1. Reading: a psycholinguistic guessing game

o It makes reference to the bottom-up processing of decoding meaning from the printed
page. Readers must first recognize a multiplicity of linguistic signals (letters, morphemes,
syllables, words, phrases, grammatical cues and discourse markers) and use their
linguistic data processing mechanisms to impose some order on these signals. Then the
reader selects from all this information those data that make some sense, that cohere,
that “mean.” All reading involves a risk (a guessing game) because readers must infer
meanings, decide what to retain and not to retain, and move on.

2. Schema theory and background knowledge

o The schema theory addressess the following questions: how do readers construct
meaning? How do they decide what to hold onto? How do they infer a writer’s message?

o Schema theory makes reference to the fact that the reader brings information,
knowledge, emotion, experience, and culture to the printed word. Skills in reading
depends on the efficient interaction between linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the
world.

o Schema theory emphasizes the other side of the reading process: the top-down or
conceptually driven processing, which brings a whole host of background information
into the area of making decisions about what something “means”.

o Schema can be divided in content schemata and formal schemata:

 Content schemata: what we know about people, the world, culture and the
universe.

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  Formal schemata: what we know about discourse structure.

3. Adult literacy training

o A particualr challenge for teachers has been teaching literacy to adults. For example,
immigrants arriving on the shores of the United States that are non-literate in their native
lnaguages. Both “skills-based” (bottom-up) and “strategy-based” (top-down) approaches
are used in adult literacy training.

Bottom-up processing Top-down processing

Types of written language

 There are more tyoes of written texts than spoken texts. Examples of genres of written language
are the following:

1. non-fiction (reports, editorials, essays, articles, reference (dictionaries, encyclopedias)

2. fiction (novels, short stories, jokes, drama, poetry)
3. letters (personal, bussiness)
4. greeting cards
5. diaries, journals
6. memos
7. messages
8. announcements
9. newspapers
10. academic writng (short answer test responses, reports, essays, papers, theses, books)
11. forms, apllications
12. questionnaires
13. directions
14. signs
15. recipes
16. labels
17. bills
18. maps
19. manuals
20. menus
21. schedules
22. advertisements
23. invitations
24. directories (telephone, yellow papers)
25. comic stripts, cartoons.

 When you encounter one these types of written texts, you usually know what the purpose of
reading is, and therefore you know what to select and not to select for short- and long- term
memory.

 Part of your job as a teacher is to enlighten your students on features of these genres and to help
them to develop strategies for extracting necessary meaning from them.

Characteristics of written language

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 The following characteristics wil help you to:

 diagnose certain reading difficulties arising from the idiosycrasies of written language
 point your techniques toward specific objectives
 remind your students of some of the advantages of the written language over the spoken

1. Permanence

o Spoken language is fleeting (brief). Once you speak a sentence. it vanishes. So the
learner has to make an immediate storage. Written language is permanent, and
therefore, the learner has an opportunity to return again and again to a sentence or even
a whole text.

2. Processing time

o Most reading contexts allow readers to read at their own rates, that it is not the case of
spoken language. Many people who are “slow” readers are made to feel inferior.
However, fast readers do not necessarily achieve an advantage over slow readers.

3. Distance

o Messages can be sent across two dimensions: physical distance and temporal distance.
The task of the reader is to interpret language that was written in some other place at
some other time with only the written words themselves as contextualized clues. In this
case, readers cannot ask the authors what they mean by the message as in face to face
conversations. This descontextualized nature of writing is one of the things that make
reding difficult.

4. Orthography

o Readers must do their best to infer, to interpret, and to “read between lines.” English
orthography is highly predictable from its spoken counterpart, especially when one
considers morphological information as well. Readers should pay attention to the high
frequency of words (of, to, have, do, done, was, etc). Once those words are in place, the
rest of the system can usually be mastered without speacial instruction.

5. Complexity

o Writing and speech present different modes of complexity, and the most salient
difference is in the nature of clauses. Spoken language tends to have shorter clauses
connected by more coordinate conjunctions while writing has longer clauses and more
subordination.

6. Vocabulary

o Written English uses a greater variety of lexical items than spoken English. Because
writing allows the writer more processing time and because of the formal conventions of
writing, lower frequency words often appear. Learners often do not understand some
words; however, they should not use bilingual dictionaries too much, since meaning can
be predicted from the context.

7. Formality

o Writing is more formal than speech. Formality refers to the prescribed forms that certain
written messages must adhere to.

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Microskills for reading comprehension

o Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.

o Retain chunks of language of different lenghts in short-term memory.
o Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
o Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance.
o Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs), systems (tense, agreement,
pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
o Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressedin different grammatical forms.
o Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signalling the relationship
between and among clauses.
o Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for interpretation.
o Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and purpose.
o Infer context by using background knowledge.
o Infer links and connections between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such
relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization
and exeplification.
o Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
o Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in the context of the appropriate
cultural shcemata.
o Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning and skimming, detecting
discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from context, and activating schamata
for the interpretation of texts.

Startegies for reading comprehension

 Some strategies are related to bottom-up procedures and others enhance the top-down processes

1. Identify the purpose in reading

o Efficient reading consists of identifying the purpose in reading something. Make sure
your students know why they are reading what they are reading.

2. Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding (for beginning level learners)

o At beginning levels, when learning to read, students find difficulties in making the
correspondence between spoken and written English. Students may need to be given
explanations about certain English orthographic rules and pecularities.
3. Use efficient silent reading techniques for relatively rapid comprehension (for intermediate to
advanced levels)

o Help your students to increase efficiency by teaching a few silent reading rules:

 You don’t need to “pronounce” each word to yourself.

 Try to visually perceive more than one word at a time.
 Try to infer the meaning of words form the context.

4. Skimming

o It consists of quickly running one’s eyes across a whole texts to get the gist. Skimming
gives readers the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the
main topic or message, and possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas. You
can train students to skim passages by giving them some seconds to read a text and
then ask them what they read.

5. Scanning
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 o It consists of serching for some particular piece or pieces of information in a text.
Scanning exercises may ask students to look for names or dates, to find a definition, or
to list a certain number of supporting details. The purpose of scanning is to extract
certain specific information without reading through the whole text.

6. Semantic mapping or clustering

o When readers are overwhelmed by long ideas and event, the strategy of mapping, or
grouping ideas into meaningful clusters, helps the reader to provide some order to the
chaos.

7. Guessing

o Learners can use guessing to their advantage of:

 guess the meaning of a word

 guess a grammatical relationship
 guess a discourse relationship
 infer implied meanings
 guess about a cultural reference
 guess content messages

o Reading is a “guessing game”. The key to successful guessing is to make it reasonably

accurate. You can help learners to become accurate guessers by encouraging them
effective compensation strategies in which they fill gaps in their competence by
intelligent attempts to use whatever clues are available to them. Language based clues
include word analysis, word associations, and textual structure. Nonlinguistic clues come
from context, situation, and other schemata.

8. Vocabulary analysis

o To analyse vocabulary, encourage students to use the following techniques:

 look for prefixes (co-, inter-, un-) that give clues

 look for suffixes (tion-, tive-) that may indicate what part of speech it is
 look for roots that are familiar
 look for grammatical contexts that may signal information
 look at the semantic context (topic) for clues

9. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings

o This requires the aplication of top-down processing skills. The fact that not all language
can be interpretated appropriately by attending to its literal, syntactic surface structure
makes special demands on readers. Implied meaning usually has to be derived from
processing pragmatic information. For example:

 Mary heard the ice cream man coming down the street, she remembered her
birthday money and rushed into the house.

This example leads the reader, without any context, to believe Mary is
going into the house to get money in order to buy some ice cream.

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 10. Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships

o There are many discourse markers in English that signal relationships among ideas as
expressed through phrases, clauses and sentences. A clear comprehension of such
markers can enhance learners’ reading efficiency. Some examples are:

Notional Category Marker

Enumerative first, second, third, next, then, finally
Additive again, also, moreover, in addition
Logical sequence as a result, consequently, to summarize
Explicative in other words, that is to say, namely
Illustrative for instance, for example
Contrastive however, instead, though, yet

Types of classroom reading performance

Oral reading

 Advantages of oral reading:

o serve as an evaluative check on bottom-up processing skills

o double as a pronunciation check
o add some extra student participation when reading a passage

 Disadvantages of oral reading:

o oral reading is not a very authentic language activity

o while one student is reading, others can easily lose attention (or be silent rehersing the
next paragraph)
o it may have the appearance of “student participation” when in reality it is mere recitation.

Silent reading

 It can be:

 Intensive: is a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or

semantic details of a passage. Intensive reading calls students’ attention to grammatical
forms, discourse markers, and other surface structure for the purpose of understanding
literal meaning, implications, rhetorical relationships, and the like. Intensive reading can be
divided into linguistic and content reading.

 Extensive: is carried out to achieve a general understanding of the text. Technical,

professional and scientific reading can also be extensive. Sometimes extensive reading
involves skimming and scanning strategies for gaining a general sense of a text. At other
times, extensive reading requires reading a text for global or general meanings.

Principles for designing interactive reading techniques

1. In an interactive curriculum, make sure that you don’t overlook the importance of specific
instruction in reading skills.

o Make sure that your students have ample time for extensive reading. Silent reading
allows students to develop a sense of fluency. Silent reading can become an excellent
method for self-instruction on the part of the learner.
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 2. Techniques should be intrinsically motivating.

o Use texts that students can encounter in real life. Focus on your students’ goals in
learning to read English. Give students the chance to create and write a story, so that
that story can then be read by their classmates.

3. Techniques should utilize authentic language and contexts.

4. Encourage the development of reading strategies.

5. Include both bottom-up and top-down techniques.

6. Consider subdividing your techniques into pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading

phases.

o Before you read: spend some time introducing a topic, encouraging skimming, scanning
and activating schemata.

o While you read: there may be certain facts or rhetorical devices that students should
take note of while they read.

o After you read: comprehension questions can be asked for post-reading. Consider
vocabulary study, identifying the author’s purpose, examining grammatical structures, or
doing a written exercise.

7. Build in some evaluative aspect to your techniques.

o You should accurately assess students’ comprehension and development of skills. The
following overt responses indicate comprehension:

 doing: the reader responds physically to a command.

 choosing: the reader selects from alternatives posed orally or in writing.
 ansewring: the reader answers questions about the message.
 others: condensing, extending, duplicating, modeling, and conversing.

Teaching Writing

Research on second language writing

 Three issues will be highlighted for your consideration as you prepare to teach writing skills

1. Process vs. Product

o A few decades ago teachers were mostly concerned with the final product of writing: the
essay, the report, the story, and what that product should “look like.” Compostitions were
supposed to:

a. meet certain standards of prescribed English rhetorical style

b. reflect accurate grammar
c. be organized in conformity with what the audience will consider to be conventional

o Attention was placed on how well a student’s final product measured up against a list of
criteria that included content, organization, vocabulary use, grammatical use, and
spelling and punctuation.

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 o There is nothing wrong with these criteria, in fact, it is still the concern of writing
teachers. But with time, teachers became more concerned with the process of writing,
they began to see learners as creators of language. Teachers allowed students to focus
on content and message. Process approaches do the following:

a. focus on the process pf writing that leads to the final product

b. help students to understand their composing process
c. help them to build strategies such as prewriting, drafting and rewriting
d. give students time to write and rewrite
e. place central importance on the process of revision
f. let students discover what they want to say as they write
g. give students feedback
h. encourage feedback both from the instructor and peers
i. include individual conferences between teacher and student during the process of
composition

o The process approach is an attempt to give students a chance to think as they write.
Writing is seen as a thinking process.

The new emphasis on process writing must be seen in the perspective of a balance
between process and product. The product should be the ultimate goal, it should be
the reason whay we go through the process of prewriting, drafting, revising, and
editing. The process is not the end, it is the means to the end.

2. Contrastive Rhetoric

o According to Robert Kaplan, learners of English bring with them certain predispositions,
which come from their native languages, about how to organize their writing.

o In our current paradigm of attending carefully to schemata and scripts, native language
patterns of thinking and writing simply cannot be ruled out. So you should carefully
attend to the rhetorical first language interference that may be at play in your students’
writing, considering students’ cultural/literary schemata as one possible source of
difficulty.

o You should value students’ native language-related rhetorical traditions, and guide them
through a process of understanding those schemata, but not attempting to eradicate
them. That self- understanding on the part of the students may lead them to appreciate
and use English rhetorical conventions.

3. Authenticity

o This third issue surrounds the question of how much of our classroom writing is “real”
writing. Here, you should distinguish between real and display writing.

 Real writing: when the reader doesn’t know the “answer” and genuily wants
information.

 Display writing: instances of display writing are written exercises, short answer
essays, and other writing in test situations.

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 o In your classroom, you should balance between real and display writing. In content-
based, theme-based and task-based (real writing) ESL courses, students can be given
the opportunity to convey genuine information on topics of intrinsic interest. Display
writing can get your students to perform well in display writing exercises, they can learn
skills that will help them to succeed in further academic pursuits.

Characteristics of written language

1. Permanence

o Once something is written down and delivered in its final form to its intended
audience, the writer abdicates a certain power: power to emend, to clarify, to withdraw. So,
help students to revise and refine their work before final submission. This will help to give
them confidence in their work.

2. Production time

o Given appropriate stretches of time, a writer can become a “good” writer by

developing efficient processes to achieve the final product. However, many educational
contexts demand student writing within time limits. So, one of your goals would be to train
your students to make the best possible use of such time limitations.

3. Distance

o One problem that students have to face is anticipating their audience. Writers need
to be able to predict the audience’s general knowledge, cultural and literary schemata,
specific subject-matter knowledge, and very importantly, how their choice of language will
be interpreted.

4. Orthography

o If students are non-literate in the native language, you must begin at the very
beginning with fundamentals of reading and writing. For literate students, if their native
language system is not alphabetic, new symbols have to be produced by hands that may
have gotten too accustomed to another system. If the native language has a different
phoneme-grapheme system, then some attention is due here.

5. Complexity

o Writers must learn how to remove redundancy, how to combine sentences, how to
make reference to other elements in a text, how to create syntactic and lexical variety, and
much more.

6. Vocabulary

o Writing demands more vocabulary use than does speaking. Good writers will learn to
take advantage of the richness of English vocabulary.

7. Formality

o For ESL students, the most difficult and complex conventions occur in academic
writing where students have to learn how to describe, explain, compare, contrast, illustrate,
defend, criticize and argue.

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Microskills for writing

o Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.

o Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
o Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order patterns.
o Use acceptable grammatical systems (tense, agreement, pluralization), patterns and rules.
o Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.
o Use cohesive devices in written discourse.
o Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse.
o Accomplish the communicative functions of written texts according to form and purpose.
o Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as main
idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and
exemplification.
o Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing.
o Convey culturally specific references in the context of the written text.
o Develop and use battery of writing strategies, such as assessing the audience’s
interpretation, using pre-writing devices, using paraphrases and synonyms, suing feedback
for revising and editing, etc.

Types of classroom writing performance

1. Imitative, or, writing down

o At the beginning level of learning to write, students will simply write down English
letters, words and sentences in order to learn the conventions of the orthographic code.
Some forms of dictation fall into this category. They typically involve the following steps:

 Teacher reads a short paragraph at normal speed.

 Teacher reads the paragraph in short phrase units, and each unit is followed by a pause.
 During the pause, students write exactly what they hear.
 Teacher reads the whole paragraph again so that students can check their writing.
 Teacher scores students’ written work. Spelling and punctuation errors are not
considered as severe as grammatical errors.

2. Intensive, or, controlled

o Writing is sometimes used as a production mode for learning, reinforcing, or testing

grammatical concepts. This intensive writing appears in controlled, written grammar
exercises.

o A common form of controlled writing is to present a paragraph to students in which

they have to alter a given structure. For example, changing all present tense verbs to past

3. Self-writing

o The most salient instance of self-writing in the classroom is note-taking, where

students take notes during the lecture for the purpose of later recall.

o Diary or journal writing also falls into this category. However, in recent years, more
and more dialogue journal writing takes place, where students write thoughts, feelings and
reactions in a journal and an instructor reads and responds.

4. Display writing

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 o For all language students, short answer exercises, essay examinations, and
research reports will involve an element of display. One of the academic skills that ESL
students need to master is a whole array of display writing techniques.

5. Real writing

o Some classroom writing aims at the genuine communication of messages to an

audience in need of those messages. The two categories of real and display writing are
actually two ends of a continuum, and in between the two extremes lie some practical
instances of a combination of display writing and real. Three subcategories illustrate how
reality can be injected:
 Academic:

The Language Experience Approach gives students opportunities to convey genuine

information to each other. Content-based instruction encourages the exchange of useful
information, and some of this learning uses the written word. Group problem-solving
tasks may have a writing component in which information is genuinely sought and
conveyed. Peer-editing also provides real writing opportunity.

 Vocational/technical:

Real writing can take place in classes of students studying English for advancement in
their occupation. Real letters can be written, genuine directions for some operation might
be given, and actual forms can be filled out.

 Personal:

In any ESL class, diaries, letters, post cards, notes, personal messages, and other
informal writing can take place. While certain tasks may be somewhat contrived, the
genuine exchange of information can happen.

Principles or designing writing techniques

1. Incorporate practices of “good” writers

o You should consider the various things that good writers do, and see if your
techniques include some of these practices. For example good writers:

 focus on a main idea in writing

 gauge their audience
 spend some time planning to write
 let their first ideas flow onto a paper
 follow an organizational plan as they write
 revise their work efficiently
 make as many revisions as needed

2. Balance process and product

o Make sure that the application of the process principle does not detract from a
careful focus on the product as well.

3. Account for cultural/literary backgrounds

o Make sure that your techniques do not assume that your students know English
rhetorical conventions. If there are some apparent contrasts between students’ native
traditions and those that you are trying to teach, try to help students to understand what
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 it is that they are accustomed to and then bring them to the use of acceptable English
rhetoric.

4. Connect reading and writing

o Students learn to write by reading or observing the written word. By reading and
studying a variety of relevant types of texts, students can gain important insights both
about how they should write and about subject matter that may become the topic of their
writing.

5. Provide as much authentic writing as possible

o Writing that is shared with other students in the class is one way to add authenticity.
Other ways of authentic writing can be publishing a class newsletter, writing letters to
people outside of class, writing a script for a dramatic presentation, writing a resume,
writing advertisements, etc.

6. Frame your techniques in terms of prewriting, drafting, and revising stages

o The pre-writing stage encourages the generation of ideas, which can happen in
numerous ways:

 reading passage
 skimming or scanning a passage
 brainstorming
 listing
 clustering
 discussing a topic or question

o The drafting and revising stages are the core of process writing. Students can write
compostitions in class or they can be given a homework writing assignment. Several
skills apply to the drafting/revising processin writing:

 getting started
 optimal monitoring of one’s writing
 peer-editing (accepting and using classmates’ comments)
 using the instructor’s feedback
 read aloud technique (students read their final drafts to each other for a final check
on errors, flow of ideas, etc)

7. Techniques should be as interactive as possible

o Writing instruction is an interactive process since students work in pairs and groups
to generate ideas and to peer-edit, they also initiate activities and exchange ideas. So
writing is not a solitary activity. Writing can be most effectively learned withing a
community of learners.

8. Apply methods of responding to and correcting your students’ writing

o In writing, error treatment can begin in the drafting and revising stages. Errors should
be treated through self-correction, peer-correction and instructor initiated-comments.

o Guidelines for responding to the first draft:

 resist the temptation to correct minor grammatical errors.

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  resist the temptation to rewrite students’ sentences
 comment, in a general way, the clarity of the thesis and general structural
organization.
 comment on the introductory paragraph.
 comment on features that appear irrelevant to the topic,
 look at word choices and awkward expressions

o Guidelines for responding to the subsequent drafts:

 indicate minor grammatical and mechanical erros, but do not correct them.
 comment on the main ideas, supporting ideas, and on argument and logic.
 check cohesive devices within and across paragraphs
 comment on sources and documentation.
 comment on the conclusion

9. Instruct students on the rhetorical, formal, conventions of writing

o Each type of writing has its formal properties. For academic writing, for example, some
of the features of English rhetorical dicourse that writers use to explain, propose
solutions, debate, and argue are as follows:

 a clear statement of the thesis, or topic, or purpose

 use of main ideas to develop thesis
 use of supporting ideas
 suppoting by telling (describing) and showing (given evidence)

10. Make your final evaluation of student writing consistent with your overall approach

o Categories for evaluating writing:

 Content: thesis statement, related ideas, development of ideas, focus.
 Organization: effectiveness of introduction, logical sequence of ideas, conclusion,
appropriate length.
 Discourse: topic sentences, paragraph unity, transitions, cohesion, fluency,
reference, variation, rhetorical conventions.

Teaching Culture

A. Ommagio: Teaching for Cultural Understanding

“The land of the monolingual”

 An understanding of the way of life of foreign people is important to survive in a world of

conflicting value systems.

 The ability to communicate in another language requires knowledge of the patterns of living,
acting, reacting, seeing and explaining the world of the target country as well. The study of
language must be integrated with the study of language as well.

 Communicative proficiency is important because it requires a growing awareness of the most

effective and appropriate means of communicating with native speakers in various social
settings and circumstances (greetings, introductions, asking for information, interacting at
mealtime, etc).

 Students need to be sensitive to the way language use reflects and implies the kind of
relationship between speakers and that appropriate language use can be often offensive or
cause misunderstanding.
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 The successful integration of culture and language teaching can contribute significantly to
general humanistic knowledge.

Difficulties in teaching culture

 First, the study of culture involves time that many teachers don’t feel they can spare in an
overcrowded curriculum.

 Second, many teachers are afraid to teach culture because they fear that they don’t know
enough about it. According to Seelsy, teachers’ proper role is not to impart facts, but to help
students attain the skills necessary to make sense out of the facts they discover in their study of
the target language.

 Third, teachers are foten confused about what aspects of culture to teach and feel the need for
some sort of organizing scheme that would aid them selecting appropriate cultural content.
Teachers are afraid of teaching culture because it involves dealing with students’ attitudes.

 Galloway characterizes common approaches to teaching culture:

1. The Frankenstein Approach: a taco from here, a flamenco dancer from there.
2. The 4-F Approach: folk dancers, festivals, fairs and food.
3. The Tour Guide Approach: the identification of monuments, rivers and cities.
4. The “By-the- Way” Approach: sporadic lectures or bits of behavior selected indiscriminantly
to emphasize shap contrasts.

Definitions, models, inventories, and frameworks: Capturing the essence of culture

 Brooks’ definition of culture: culture as everything in human life and as the best in human life.

 Seelye’s definition of culture: it’s a broad concept that embraces all aspects of human life, “from
folktales to carve whales.” This definition includes the patterns of everyday life, the do’s and
dont’s of personal behavior, and all the points of interaction between the individual and the
society.

 Many foreign language educators felt that knowing the language, as well as the patterns of
everyday life, was a prerequisite to appreciating the fine arts and literature.

 In 1968, Brooks facilitated the analysis of culture through a five-stage definition encompassing
all aspects of social life:

o Culture 1: Biological growth

o Culture 2: personal refinement
o Culture 3: literature and fine arts
o Culture 4: Patterns of living
o Culture 5: The sum total to a way of life

 Brooks identified 10 points around which culture study could be based: symbolism, value,
authority, order, ceremony, love, honour, humor, beauty, and spirit.

 Seelye’s goal of cultural instruction:

1. The sense, or functionality of culturally conditioned behaviour: students should be able to

demonstrate an understanding that people act the way they do because they are using the
options the society allows for satisfying their basic physical and psychological needs.

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 2. Interaction of language and social variables: students should demonstrate an understanding
that social variables such as age, sex, social class and place of residence affects the way
people speak and behave.

3. Conventional behaviour in common situations: students should indicate an ability to

demonstrate how people conventionally act in the most mundane and crisis situations in the
target language.

4. Cultural connotations of word and phrases: students should indicate an awareness that
culturally conditioned images are associated images with even the most common target
words and phrases.

5. Evaluating statements about a society: students should demonstrate the ability to evaluate
the relative strength of a generality concerning the target culture in terms of the amount of
evidence substantiating the statement.

6. Researching another culture: students should show that they have developed the skills
needed to locate and organise information about the target culture from the library, the mass
media, people and personal observations.

7. Attitudes toward other culture: students should demonstrate intellectual curiosity about the
target culture and empathy toward its people.

 Galloway proposes the development of a framework for building cultural understanding based
on process skills. She suggests organizing instruction around:

1. Convention: it provides students with information about how people behave, both
linguistically and extralinguistically, in common everyday situations.

2. Connotation: makes reference to the point at which culture and language come together to
form meaning. It deals with developing the learners’ inferencing skills at several levels of
communication.

3. Conditioning: it refers to the fact that people act in a manner consistent with the structure of
their own culturally conditioned system. Students need to learn interpretative skills, focusing
on processes such as withholding judgement and evaluation based on their own standards,
learning to question and learning to observe.

4. Comprehension: it encompasses skills such as analysis hypothesis formation and tolerance

of ambiguity. It consists of avoiding generalizations, recognizing that the behavior of one
individual doesn’t necessarily reflect the behavior of the society as a whole, and learning
about ways to resolve conflicts through simulations that are experience-based.

 Hanvey presents one possible model for arranging an instructional sequence for the teaching of
culture.

o Level 1: information about the cuture may consist of superficial or visible traits, such as
isolated facts and stereotypes. The individual sees the culture as odd, bizarre and exotic.
Ideas are often expressed in terms of what the culture lacks.

o Level 2: learners focus on expanded knowledge about the culture in terms of both significant
and subtle traits that contrast with those of their own culture. The individuals might find the
culture bearers’ behaviour frustrating, irritating, or nonsensical.

o Level 3: the individual begins to accept the culture at an individual level, the culture
becomes believable because it can be explained.

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 o Level 4: this is the level of empathy and it is achieved through living in and through the
culture. The individual begins to see the culture from the viewpoint of the insider.

Strategies for teaching culture

Some general considerations

Goals of culture instruction:

1. Present cultural topics in conjunction with related thematic units and closely related
vocabulary and grammatical content.
2. Use variety of techniques for teaching culture that involve speaking, listening, reading and
writing.
3. Treat cultural topics.
4. Use cultural information when teaching vocabulary. Teach students about the connotative
meaning of words.
5. Group vocabulary into culture-related clusters.
6. Use cultural context for language-practice activities.
7. Use small-group techniques, such as discussions, brainstorming and role-plays, for cultural
understanding.

Formats that can be used to teach culture in a purposeful, integrative fashion

o The Lecture

 This strategy can be effective if teachers are careful to keep it brief, enliven it with visuals,
realia and personal experience, focus on some specific aspects of cultural experience,
have students take notes and use follow-up techniques.

o Native Informants

 They can be valuable resources to the classroom teacher as a source of current

information about the target culture and as a linguistic model for students.

o Audiotaped Interviews

 Information about the target culture may be easily obtained by means of informal interviews
with a native speaker.

o Videotaped Interviews/ Observational Dialogues

 They are excellent for providing natural, authentic linguistic exchange that include
paralinguistic information. They can be used to demonstrate not only conventional
language in a variety of survival situations (greetings, accepting/refusing invitations, getting
a room at a hotel, asking directions, asking for a date, etc), but also convetional gestures
and other cultural features, such as appropriate social distance, eye contact, etc.

o Culture Capsules

 A culture capsule is a short description of one minimal difference between an American

and target culture custom, accompanied by illustrative photos, slides or realia. The
technique can be used for independent study, in small groups or with the whole class.

o Culture Clusters

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  They consist of about 3 illustrated culture capsules that develop related topics plus one 30
minute simulation that integrates the information in the capsules and dramatizes it through
a skit or situational role-play. The development of the culture cluster must best be
approached by selecting a central theme and working backwards to arrive at three or four
components that might lend themselves to culture capsules. Eg: a videotaped sequence of
greetings, invitations and arrival at the host’s house could be easily converted into a culture
cluster by supplementing each segment of the tape with a culture capsule description of
greeting behavior, extending invitations, setting the table, arriving at the host’s home for
dinner and appropriate guess etiquette.

o Audio-Motor Unit

 This technique is most appropriate for young students. Through a series of 10 to 20

commands in the second language and based on a cultural event or theme, linguistic,
visual and cultural input are combined to elicit a physical response for learners

o Identifying Culturally Conditioned Behavior

 Teaching ideas have been grouped under this category to illustrate how students might be
sensitised to contrasts and commonalities in conventional behavior in the home and target
culture.

o Deriving Cultural Connotations

 Students learn to associate culturally representative images with words and phrases thay
are learning in the new language. This technique includes the use of visual support
materials and word-association activities.

 Word Association: discussions about the significance and differences in word-

association chains reveal how words cannot simply be translated from one language
to the other, but must be situated in their own cultural context to be truly
comprehended.

 Definition of an Abstract Concept: shows that words in different cultures have

different meanings associated with the term.

o Hypothesis Refinement

 Jostad describes a seven-step process that enables students to refine their initial
perceptions of an aspect of the target culture through research skills.

 Step 1: students perceive an aspect of the culture through learning materials, teacher
presentation, etc.
 Stage 2: students make a statement about the culture as a result of this perception.
 Stage 3: students seek multiple sources of information about the statements, such as
newspapers, movies, books, etc.
 Stage 4: students question and compare their sources; examining them for potential
limitations, such as publication date, intended audience and purpose.
 Stage 5: students modify the statement in step 2 and continue to seek additional
information that can refine the statement further.
 Stage 6: students examine a related feature of their own culture using the same
process.
 Step 7: students compare their refined statement about their own and target culture,
describing similarities and differences.

o Artifact Study

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  It is designed to help students discern the cultural significance of certain unfamiliar objects
from the target culture. The activity involves giving descriptions and forming hypotheses
about the function of the unknown objects.

o Decreasing Stereotypic Perceptions

 This type of activities help students understand the dangers of making unwarranted
generalizations about the people of another culture and help sensitise them to variability
with cultures that such generalizations can never capture. Stereotypes are more harmful if
they create barriers to understanding and preventing the development of empathy.

Building empathy for a culture

o Culture Assimilators: a culture assimilator has 3 basic parts:

1. A critical incident illustrating a point of miscommunication between an American and

a member of the target culture, presented in narrative or dramatic form.
2. One or more multiple-choice questions dealing with the identification, analysis and
explanation of the point of conflict.
3. Feedback paragraphs in response to each of the multiple-choice alternatives,
explaining whether or not the choice is likely and giving additional cultural information
when necessary.

o Culture Minidrama

 This consists of 3 to 5 brief episodes, each of which has one or more examples of
miscommunication. Additional information is given to students between each of the
episodes, but not enough to identify the precise cause of the misunderstanding which
becomes apparent only in the last scene. Each episode is followed by class discussion.
Students see how they might jump to false conclusions about the people in the target
culture because they are reacting on the basis of their own ethnocentric biases and
perceptions.

Two types of culture

Big C Little
C
music art beliefs values
literature behavior

Olympian Culture Heartstone Culture

MLA Culture BBV Culture

Celce - Murcia: Building Awareness and Practical Skills to Facilitate Cross-Cultural Communication.

Introduction

 Culture includes forms of seepch acts, rhetorical structure of texts, socio-cultural behaviors, and
ways in which knowledge is transmitted and obtained.

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 Culture may find its manifestations in body language, gestures, concepts of time, hospitality,
customs and expressions of friendship.

 To a great extent, the culture into which one is socialized defines how an individual sees his or
her place in society.

 Learners should become communicatively competent. To become proficient and effective

communicators, they need to attain second language sociocultural competence. For example,
when students copy excerpts from books, Internet sites, or other sources. Although some
students may think that they are expressing respect for the author’s ideas, in an English-
language college or university this means plagiarism.

 Not understanding sociocultural expectations could impact non-native speakers’ ability to

function in a second language community. Learners should learn about culture in language
learning since it influences the values of the community, everyday interaction, the norms of
speaking and behaving, and the sociocultural expectations of individuals’ roles.

The visible and the invisible culture

 Visible culture: makes reference to aspect of culture that are apparent to anyone and can be
easily discussed and explained. For example, describing the history or geography of a country
or the style of dress, cuisine, customs, festivals and traditions.

 Invisible culture: makes reference to aspects of culture that most people are not aware of and
cannot examine intellectually. For instance, sociocultural norms, beliefs, assumptions and value
systems.

 The culturally determined concepts of what is acceptable, appropriate and expected in one’s
behavior is acquired during the process of socialization and, hence, becomes inseparable from
an individual’s identity.

Why second culture learning does not take care of itself?

o Culture doesn’t represent a separate domain in language instruction, as speaking and

writing, instead, the learning of second language culture makes learners better
communicators.
o The crucial sociocultural principles that determine the norms of appropriate and polite
behavior and language use within the society represent the invisible culture. Cultural
assumptions are abstract, organized and general concepts which pervade a person’s
outlook and behavior. To members of a particular community and culture, these
assumptions appear to be self-evident and axiomatic. But, they aren’t alwys shared by
members of other cultures.
o Ways of using language and sociocultural frameworks in different communities may conflict.

Second and foreign language: identifying learners’ needs and goals

 Learners who live and study in English-speaking communities have a much greater need for
developing cultural competece than those who study EFL as a part of their foreign language
requirements.

 Those learners who live, study or work in English-speaking communities need to be aware of
how the use of English they are exposed to reflects the sociocultural norms of the second
language community. For these individuals, a lack of language skill, such as speaking or writing,
can prevent them from getting opprotunities for better grades, jobs, and social relationships.

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 The purpose of teaching culture together with other language skills is to increase learners’
interactional as well as linguistic competencies.

Teaching cross-cultural awareness in the language classroom

 The most important long-term benefits of teaching culture may be to provide students with the
awareness and the tools that will allow them to achieve their academic, professional, social, and
personal goals and become successfull in their daily functionaning in L2 environments.

 L2 learners may experience difficulties because they do not always understand what is
expected of them and don’t have the access to the necessary sociocultural contepts. For
example, when they are assigned to read material at home, many professors expect them to be
able to master the content and discuss it the next day. However, students often come to class
unprepared because they may not always understand that a high degree of familiarity with the
text is required.

Causes and outcomes of sociocultural values

o Because of sociocultural norms for politeness, appropriateness and property are required
during socialization, learners are exposed only to the outcomes of linguistic and other types
of behavior and not their causes. For example, many learners conclude that their native
speakers’ classmates do not want to share their notes because they, natives, may not like
them. However, this reluctance may be due to a number of other reasons.

The importance of noticing

o In learning about the impact of sociocultural norms on language use, the first step is noticing
that these norms exist in all languages.

o Learners need to become astute and consistent people-watchers. They should separate
individual behaviour from those that are culturally determined.

o Identifying the sociocultural purposes and causes of L2 linguistic behaviors in a community

allows learners to identify cultural patterns situations, to understand how they are realized in
other situations, and to anticipate their manifestations in the future.

o The fundamental factors to consider in all interactions are: gender of the speakers, ages,
similarities or disparities in their social status, the social distance between the hearer and
the speaker, the purposes of the speech events, the time available for the interaction, and
its physical setting and location.

o In their investigations, learners should pay attention to politeness routines, expressions and
phrases that are employed by speakers or hearers, and then identify the reasons for the use
of these language devices.

Practice, practice, practice

o The primary goal is to make learners aware of the linguistic and social factors that play a
crucial role in interactions in any language or culture.

o In teaching EFL, the next step would be to compare the politeness and conversational
routines in the learners’ L1 to those found in English-language materials.

o Students can be assigned to investigate various types of speech acts such as making
appointments, seeking clarifications, responding to requests, etc.

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 o Learners should not only note the linguistic and situational variables in interaction, but also
they should focus on the sociocultural features of speaking and behaving.

Teaching culture and the ways of speaking

 Teachers can taught specific speech acts with a focus on repeated and frequently routinized
uses of language, along with the differences according to the social status of the speaker and
the hearer, and other situational factors. They should also teach appropriate body language and
gestures.

 However, the key to productive culture teaching is to provide learners with the tools to enable
them to become aware of the sociolinguistic norms reflected in the ways of speaking in the
community.

 The violations of cultural norms of appropriateness in interactions between native and non-
native speakers often leads to sociopragmatic failure and uncomfortable breakdowns in
communication.

 Students should be aware of the sociocultural features of interaction so as to provide them with
appropriate choices.

The pragmatic function and a linguistic form

o In teaching L2 speaking and pragmatics, two overteaching goals lie at the focus of
instruction:

1. The pragmatic function: is the sociocultural goal of speech acts, such as requests,
apologies, compliments, complaints that can be found practically in every curriculum
for teaching speaking.
2. The linguistic form of speech acts and conversational routines is one of the most
easily accessible areas in teaching L2 speaking. Eg: could you give me a penny?

o To increase learner’s linguistic repertoire, use textbooks that devote attention to the forms of
polite and casual expressions, idioms, short dialogues, pronunciation and intonation.

Sociocultural variables in interaction

o A sociocultural variable makes a particular expression or speech act simultaneouslly

appropriate. It is not common to hear ESL learners say How is going? or What’s up? to
peers and professors.

o It is the sociocultural features, such as gender, age, and the social status of the participants
in the interaction that can create pragmatic failure.

o Students should be able to distinguish between utterances that are appropriate in peer-level
interactions and those which are used in conversational exchanges with hearers who have
different sociocultural status. For example, How is going? and What’s up? are used in short
and casual encounters with friends, but they are not the best options when talking to a
teacher or a boss.

Variability of politeness

o Students should be able to evaluate the degree of politeness in conversational openers and
explain the factors that make one expression more appropriate than other. For example
which expression seems more polite: I want to make an appointment, I would like to make
an appointment, Could I make an appointment?

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 o They should be able to say what specific words and constructions make one expression
more polite than the other, who the people in the situation are, and if the people involved
have equal power.

o With the teacher’s guidance students should be able to identify the linguistic, pragmatic and
situational features of language that come into play in conversational exchanges.
A pragmatic force and a linguistic form

o It is important to determine the pragmatic force (interactional/conversational purpose) of

expressions used in daily interactions. For example, how are you today? or how it’s going?
are not intended to be real questions or conversation openers. Rather, their pragmatic force
is to be a greeting to signal to hearers that they are recognized or acknowledged. These
expressions contrast with the formulaic expressions of how have you been lately? or how
are you? However, because the linguistic form of these two types of expressions is similar,
many learners interpret their pragmatic force to be equivalent.
o Students should be aware of the divergencies between the form and the conversational
intent of pragmatic routines in English. The pragmatic force of formulaic conversational
expressions and exchanges may be difficult for learners to determine since it is not always
apparent from the linguistic form and content. Examples include:

 Call me sometime vs. Call me on Tuesday

 Let’s have lunch some time vs. Let’s have lunch on Friday
 Call me any time vs. Call me if you have any question

o Many conversational routines are closely tied to the sociocultural variables that affect the
interactional effect of an expression or routine, and these variables should be taught to
learners.

Culture in the teaching of writing

 In English, what is appropriate and inappropriate in academic written discourse is highly

conventionalized.

 L2 writing instruction focuses on fundamental features of written academic discourse, such as:

 the organization (introduction, body, conclusion)

 the presence and the placement of the thesis statement
 the structure of the paragraph (thesis statement)
 the rhetorical support of the thesis statement included in every paragraph
 avoidance of digressions, repetition and redundancy.

 These features need to be explicitly taught simce they represent conventionalized

characteristics.

The sociocultural construction of writing and literacy

o In writing instructions, learners are typically presented with models and examples of
paragraphs and essays to demonstrate the discoure paradigms commonly accepted in
Anglo-American writing. But even with explicit instruction, students are not able to regocnize
the rhetorical features of the L2 discourse, much less produce these features.

o As in most L2 instructions, in the course of writing instruction, students are faced with the
outcomes, and not with the causes, of the L2 sociocultural norms and conventions, making
harder for them to understand and aplly what they are instructed to do. (why should the

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 thesis be placed at the beginning of an essay if I know that it should be in the conclusion?
Why does the teacjer say that this example is not clear when I think that is tis very clear?)

o When faced with croos-cultural contradictions and uncertainty, people tend to impose their
own perpectives in an effort to dispel the amibiguity created by the norms of
appropriateness found in a second culture and to assume unconsciously that their own ways
are normal, natural and right.

Writing within sociocultural contexts of language use

o Teaching combined, parallel sociocultural features when working with various L2 skills helps
learners to understand the influence of sociocultural factors on how language is used and it
establishes a context for explaining why members of a particular culture do things in a
particular way.

o In the teaching of L2 writing, teachers may draw on many examples from speaking and
establishing parallels to help learners develop cultural awareness in language use.

o One of the problems in the teaching of writing is that students often do not provide the
amount of support and detail in their writing to make their points meaningful and convincing.
So teachers need to provide explicit instruction on L2 reader expectation, the value of
explicit explanations in the Anglo-American rhetorical tradition, and their uses in writing.

The tricky nature of second and foreign language reading

 Two main types of materials are employed in teaching reading:

 Highly controlled and often simplified readings from ESL/EFL textsbooks: they are used to
develop students’ reading tactics and strategies and to improve their vocabulary base.

 Authentic materials: they can include a great variety of genres (articles, publications on
health, sports, literature, etc.)

 Students can read for pleasure or for information. However, when they are reading in their L2,
they read for information.

Culture in reading textbooks

o Because textbooks present limited and controlled ideas, vocabulaty and culturally-
dependent concepts, they may not be the best means of explaining how the second culture
affects langauge use. However, even within the limited scope of textbook reading, learners
may encounter comprehension difficulties that have to do with culture.

o Reading may turn out to be problematic if learners are often expected to rely on thir won
experience to provide textual inferences and construct the context. That is why, a
considerable amount of background teaching and explanation may be necessary for
learners to interpret the text appropriately and to identify its main points.

The cultural load of authentic texts

o Culture teaching in L2 goes far beyond instruction in vocabulary, idioms and collocations,
which are essential to understand a text. Context and culture specific connotations and
implications of of word ad phrase meanings also need to be addressed. Sociocultural
meanings and values also affect a learner’s ability to comprehend texts and the contexts in
which they are employed.

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 o In authentic texts (news magazines and literature), culture-specific references, allusions,
metaphors, and symbolism play a prominent role.

o Readings selected for culture and L2 teaching combined can be examined for discourse and
text organization, cultural concepts, vocabulary, grammar, and the conventions of written
English. The readings can be selected relatively easily to be appropriate for various levels of
reading proficiency and the range of attendant L2 skills. It is important, however, not to miss
an opportunity to engage learners in a discussion of how culture impacts language use.

Developing effectiveness in the classroom

 Because most individuals are socialized into their first culture, they are usuallt unaware of the
influence of culture on language. To become effective, classroom teachers are often faced with
the need to develop their professional knowledge of the fundamental sociocultural variables
essential for L2 teaching.

 Cultural concepts affect how learners learn and teachers teach. Thus, classroom teachers need
to advance their knowledge of how learners’ first cultures work and how they impact their ability
to learn. For example, why some students rarely speak in class? Why some people never ask
questions when they need an axplanation?

Teach, teach yourself

o The teacher doesn’t need to know about the culture of each student, she should be primarily
concerned with cultural considerations that have a direct impact on her students’ ability to
learn and do their best in a second language and in a second culture environment. For
instance, if students from a particular culture do not participate in class, it would be
interesting to find out why this is so.

o Thus, the teachers’ first priority is to identify their own needs in culture learning, in addition
to those of their students. Another consideration is to investigate how teachers’ own
socioculturally determined beliefs, assumptions, and expectations affect their views on
students learning and behaviors. For example, if a student does not want to speak up, the
teacher may allow the student to maintain silence.

Making choices

o One of the central objectives in developing effectiveness in culture instruction is to address

the casual knowledge about culture and the sociocultural reasoning that underlies practically
all culturally determined behavior.
o Examining the causes that lead members of a particular culture to do something in a
particular way helps learners make choices in speaking, writing and behaving.

o To help learners make appropriate choices, teachers need to develop cultural knowledge
and classroom effectiveness. For example, in many English-speaking communities,
students are expected to arrive to class on time. Students should know this to make the
choice of arriving to class on time so as not to be disrespectful.

Research on culture and specific cultures

 Two parallel types of research have been carried out to identify the role of culture in society and
its influence on human behavior. They can be helpful for learners to become more aware of the
connection between the culture of the community and the language of its speakers.

1. Research into culture in general: the research on culture as it applies to social norms,
beliefs, assumptions, and value systems that affect many human activities is carried out in

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 the domains of ethnography, anthropology, sociology and intercultural communication. In
these disciplines, culture is examined in terms that apply to most human societies and
organizations, and research on culture seeks to determine the similarities and differences
that exist in human constructions in reality.

2. Research into specific cultures: research in ethnography, anthropology, and apllied

linguistics includes studies of specific cultures, such as American, Chinese, Japanese or
Mexican. These studies identify and describe ways of doing, speaking, and behaving in
specific cultural communities, without necessarily attempting to determine commonalities
and differences among various cultures.

Creating materials to build cross-cultural awareness

 Materials for teaching cultural concepts and implications can be easy to create.

1. In teaching ESL, one of the most effective activities that can be used for investigating a
second culture are interviews of native speakers or experienced L2 learners because they
provide testimonials and evidence that comes from real people.

o The advange of conducting interviews is tthat it allows students to practice a

variety of skills.
o Interviews also allow students access to the invisible aspects of L2 culture.
o Students can work eliciting the polite and appropriate requests for
appointments/meetings, “softening” devices, approapriate telephone or e-mail
skillsm negotiating the times ans places for meeting, and seeking clarification.

2. In EFL settings, learners can work on questionnaires identifying the manifestation of culture
in language use and highlightening learners’ awareness of politeness norms, sociocultural
variables, pragmatic functions, and linguistic forms of speech acts.

3. In either ESL or EFL, home videos, movie clips, and videotaped excerpts from newscasts
and TV programmes can provide resources for examining the influence of culture on
language, interactional practices, body language, turn-taking, etc.

Conclusion

 It is important for both teachers and students to be aware of the manifestations and outcomes
of L2 sociocultural values, concepts, and norms on people’s speech and behavior.

 Learners need to be taught to notice polite expressions and behaviors common in the L2
community to become interactionally competent in the L2. An awareness of the L2 cultural
norms can allow learners to make their oen informed choices of what to say and how to say it.

 Teaching L2 culture together with speaking, listening, reading and writing represents the
connections between language and culture. You should not teach language skills and culture in
isolation.

UNIT 5

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 Supporting Materials and Aids

Techniques, Textbooks and Technology

Brown

 There is important background for designing and implementing techniques in the classroom:

1. Principled teaching: your teaching is derived from a set of principles that form the skeleton
of an overall approach to language learning and teaching.

2. Contexts of learning: part of your principled approach involves an understanding of who

your learners are. How old are they? How proficient are they? What are their goals in
language learning?

Techniques redefined

1. Task: a specialized form of technique closely allied with communicative curricula, and as
such must minimally have communicative goals. It focuses on authentic use of language for
meaningful communicative purposes beyond the language classroom.

2. Activity: anything that learners do in the classroom. It’s a unified set of student behaviors,
limited in time, preceded by some direction from the teacher, with a particular objective.

3. Procedure: the actual moment-to-moment techniques, practices and behaviors that operate
in teaching a language according to a particular method.

4. Practice, behavior, exercise, strategy: these terms refer to what is defined as a technique.

5. Technique: refers to various activities that either teachers or learners perform in the
classroom. Techniques include all tasks and activities. They are almost always planned and
deliberate. They are the product of a choice made by the teacher. They refer to the
pedagogical units or components of a classroom session.

Categorizing techniques: a bit of history

 Several rubrics have been used to classify techniques:

1. From manipulation to communication

o Techniques can be thought of as existing along a continuum of possibilities between

highly manipulative and very communicative:

 At the manipulative extreme: a technique is totally controlled by the teacher and

requires a predicted response from the students. Choral repetion, substitution
drilss, reading alued and dictation are used.

 At the communicative extreme: student responses are completely open-ended and

therefore unpredictable. Examples include story telling, brainstorming, roles plays,
games, etc. Students are cretive with their responses and interactions with other
students.

o Communicative techniques for beginners involve appropriately small chunks of language

and build in some repetition of patterns for establishing fluency.

2. Mechanical, meaningful and communicative drills

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 o From the 1940s to the 1960s, great proportions of class time were spent drilling. A drill
may be defined as a technique that focuses on a minimal number of language forms
through some type of repetition.

Eg: T: I went to the store yesterday S: I went to the store yesterday

T: Bank S: I went to the bank yesterday

 Mechanical drills: have one correct response from a student, and have no implied
communication with reality.

T: The cat is in the hat S: The cat is in the hat

 Meaningful drills: may have a predicted response or a limited set of possible

responses, but they are connected to some form of reality.

T: The woman is outside (pointing out the window at a woman)

Where is she, Hiro?

S: The woman is outside

 Communicative drills: if the exercise is communicative, i.e, if it offers the students the
possibility of an open response and negotiation of meaning, then it is not a drill.

T: last weekend I went to a restaurant and I ate salmon. Juan what did you do last
weekend?

J: I play soccer

T: Juan, “I play soccer” or “I played soccer”?

J: Oh, uh, I played soccer.

o A communicative approach to language teaching can make some of use of drilling

techniques, but only in moderation.

o At lower levels of proficiency, a few short drills can be useful.

3. Controlled to free techniques

Controlled Free

 Teacher-centered  Student-centered
 Manipulative  Communicative
 Structured  Open-ended
 Predicted responses  Unpredicted responses

Textbooks

 The most obvious and most common form of material support for language instruction comes
through textbooks. Your challenge is to make the very best use of the textbook that you have.
There are many teachers that spend their time creating materials, and they don’t realize that
textbooks may be quite useful. You don’t need to add more stress to your life trying to create
brand-new materials.

 If your teaching situation allows you to choose a textbook, you will have to consider the
following textbook evaluation criteria:
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 1. Goals of the course
2. Background of the students: age, native language and culture, educational background and
purpose for learning English.
3. Approach: theory of language and theory of learning
4. Language skills: does the book integrate the four skills?
5. General content: validity, authencity of language, proficiency level
6. Quality of practice material: active participation of students, clarity of directions, grammatical
and other linguistic explanation.
7. Sequencing: is the book sequenced by grammatical structures, by skills, by situations.
8. Vocabulary: does the book pay enough attention to words and word study?
9. General sociolinguistic factors: variety of English (American, British) and cultural content.
10. Format: quality and clarity of illustrations, general layout, quality of editing, index.
11. Accompanying materials: workbook, tapes, posters, flashcards, tests.
12. Teacher’s guide: methodological guidance, answer keys.

Other written texts

 Which is the difference between texts and textbooks?

o Texts: are any of a wide variety of types of genres of linguistic forms. They can be spoken or
written,

o Textbooks: are one type of text, a book for use in an educational curriculum.

 Aside from these types of text, there are two specialized texts that are valuable sources of
various forms of texts:

o Teacher resource books: provide ideas for teachers.

o Other students textbooks: a small library of student textbooks with some additional material
that you can employ as supplementary material.

Technology in the language classroom

 Technology covers everything from audiotape players to video to computers.

 Technology may have first entered the language classroom in the 1950s and 1960s in the form
of the language laboratory, where students gathered to listen to native speakers modeling the
drills of the current day’s lesson.

 When the personal computer came on the scene in the 1980s, the language teaching
profession had similar hopes for salvation. Educational institutions had a promising new
technology that could offer linguistic input and output, feedback, student collaboration,
interactivity and fun.

 Other types of technological aids are commonly available to a language teacher today:

1. Commercially produced audiotapes: audiocassette tapes with listening exercises, lectures,

stories and other authentic samples of native-speaker texts.

2. Commercially produced videotapes: videos with documentaries on special topics, movies,

programmes on certain aspects of English.

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 3. Self-made audiotapes: you can create your own supporting materials in the form of
audiotapes. You can create conversations, speeches, talk shows, etc. for listening
techniques.

4. Self-made videotapes: videotapes can also be created.

5. Overhead projection: your own charts, lists, graphics, and other visually presented material
can be easily reproduced and offer stimulating visual input for students.

Educational Technology and Other Teaching Equipment

Harmer

 Teachers use a variety of teaching aids to explain language meaning and construction, engage
students in a topic, or as the basis of a whole activity.

Pictures and images

 Pictures or graphics can be used to facilitate learning. Pictures can be in the form of flashcards,
large wall pictures, cue cards, photographs or illustrations. Some teachers often use projected
slides, images from an overhead projector, or projected computer images. They can also draw
pictures on the board to help with explanation and language work.

1. Drills

o With lower-level students a traditional use of pictures is in cue-response drills. We hold

one up before nominating a student a get a response.
o Flashcards are useful for drilling grammar items, for cueing different sentences, or
practising vocabulary.

2. Communication games

o Pictures are useful for communication activities, especially where they have a game-like
feel, such as describe and draw activities.

o Teachers can also use pictures for creative writing. They can get students to invent a
story using some images.

3. Understanding

o Teachers can use pictures to present and check meaning. It is easy to check students’
understading of a piece of writing or listening by asking them to select the picture which
best corresponds to the reading text or listening passage.

4. Ornamentation

o Pictures of various kinds are used to make work more appealing. For example, in many
modern coursebooks, a reading text will be adorned by a photograph. Pictures enhance
the text, giving readers a picture of the outside world. Pictures have the power to engage
students.

5. Prediction

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 o Pictures are useful for getting students to predict what is coming next in a lesson. They
then listen to a tape or read a text to see if it matches what they expected. The use of
pictures is very powerful and engages students in the task that follows.

6. Discussion

o Pictures can stimulate questions. They can also be used for creative language. Students
can write the description of a picture, invent a conversation taking place between two
people in a picture, answer questions as if they were the characters in a famous
painting, etc.

 We should bear in mind three important qualities when working with pictures:

1. they need to be appropriate not only for the purpose in hand but also for the class they are
being used for.

2. they should be visible.

3. they have to be made durable, maybe protected with transparent coverings.

The overhead projector

 Overhead projectors allow us to prepare visual or demonstration material. They require little
technical knowledge, and are easy to carry around.

 Overhead projectors allow us to show whole texts or grammar exercises, pictures or diagrams,
or students’ writing.

 One of the major advantages of the overhead projector is that we do not have to show
everything at once. By covering some of the transparency with a piece of paper we can blank
out what we do not want the students to see.

 Although overhead projectors can be very versatile, they can have some disadvantages too.
They need electricity and bulbs fail from time to time, some models are quite bulky (big and
heavy), and they can be uncomfortable to look at.

The board

 The board is the most versatile piece of teaching equipment. They provide a motivating focal
point during class.

The toupee of The Generator is not a Frisbee

The toupee of The Generator is not a Frisbee
The toupee of The Generator is not a Frisbee
The toupee of The Generator is not a Frisbee
The toupee of The Generator is not a Frisbee

 We can use boards for a variety of different purposes:

1. Note pads
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 o Teachers write things up on the board during the lesson. They might write words that
they want the students to remember, phrases that the students do not understand, or
topics they have elicited from students when trying to build up a composition plan.

2. Explanation aid

o Boards can also be used for explanation. For example, we can show the relationship
between an affirmative sentence and a question by drawing arrows, we can show how a
word or sound is pronounced, etc.

3. Picture frame

o Boards can be used for drawing pictures to help students understand concepts and
words.
4. Public workbook

o A typical procedure is to write up fill-in sentences and have students come up to the
board and write a fill-in item. This involves the class in seeing what the correct version is.
The teacher can also write mistakes and ask students to correct them.

5. Game board

o Many games can be played using the board. For example, the teacher can write different
words on the board and get two teams to make sentences with those words.

6. Noticeboard

o Teachers and students can stick things on the board.

Handwriting on the board:

 It should be clear and easy to decipher.

 We should organize our material: we can draw a column and use it for new words.
 We should not turn our back to the class when writing
 We can ask students what to write or getting them to do the writing themselves.
 When the class is over, we should clean the board and leave it ready for our colleagues to
use it.

Bits and pieces

 Students can bring objects into the classroom. It might be family photographs, letter or even a
pet. We can base our lessons on objects that students might find interesting.

 Three particular categories are worth considering:

1. Realia

o For beginners and children, real or lifelike items are useful for teaching the meanings of
words: plastic fruits, telephones to stimulate conversations, etc.

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 o Objects that are instrinsically interesting can provide a good starting point for a variety of
language work and communication activities. For example, some teachers use a soft
ball. They throw the ball to a student to ask a question. Then that student can throw the
ball to another classmate who answers the question.

2. Language cards

o Many teachers put a variety of cards and posters around the classroom with notes about
language items on them.
o Cards are also useful fot matching activities, where students have to find another
student in the class with a similar card. They can also be asked to place cards in the
correct column for sounds, or with the correct lexical group.

3. Cuisenaire rods

o These are small blocks of wood of different lenghts. The rods are differentiated by their
size and colour. They are used for a wide range of activities. For example, to
demonstrate word stress (if one is bigger than the others, it shows where the stress
should be), we can assign a word or phrase to each rod (the students have to put them
in the right order to make a sentence), or they can be used to teach prepositions
(teachers can model with the rods sentences like: the red one is on top of/beside/under
the green one).

o Cuisenaire rods can be useful to demonstrate colours, comparatives, superlatives, and a

whole range of other semantic and syntactic areas.

The language laboratory

 The language laboratory has ten or twenty booths, each equipped with a tape deck,
headphones, microphones, and computers. Students can work on their own, can be paired or
grouped, or can interact with each other.

 Language laboratories have three special characteristics:

1. Double track

o Students can listen to one track on their tapes and record on another.

2. Teacher access

o The teacher can listen and talk to individual students from a console or computer
terminal to give them feedback.

3. Different modes

o From the console the teacher decides whether or not to have all the students working at
the same time and speed. An alternantive is to have students working with the same
material, but at their own individual speed. Students can also be given different material
to work with.

Advantages of the language laboratory

 Student have opportunities for both extensive ad intensive listening and reading. Language
laboratories have many advantages:

1. Comparing

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 o The double track allows students to compare the way they say things with the
correct pronunciation in a source tape. In this way they can get feedback without
intervention of a teacher.

2. Privacy

o Since all the students have their own headphones, they are guaranteed some
privacy, and are free from the intrusion caused by other student.

3. Individual attention

o Teachers speak to individual students from the console. This is good because the
attention that teachers give to one student does not distract the others.

4. Learner training

o The language laboratory helps to train students to really listen to what they say and
how they say it. When they compare their pronunciation with the correct version, they
begin to notice the differences, and this helps them to hear and pronounce English
better.

5. Learner motivation

o Some students are better at working on their own than others. The language
laboratory offers a good half-way house between teacher control and learner
autonomy since students are more open to the guidance of the teacher.

Activities in language laboratories

1. Repetition

o Students hear a word, phrase, or sentence on the tape and a space is left for them to
repeat. Then the word, phrase or sentence is said again so that they get instant
feedback on whether thay have spoken correctly.

2. Drills

o This activity is like repetition, but the difference is that the student has to work out
what to say (based on a cue) before the tape gives the correct response.

3. Speaking

o Students can record their own talks and speeches and then listen back to them and
make adjustments.

4. Pairing, double-plugging, and telephoning

o Students can work in pairs. They can describe objects or people for others to
identify. They can also plan and tell stories. In addition, students can dial the number
of different booths and have telephone conversations.

5. Parallel speaking

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 o From the console the teacher can record a rhyme or story onto all the individual
students machines. First, the students listen and then they speak along eith the
teacher’s taped voice, imitating the teacher’s pronunciation and speed.

6. Listening

o Listening of all kinds can be practised in a language laboratory. For example:

activities such as note-taking, dictation or answering comprehension questions.
Tapes can be accompanied by written worksheets and students can be asked
questions on the tape which they have to record their answers to on the student
track.

7. Reading

o Students can read text and then record their answers on tape.

8. Writing and correcting writing

o Teachers give individual, private spoken feedback on students’ written work.

Students can write at their individual machines and the teacher can then correct their
work from the console.

What computers and for

 The use of computers in education continues to increase at an extraordinary speed. The main
uses for computers in language teaching include the following:

1. Reference

o One of the chief uses of computers is a reference tool. There are a number of
popular encyclopedias available on CD-ROM (Encarta, Grollier) and all sorts of other
information is also available. One of the great advantages of computers is that we
can do all this research at home or in self-access centres.

o There are also a number of ELT dictionaries available on CD-ROM too, which offer
definitions, spoken pronunciation of words and practice exercises and activities.

o The greates potential for the computer as a reference tool is the Internet, where
students can look for information about any subject. However, these searches often
throw up a huge amount of irrelevant material.

2. Teaching and testing programs

o Language teaching software packages offer students the chance to study

conversations and texts, to do grammatical and vocabulary exercises, and to listen to
texts nd record their own voices.

o Computer-based programs of this kind offer variety and motivation.

3. E-mail exchange

o Computers which are hooked up to the Internet allow easy access to people all over
the world by sending and receiving e-mails.

o Getting students from different countries to write to each other has increased both
their English development and their motivation.
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 o E-mails require less obligation for grammatical correctness or correct spelling since
they are written in an informal style. So they may promote fluency, but they may not
enhance accuracy.

o Students can send their work to teachers by e-mail and teachers can then send back
feedback in the same way.

4. Web sites

o Students can go and visit any web site they wish. For example, a virtual museum for
a project work, or a web site that offers information about their favourite rock group.

o There are many web sites designed for students of English as a foreign language
where they can exchange e-mails, do exercises, read different texts and play games.
There are also audio and video sites where music, news, and films can be listened
to.

o Some teachers plan whole lessons around the Internet.

5. The word processor

o In 1987, the most successful educational use of computer at that time was as a word
processor, with students grouped around a screen to draft and redraft collaborately.
Unlike pen and paper, word processors allow students to compose as they think, and
change their minds in the course of writing.

Homegrown materials production

 Many of the materials we bring into class will have been made or designed by teachers
themselves. Homegrown materials can include grammar worksheets, word/sentence cards,
photocopied texts, etc.

 When we make our own materials for classroom use, we can follow a simple five-stage
procedure:

1. Planning: we need to design what our aims and objectives are, what activity we want to
involve the students in, how we want them to be grouped, and what the contents of our
materials should be.

2. Trialling: we should get a colleague to comment on what we have made. In this way, we
can avoid problems before taking the material into the lesson.

3. Evaluating: now it’s time to take our material into the lesson. Here, we have to evaluate
the material so that we can redesign it for future use.

4. Classifying: when we have used material in the classroom we need to find some way of
storing it and classifying it for future use. We can do this alphabetically by topic, by
vocabulary area, or by grammar point.

5. Record-keeping: we need to keep a record of what material we have used together with
evaluations of how well it has worked. This will prevent us from using the same material
twice in the same class, and it will help us with our long-term planning.

Music and Songs

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 Activities

o Reading and listening comprehension: the teacher uses the song as a normal reading or list
text.

o Listen and discuss: the teacher gets the students to listen to the whole song once or twice, or
to a shorter section. They discuss what happened, reactions, interpretations, predictions, etc.
Printed lyrics could be given if you wish.

o Gapped text: the teacher gives students lirycs with certain words blanked out. They have to
listen carefully and fill in the missing words. The gaps can also be used as a pre-listening
exercise so that the students can predict the missing words.

o Song jumble: the teacher cuts the lyrics up into separate lines. In small groups, students try to
work out the original order. When ready, they listen and compare their guess and the original
song.

o Sing along: the aim is to learn the tune and to get the rhythm well enough to sing along with
the original tape. This can be quite challenging and requires some careful preparation. It’s
really useful to work on stress and rhythm.

o Compose: the teacher provides her students with the tune and they have to write lyrics. This is
also quite challenging on stress and rhythm.

o Matching pictures: the teacher provides twenty pictures connected with the song. Students
have to listen and put them in the order in which they hear them in the song.

o Action movements: students listen to one line at a time. For each line, they invent a mimed
action, which they teach to each other, and then all perform. The teacher replays the song
from the beginning in order to recall and do the relevant actions. After the students have done
one or two verses, the teacher hands out the complete lyrics. In small groups, students find
movements for the rest of the song. At the end all come together to watch a performance of
the different versions.

o Dictation: the teacher dictates the chorus or the whole song. Then all check and compare with
the tape.

o Picture dictation: the teacher decides on a representative picture of something that happens in
the song. She dictates the information about this picture to the students and they have to draw
their interpretation. But the time they finished, a lot of essential vocabulary and phrases from
the song will have been circulating and the song should not be too difficult to follow.

Audio and Video Cassettes

Teaching with video

Why do teachers use videos?

1. Seeing language in use

o One of the main advantages of video is that students do not just hear language, they see it to.
This greatly aids comprehension since general meanings and moods are often conveyed
through expression, gesture and other visual clues. Paralinguistic features give valuable

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 meaning clues and help viewers to see beyond what they are listening to. In addition, we can
observe how intonation can match facial expressions.

2. Cross-cultural awareness

o Videos allow students to look at situations far beyond their classrooms. This is especially
useful if they want to see, for example, typical British body language when inviting someone
out, or how Americans speak to waiters. Video is also of great value in giving students a
chance to see such things as what kinds of food people eat in other countries, and what they
wear.

3. The power of creation

o When students use video cameras themselves they are given the potential to create
something memorable and enjoyable. The task of video-making can provoke genuinely
creative and communicative uses of language, with students finding themselves doing new
things in English.

4. Motivation

o Most students show an increased level of interest when they have the chance to see
language in use as well as hear it.

Video problems

1. The “nothing new” syndrome

o We have to provide video activities that are unique learning experiences and do not just
replicate home television viewing.

2. Poor quality tapes and disks

o Poorly filmed and woodenly acted material would not engage students who are used to
something better. We have to judge whether the quality is sufficiently for the picture to be
clear.

3. Poor viewing conditions

o We have to make sure that students can see and hear the video. The monitor must be
enough for the people at the back of the class to see the screen clearly.

4. Stop and start

o Some students become frustrated when teachers constantly stop and start the video, only
showing little bits at a time. It can also be extremelly irritating if a teacher fails to show the
class how the story ends. Sometimes this is done on purpose for students to predict the
ending. However, at other times some teachers fail to take into account the students’ natural
curiosity.

5. The length of extracts

o Short video sequences of between one and four minutes can yield a number of exercises,
demonstrate a satisfying range of language, be easy to manipulate, and can be highly
motivating. Such short extratcs are usually the best option. With longer ones, we will need to
design activities to keep our students involved.

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6. Fingers and thumbs

o Students ca be irritated by teachers who cannot find what they want or get back to where
they have just been on the tape or disk. Teachers become frustrated when the machine does
not work the way they want it to. They only answer is for us to familiarize wuth the system we
are using.

Video types

1. Off-air programmes

o These are programmes recorded from a television channel (MTV, BBC News). The best
programmes and excerpts are the ones that we can use for a range of activities including
prediction, cross-cultural awareness, teaching language, or spurs for the students’ own
creativity.

2. Real-world video

o These include feature films, exercise “manuals”, wildlife documentaries (Discovery Channel)
or comedies. Your choice should be based on how engaging and comprehensible the extract
is likely to be, and whether it has multi-use potential.

3. Language learning videos

o These include free standing language learning videos or videos that accompany
coursebooks. The advantage of these videos is that they are designed with students at a
particular level in mind. Thus, they are comprehensible, appealing and multi-use. The
dangers of these videos are poor production, inauthentic language and situations and
unsophisticated content.

Video as part of a lesson

1. Topic

o We will often be able to introduce a short video extract into a lesson devoted to a particular
topic.

2. Language

o Video extratcs can be used to introduce new language, practice already known items, or
analize the language used in certain typical exchanges and genres.

3. Relaxation

o We might show/play a music video at the end of a long leeson or show a quick bit of video
film about a place or a person as a bridge between a noisy activity and a quiet one.

Self-access video

 Students can watch videos at home, or in their school’s self-access centres. This is useful
where there are worksheets and related material for them to work with, and where teachers are
on hand to offer guidance.

Common video teaching techniques

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Viewing techniques

 The following techniques awake students’ curiosity and create expectations.

1. Fast forward: the sequence shoots pass silently and at great speed. Then the teacher asks
what the extract was about and whether students can guess what the characters were
saying.

2. Silent viewing (for language): the video is plyed without sound. The students guess what the
characters are saying. Then they check.

3. Silent viewing (for music): students watch a sequence without sound and the teacher asks
them what kindof music they would put behind it and why.

4. Freeze frame: we can freeze the pictire and aks the students what will happen and what the
character will say next.

5. Partially viewing: the teacher covers a half of the screen and students half to say what they
think was happening in the other half.

Listening techniques

1. Pictureless listening (for language) : the teacher covers the screen, the students listen to a
dialogue and they have to guess where it is taking place and who the speakers are.

2. Pictureless listening (for music): students listen to the music and say what kind of scene it is
and where it is taking place.

3. Pictureless listening (sound effects): in a scene without dialogue, students listen to the
sounds and guess the scene.

4. Picture or speech: half of the class faces the

screen, and half faces away. The students who can see the screen have to describe what is
happening to the students who cannot. This forces them into immediate fluency.

Activities with video

 Many activities can be done when having a lesson with a video:

1. Pre-viewing activities

o Students can be asked to make a general prediction of what will happen in the video,
using the title of it. Then, students can be provided with a series of images or utterances
taken from the video so that they can make a more precise prediction, trying to describe
what events will happen in the video. After they watch the video, they will compare their
predictions with the real story.

2. While-watching activities

o While watching the video, the teacher can stop it at the most important scenes of it.
Then, the teacher can discuss with the students what they have seen by asking them
questions. The teacher can also make them predict what will happen according to what
they have just watched.

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 o If the video is too long as to see it completely in the class, it can be fast forwarded so
that the sequences shoot pass silently and at a great speed, taking only a few seconds.
When it is over students can be asked what the extract was all about and whether they
can guess what the characters were saying.

3. Follow-up activities

o Students can be asked to answer questions on comprehension about the video or

cassette.

o Students can be divided into groups and each group can role-play one scene of the
story.

o Students can be asked to change the ending of the story or complete it in case it is
open.

o Students can describe the characters, their relationship and the scenario as they
imagine them.

o Students can be provided with the events of the story in the wrong order for them to
rearrange them and write the story chronologically.

o Students can be asked to think of questions they would ask if they were interviewing one
of the characters.

Unit 6

Developing Technological Literacy

Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and the Internet

Brown

Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)

 The recent advances in educational applications of computer hardware and software have
provided a rapidly growing resource for language classrooms.

 You should consider some CALL applications in your teaching. What follows are benefits of
including a computer component in language instruction:

o multimodal practice with feeback

o individualization in a large class
o pair and small-group work on projects
o the fun factor
o variety in the resources available and learning styles used
o exploratory learning with large amounts of language data
o real-life skill-building in computer use
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Applications and issues in CALL

1. Collaborative projects: research projects can be carried out ultilizing data available on the
World Wide Web and other information resources.

2. Peer-editing of compositions: the exchange of materials throught computers offers students

an efficient means of peer-editing. Instructors can easily manage comments on final drafts
using e-mail, for example,

3. E-mail: gives students the possibility for actual communication with individuals around the
world.
4. Web page design: it offers students courses where they can utilize English in doing research
on a topic, composing and designing, and collaborating with other students.

5. Reinforcement of classroom material: courses objectives can be reinforced and added

material can be made available. A number of textbooks now come with a CD-ROM filled with
practice exercises, tests, and extra reading material.

6. Games and stimulations: many engaging games and stimulations involve practicing verbal
language, solving tasks, practicing certain verbs, tenses, questions, locatives, etc.

7. Computer adaptive testing: currently, most widely standardized tests are computer-based.
The right and wrong answers are electronically analized in order to present later items that
will be neither too easy nor too difficult and present an optimal challenge.

8. Speech processing: speech recognition programs for the language clasroom have a
multitude of potential applications: simple exercises in pronunciation, feedback graphs, etc.

A CALL software evaluation guide

Cristina Gallo

 We have to take into account the following fields when we evaluate a software program for
language learning.

o How will the program help your students?

o How will the program help you?
Methodology o How will the program evaluate your students’
responses?
o What approach to language instruction does the
software have? (structural, functional, interactional)

o Does the program have an instruction? How flexible is

the software? (age, sex, interests)
o How are the program’s exercises organized? (grouped
according to functional/notional purposes, or related to
skills and subkills). Do they follow a state of difficulty?
o Will the program help to make your students’ language
Design more natural?
o Does the program cater for different learning styles?
o How will the program integrate into your approach?
o How important is the technology used in the software?

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 o What types of activities does the software include?
(games, quizzes, drill and practice, explanatory
activities, etc.)
Procedure o How is it presented? (storyboard, jigsaw reading)
o How does it provide feedback?
o Does it provide extra practice?

Do your CALL programs work for you?

Andrew Stokes

 When getting involved with CALL, you have to:

1) Buy the right software

o ELT software must have a sound pedagogical basis, it must be relevant, motivating and
interesting to your students; it must be very easy to use; and you should be able to add
your own activities.

2) Make sure it works!

o If you don’t have a good local supplier who can come in and install your new programs,
insist that the publisher give you technical support.

3) Make sure your students know it is there

o You should ensure that your students know that the software is available by putting up
posters, setting up icons and integrating your computer resources into your first day tour
for students.

4) Integrate software into your curriculum

o If you have enough computers, make a change of focus in your lesson. Cross-reference
your teaching points with appropriate programs for homework activities. Students can
work on computer-based activities singly, in pairs or in groups.

5) Make sure that teachers are comfortable with it

o Teachers can answer questionnaires by exploring the programs themselves. The best
CALL programs provide stimulating materials, provoke students to think about their
learning and react possitively to students’ error.

The Internet, E-mails and Foreign Language Taeching

Beatriz Porto

Why modern technologies?

 As things are not the same after the digital revolution, modern technologies should be
incorporated into classroom activities. Computers have changed:

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  how people spend their leisure time playing computer games, surfing the net, chatting on
the Internet.

 how people communicate. People can chat on-line, participate in discussion forums, send
each other messages or letters vie e-mail. People can receive immediate feedback and
communicate with people from all over the world in a matter of seconds.
 how people interact with information. It is now accessible to everyone at his/her own
discretion: form academic essays, to book reports, news events, or even the written
productions of EFL students.

Internet, E-mail and FL Teaching

 The Internet and e-mail are effective in three aspects:

1) Class Work

a. Reading materials: the Internet is an unlimited source of authentic reading materials

ranging from a map of a city to articles in magazines or journals, or games and poems
for children. It’s handy, interested, varied and presented in different formats.

b. Cross-cultural experiences: students can get in touch with partner-classes around the
world via Internet and use their e-mails to send and receive letters. In this way, they can
get to know how people in other parts of the world live, study, spend their free time and
many other things.

c. Writing for a reader: students can write for an audience. Most of the readers may be
native speakers so there is a feeling of achievement: students can communicate in the
target language efficiently and feel more motivated to use it.

2) The teacher

a. The Internet can lead the teacher to important ELT sites such TESOL, TESL, CALL,
among others so as to keep updated and well-informed since many articles are posted
online. Other sites help teachers clarify vocabulary or grammar questions. There are
even virtual dictionaries online.

b. E-mail allows them to join forums in which colleagues and specialists discuss varied
issues related to language teaching.

3) Research work

a. The Internet provides faster search facilities and links to vast sources of input, book
reviews, articles published online and virtual libraries.

b. E-mail: teachers can also get input from colleagues via forums or e-mail who may come
up with ideas, comments, book refences or even their own articles published online
which are always valuable for your own research project.
Modern technology and classroom practice

 Incorporating modern technologies implies:

a. Adopting a teaching approach which implies the construction of meaning through

collaborative learning, the use of authentic material, and an emphasis on the teaching of
cognitive and metacognitive strategies.

b. Modern technologies have changed the degree of interconnection between people. the
isolation of the classroom is tending to disappear and the instruction and information
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 conveyed by the teacher can be questioned and challenged, and together with it the
authority of the teacher as traditionally understood. Teacher and students roles are
redefined and classes become student-centered and foster collaborative and independent
learning.

UNIT 7

Evaluation

Relationship among some Terms

syllabus objectives
curriculum course design

EVALUATION
methodology materials

ASSESSMENT
teacher’s performance
Students’ progress
and performance TESTING

formal / informal
measurement
instrument

 Evaluation has to do with the whole process of learning (evaluación curricular). Assessment is
one of the items to evaluate. Assesment can be informal (decisions you make about your
students progress and performance) or formal, taking the form of a test (a tool that you use to
assess your students formally).

 Assessment and testing not only grade students but also collect information to introduce
changes in the learning process, to make decisions or to continue doing what you are doing.

What’s the Difference between Testing, Teaching and Evaluation?

Andy Baxter

What is testing?

 Every time we ask students to answer a question to which we already know the answer, we are
giving them a kind of test.

Testing and teaching

 All testing theory has tradionally been based on a semi-scientific procedure, namely

1. Measure the performance

2. Do something to affect the performance
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 3. Measure the performance again and compare the difference

 Teaching and testing go hand-in-hand. We often ask questions to check that the students have
understood what we have said. Equally, we sometimes ask questions to find out whether we
need to teach a point. We instinctively know why we ask questions: whether it is to teach or to
test something.

Examples:

a. Exercise 1: Fill the gap with an appropriate form of the verb

o John ....................... France every year since 1993 (visit)

o John ....................... France last year (visit)

 This is a testing activity since students have some knowledge and they have to prove it.

b. Exercise 2: In groups discuss the differences between the two sentences

o John has visited France every year since 1993

o John visited France last year

 This is a teaching activity since it asks students a question about language. It’s trying to
increase their awareness of how language works. It’s trying to help them learn.

Teaching or testing?

 Teachers get confused about whether they are teaching or testing, particularly, when they try to
teach the four skills. Here language teachers face a major problem. We don’t really know
enough since there are no clear rules about the skills. So all we can do to teach the four skills is
expose students to language and find out what they know about the skills.

 While the rules for skills are not very clear, we do have some very good rules for grammar and
vocabulary, which makes them easier to teach. So we sometimes believe that we are teaching
or testing a skill, when really we are practicing or testing grammar and vocabulary.

Problems with testing

Problem 1: Skills into numbers

o Testing is based on an idea from science: measure, make changes, measure again and
compare. One problem with the scientific method is that there are skills that are difficult to
measure, and this brings about to dangers:

1. We may take something we all understood and re-define it to make ir measurable;

but in doing this, we may change the very thing we are trying to measure.
2. If something is too difficult to measure, we leave it out of the test – even if the skills is
very important.

o In the end, we arrive at a position where we are only measuring the easily measurable, rather
than assessing the performance we are trying to improve.

Problem 2: Results versus processes, what versus why

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 o The semi-scientific system of quantitative measurement is that it does not record quanlitative
data. Measuring gives as information about the results but it doesn’t tell us anything about the
processes or attitudes.

Problem 3: Standardisation and odd resullts.

o All the teaching should be the same, if not, we cannot compare the progress of individual
students.

o The scientific model is also more interested in general trends, and strange individual results
are often ignored. For example: imagine that in a listening test all your students get %90, but
your best student only gets %10. For us teachers, it is that odd result that we would want to
investigate.

Testing and evaluation

 The relationship between testing and evaluation is similar to the relationship between the
curriculum and the syllabus. The syllabus in part of a bigger oraganization: the curriculum.

Evaluation

 Evaluation is wider than testing. Evaluation sees testing as a useful tool, but also thinks there
are other important criteria for assessing someone’s performance: do they use the target
language in class? Are their notes well organised? Are they well behaved?

curriculum evaluation

syllabus testing

Problems with testing: can evaluation solve them?

Problem 1: Skills into numbers

o Evaluation is not limited to numbers or just giving students marks. Instead of trying to count or
measure a student’s ability to make useful contributions to class, we can simply judge whether
he/she makes a contribution or not.
o When we make judgements, other people may not agree with what we think. Evaluation
means that sometimes we will have to justify, negotiate and modify our opinions. We may need
more than one judge.

Problem 2: Results versus processes, what versus why

o In addition to enumeration, evaluation looks for illumination: How did you learn that? Why did
you write that? We are doing somthing with the students, rather than doing something to the
student.

o We gain more information by evaluating procedures and attitudes than by simply looking at the
results.

Problem 3: Standardisation and odd resullts.

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 o Evaluation does not want to remove the variables in the assessment process. Evaluation is
interested in odd results. Evaluation tries to include as many as possible, because all
information is seen as possibly useful for improving the design of a teaching programme.

Who evaluates?

 With evaluation, we are trying to help the students to learn. Evaluation is not just an
assessment, but an aid to learning. This means that the more people who are involved in the
process, the better the process is.

What do we assess?

 Before we can assess a student’s performance, we need to decide what we are going to
assess.

Message and medium

 Language teaching is concerned with both message and medium. Teachers have to balance
two different “correctness”: the right idea, i.e. the message and the right form of expression of
that idea, i.e. the medium.

Example:

T: Miguel, where does the President of the United States live?

M (1): He lives in London the first answer is grammatically correct but

M (2:) He live in the White House factually wrong, and the second one is gramma-
tically wrong but factually correct.

Which language abilities do we test?

1. Language components versus language use

o Another common distinction is whether we assess the individual items that we put together to
make a sentence, i.e. the components of language (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation); or
whether we assess how the student puts these components together when they actually use
the language, i.e. the four skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing).

2. Other skills of using language

o We need to use language that is socially appropriate (i.e. formal versus informal vocabulary,
etc). We need discourse skills: making what we say fits what has been said before (eg: I saw
John. He said he was going to the cinema, not I saw John. John said John was going ...) We
need strategic skills, too, such as how to take turns in speaking, get information from a text,
listen for gist, etc.

3. Language learning skills

o They involve:

 the ability to use a dictionary

 the ability to work out meanings of unknown words
 learning metalanguage such as asking the teacher What’s the past tense of that
verb? etc.

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 4. General learning skills

o They involve:

 contributing to and working in groups in class

 the ability to know what you know and what you still need to learn
 strategies for finding information you don’t know
 following the instructions in texts, etc.

5. Other behavioural or social skills

o Many teachers would say that one of the primary skills for any learner is the ability to stay
sitting in his/her chair working rather than wandering around and disrupting the class.

Other criteria for inclusion: easy/difficult to mark or record

 There is also a problem about how to mark or record answers.

 Assessment that give results as numbers (gap-fills, multiple choice, etc) are very easy to record.
We can simply write the results on a piece of paper, or we can convert this number into a
percentage, a mark out of twenty or an A-E grade.

 With writing, we can’t count correct results; however, we can mark writing by judging the quality
of a piece of writing.

 However, when we want to assess, e.g. the students’ contributions to the class, we have a
bigger problem. This will almost certainly mean we will have to write notes. Notes are more
difficult to record: different teacher will write different amounts about different things. If we want
this information to be kept, we will have to have files for each student.

SUMMARY

language components language use language competencies

(grammar vocabulary, (reading, writing, (socio-linguistic, discourse
pronunciation) listening, speaking) and strategic competencies)

learning skills What we could truth or fact

assess

language learning skills general behavioural and

social skills

ASSESSMENT

things that are easy to

mark or record
things that are
easy to test What we typically
assess things that are

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 easy to teach

a general impression of the student a general impression of the student

as a language learner as a language user

a genereal impression of
the student as a member
of the class

Testing: what makes a “good” test good

 The easiest and most common form of assessment is to give the students a test.

What is a good test?

 A good test has the following qualities:

o It is valid
o It is realiable
o It is practical
o It has no negative effects on the teaching programme (negative BACKWASH)
VALIDITY

 There are three main types of validity: content, construct and face validity.

1. Content validity

o It means: does a test test what it is supposed to test? For example, if we want to test
whether a class for beginners can produce examples of the present simple for describing
routines, we must make sure that:

 the questions are on the present simple for routines

 we test the verbs that beginners are likely to know
 we ask the students to produce the answer, and not just recognize the answer (using
multiple choice)

o It is easier to make the content of a test valid when we are trying to test small items like
these. But content validity is more difficult to assure when we are testing a student’s
global ability, as in a proficiency test.

2. Construct validity

o It means: does a test test what it is supposed to test and nothing else? Normally, we try
to test one of the following:

 grammar (i.e. structure, vocabulary and pronunciation)

 skills (i.e. reading, writing, listening and speaking)

o However, it is sometimes very difficult to teach one of these without also teaching others.

3. Face validity

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 o It means: does a test appear to test what it is trying to test? There is a king of
psychological factor involved in testing. The test must appear to have something to do
with the skill you are trying to teach.

 How to make tests valid in general ? When you have written your test, check it with other
people: native speakers, other teachers and other students. Ideally, you should trial it with
another class at the same level.

RELIABILITY

 There are two main forms of reliability: test reliability and scorer reliability

1. Test reliability

o It means: if it was possible to give the same person the same test at the same time,
would the result be the same?

o Test reliability is extremelly complex and time-consuming. It is unrealistic to expect

schools to have the time and resources to make a test totally reliable. It may be best to
accept that almost every test we design will have limited reliability. It will simply be a
guide to the teacher when it comes to giving a final assessment of any student’s ability.

 How to make tests more reliable?

 Get enough examples: give them many topics to choose so that they can all perform
well.
 Test techniques: make them varied (you can combine gap-fills with multiple choice),
and make them familiar (based on topics students have already seen).
 Make instructions clear and at the appropriate level of language.
 Restrict the task: all the students should have the same chance. Don’t give general
topics since students may have no idea about them.
 Keep conditions comparable: if you are working with two different groups, take the
test under the same conditions. The instructions must be the same.

2. Scorer reliability

o It means: if you gave the same test to two different people to mark, would they give the
same score?

Multiple choice tests Limited possibility tests

Example: 1a 2b 3d 4a 5c Example: He ......... to the cinema

 They are very easy o mark, but they are  There are only a number or possible correct
much difficult to write. answers.

 They don’t show of the student really knows.  There are often more possible answers than
Neither teacher nor learner can get any we anticipated when we wrote the question.
useful information about why the learner’s
answer was right/wrong or  Students can give answers which are
successful/unsuccessful. partially correct and partially wrong.

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 How can we improve score reliability in these cases?

 Use an answer key or marking guide: give a list of acceptable answers and a marking
scheme. For example:

He ............ go to the cinema

goes/ went /will go/ would like to go

Multiple possibility tests

 It is much more difficult to mark.

 Different teachers may notice different things in

tests like these ones: one can notice that the
spelling is terrible, another may think that the
student is very creative. Other teachers may
notice many punctuation errors, etc.

How can we improve score reliability in these cases?

 You may need more than one teacher involved in the marking since, if more than one
teacher is administering the exam, all the teachers should mark in the same way.

The most important action is to agree on a criteria such as a PROFILING, breaking down the
answers you want, for example: spelling, punctuation, structure, cohesion, etc.; or BANDING,
correcting according to overall impression.

PRACTICALITY

 Perhaps the most important quality of any test is how practical it is to administer. We do not
have all the resources:

o time: for teachers to design the test, for students to do the test, for teachers to analyse the
results, etc.
o personnel: teachesr experienced in test-writing, teachers to mark the tests, co-ordinators to
answer questions.
o space and equipment: students need to be sitting where they can’t coppy, teachers may
need tape recorders, computers, tables, etc.
o money: money is not available to have extra stuff, extra space, and extra equipments

 A good test is practical in terms of time constraints, ease of administration, scoring and
interpretation. It depends on whether it is designed to be:

1. Norm-referenced test:

o scores are interpreted in a mathematical rank (percentages)

o they are standarized and administered to a large audience
o it involves predetermined responses that can be electronically scanned

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 o compares the performance of one student to that of the rest of the group
o practicality is the primary issue

2. Criterion-referenced test:

o uses marks instead of grades

o it involves smaller groups
o it requires great time and effort on the part of the teacher.
o compares students to his own performance along the course (how well the students
performs according to a fixed criterion, what is reasonable to demans from students)
o practicality is the secondary issue
o gives feedback on specific course or lesson objectives, that is the “criteria” (whether
a students can perform a particular tasks or not)

BACKWASH (washback)

 It refers to the effect that a final test has on the teaching programme. We should be aware of
this effect – are we teaching the students something because it is in the exam or because they
really need it to build their language knowledge?

 Sometimes the effect of this backwash can improve the teaching programme. This is called
beneficial backwash. For example: the school manager notices that students at the end of the
teaching programme know a lot about grammar but they can’t speak the target language. So
they drop all grammar items in the test and introduce activities with more emphasis in speaking.

 Other important concept is that of frontwash. This is the effect that new teaching techniques or
materials have on the design of test.

CONCLUSION

We will always have to make a compromise between how reliable and practical a test is. For this
reason we should use the results not to decide someone’s abilities, but more as one factor in
helping us to assess a student’s performance.

Evaluation

 It involves looking at all the factors that influence the learning process, such as syllabus
objectives, course design, materials, methodology, and the students’ and teachers’ progress
and performance (assessment).

 There are four steps in evaluation:

1. The identification of the purpose for evaluation.

2. The collection of information pertinent to the decisions you want to make as a result of
evaluation (assessment).
3. The interpretation of assessment information to compare it with some desired state of
affairs, goals of other information.
4. Decisions about how to proceed.
Planning evaluation

 Evaluation should be an integral part of planning.

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 Instruction and evaluation should be considered together in order to ensure that instruction and
that the results of evaluation can direct ongoing instructional planning.

Who will use the results of assessment and for what purpose?

o Teachers are the main users of this information to make decisions about ongoing
instruction. However, learners also play an important role in assessing their own learning.

o Self assessment can have a lot of benefits:

 It can increase learners’ involvement in and responsability for their own learning.
 It can sensitise them to instructional objectives and assist them in setting realistic
goals for themselves.
 Students can monitor their own language performance in any and all settings that
call for the use of the target language.

o The information gathered from self-assessment should always be used in conjunction with
data from other assessment methods.

o The results of assessment are used for teachers to plan ongoing instruction and by students
to reflect on and plan their learning and study activities.

o The results of assessment can also be used by people outside the classroom such as
educational administrators and parents.

What will I assess?

o The curriculum scope and sequence specifies the important content objectives and those
that should be assessed systematically.

o Decision making in the classroom is not only about achievement: it is also about the
processes and factors that affect students’ achievement. Some of the factors that affect
achievement can be found in the students’ background.

o Many factors in the classroom influence learning: learning strategies used, attitudes towards
learning strategies and school, interest in specific instructional activities and study habits.

When will I assess?

o Formative evaluation: most teachers assess the effectiveness of instruction on a continuous

basis.

o Teachers need to assess students’ language performance at all times.

o Examining students’ progress at the end of the units can help teachers decide whether the
students are ready to proceed to the next unit. Assessment at the end of the unit can also
provide useful information about how effective the unit was.

o It may also be prudent to examine learning after several units, weeks or months in order to
ascertain how much students have retained from earlier instruction and whether they have
consolidated or integrated skills, knowledge or concepts.

o When to assess and how:

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  Determine students’ needs and abilities at the beginning of the course as a basis for
assessing the appropriateness of general instructional objectives and for planning
instruction.
 Examine students’ attainment of lesson and unit objectives on a regular basis.
 Provide frequent and regular feedback.
 Monitor classroom activities on a regular basis in order to ascertain their
effectiveness.
 Examine students’ attainment of general instructional objectives.

o Assessment at the end of each unit is useful:

 to teachers for planning instruction.

 to students for organizing their own learning.
 to school authorities for accountability.
 to interested parents.

SUMMARY

Evaluation plan should include:

o A list of people who will require assessment information.

o A description of the kinds of information each of the individuals wants and needs.
o A description of assessment activities.
o A schedule for assessment activities.
o A description of the record-keeping system to be used.

Assessment

 Assessment is a procedure for considering students’ progress and performance. Whenever a

student responds a question, offers a comment, or tries out a new word, the teacher assesses
the student’s progress and performance.

 It’s a process to measure the performance of students and the progress they make.. in this way,
the teacher is able to diagnose problems the students may have and provide them with useful
feedback.

 It is a continuous process going on at different levels.

 It encompasses a much wider domain than tests.

Features of assessment

1. Reliability: it should be consistent so that students at the same conditions, with similar
characteristics, reach the same or similar performance.

2. Validity: so that we have clear assessment objectives.

3. Accountability: we have to be able to provide clear indications of what progress has been made
or not.

Kinds of assessment

 Informal assessment

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  Involves collecting information about the students’ performance in normal classroom
conditions.
 It is involved in all incidental, unplanned evaluative coaching and feedback on tasks
designed to elicit performance, but not for the purpose of recording results and making
fixed judgements about a student’s competence.
 Most informal assessment is what testing experts call formative evaluation (it is formative),
which implies the observation of the process of learning. Students are assessed during the
process of forming their competences and skills.
 Focuses on the process of learning since it gives learners information about how they are
progressing.

 Formal assessment

 Takes place when exams conditions are established.

 Takes place at a certain point during the course, giving feedback to both teachers and
students.
 Involves exercises/experiences specifically designed to tap into students’ skills and
knowledge, usually within a relatively short time limit.
 It is summative as they occur at the end of a lesson unit or course and therefore attempt to
measure or summarise what a student has grasped.
 Focuses on the product of learning: it is an objectively observable performance that may be
evaluated somewhat independent of the process.
 Most formal assessment are what we ordinarily call TESTS.

Self-assessment

 It has to be developed at regular intervals so that learners can think about thier own progress
and identify what problem they are experiencing.

Continuous assesment

 Continuous assessment is a procedure that enables you to assess over a period of weeks or
months those aspects of a student’s performance which cannot normally be assessed as
satisfactorily by means of tests. For example: you can use continous assessment to measure
students’ work in groups and their overall progress as shown in class.
 Continuous assessment enables us to take into account certain qualities which cannot be
assessed in any other way: effort, persistence and attitude. Yo can draw up short tables like the
following:

5 Most persistent and thorough in all class and homework assignments.

Interested in learning and keen to do well.
4 Persistent and thorough on the whole. Usually works well in class and mostly
does homework conscientiously. Fairly keen.
3 Not too persistent but mostly tries. Average work in class and does homework.
Interested in the whole but not so keen.
2 Soon loses interest. Sometimes tries but finds it hard to concentrate for long in
class. Sometimes forgets to do homework.
1 Lacks interest. Dislikes learning English. Cannot concentrate for long and often
fails to do homework.

 Remember that a positive attitude to learning is very important indeed and should be
encouraged.

Oral activities: projects and role plays

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 There are certain language skills which cannot be suitably assessed by formal methods of
testing. Continuous assessment enables us to see how students can perform in situations and
assignments which are closer to real life than formal examinations.

 Since language is essentially a communicative activity, oral skills can be best measured by
observing how students use language amongst themselves to achieve certain goals.

 Since it is always essential to give students a reason for speaking, we should devise suitable
activities with this in mind. For example, divide students into pairs or let them work in small
groups and give each student an incomplete text or diagram to complete. Then, they exchange
the information they have orally.

 Role playing is also a useful activity for continuous assessment. In a role play, it is important to
give students a clear idea of who they are, what they like and what they should do. Students
should have the opportunity to speak spontaneously and react to something unexpected.

 While these oral activities take place, you can assess students. You can be actively involved in
an activity, but don’t dominate the entire activity. You should try to be systematic in keeping
records of your students’ progress.

 In continuous assessment, we should be concerned with qualitative judgements, not with

quantitative assessment as in formal tests. Short notes will usually tell us far more than a
numerical score.

Writing: editing and group activities

 The assessment of the editing skills is not particularly suited to normal testing situations. These
skills are far better measured in class by careful observation whenever students are engaged in
a writing task.

 Most tests require students to write a composition, letter, report, etc. within strict time limits.
Such tests do not reflect the situations so often encountered in real life, when we have
considerable time to write and re-write. So you will find that, in many cases, continuous
assessment is much a better tool for the measurement of writing than either a formal or an
informal test.

Using questions for continuous assessment

 Questions have several purposes in teaching and testing:

 To find out students’ strenghts and weaknesses

 To evaluate students’ preparation
 To check comprehension

 Students should never be aware that you are asking questions to assess them. Questioning
should be a pleasant experience, so ask questions in a friendly and sympathetic manner.

 Types of questions you make ask:

1. Recognition questions: Did the girl go on a picnic or stay at home?

2. Recall questions: What did the girl do?

3. Comprehension questions: What’s the author’s purpose?

4. Evaluation questions: What’s you opinion about the essay?

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 5. Application questions: What would you do if you were in the girl’s shoes?

Combining methods

 The most reliable form of continuous assessment combines grades and comments from course
work, projects and group work, homework assignments, oral questioning, and progress tests.

 Continuous assessment should be regarded as an integral part of your teaching and your
students’ learning.

 One of the main purposes of continuous assessment is to improve your teaching by providing
opportunities for recall and revision. Another purpose is to diagnose not only your students’
weaknesses but also your weaknesses in your teaching, in your programme of work, in the
books and syllabus you are following.

 Continuous assessment should encourage learning and motivate your students.

Student self-evaluation

 This is an important means of continuous assessment. Students are asked to assess

themselves each week according to the most appropriate grades listed on a simple form.

 You can compare your own grades with the grades which students have awarded themselves.

Testing

 Tests are:

o stressing o hard
o time-consuming o demanding
o difficult o timing
o tricky o exhausting
o tough o complicted
o unfair o dissapointing

 Testing is an instrument or procedure designed to elicit performance from learners with the
purpose of measuring their attaintment of specified criteria.

 It’s a method for measuring a person’s ability or knowledge in a given domain.

 A tests is a method: a set of techniques, procedures, and items that constitute an instrument of
some sort that requires performance or activity on the part of the test-taker. The method may be
intuitive and informal or explicit and structured.

 A test has the principle of measuring: some measurements are broad and inexact while others
are quantified in mathematical precise terms.

 Informal tests are difficult to quantify. Formal tests, in which carefully planned techniques of
assessment are used, rely more on quantification.

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Informal and formal testing

Informal tests Formal tests

o quizzes o achievement
o assignments on tasks o placement
o homework o diagnostic
o proficiency
o aptitude

Objective and subjective testing

Objective Subjective

o They are marked very o They offer better ways of

quickly. testing language skills and
o They have only one correct certain areas of language.
answer or a limited number o Examples: compositions,
of correct answers. reports, letters, answers to
o Examples: multiple choice comprehension questions
items, ordering or using students’ own words,
rearrenging, matching. conversations, discussions,
talks.

What are tests for?

 A test may be defined as an activity whose main purpose is to convey how well the testee
knows or can do something.

 Tests are mostly used for assessment.

Reasons for testing

 Tests may be used as means to:

o Give the teacher information about where the students are at the moment.
o Give students information about what they know. .
o Motivate students to learn.
o Get a noisy class to keep quiet and concentrate.
o Get students to make an effort and lead to better results and a feeling of satisfaction.
o Provide students with a sense of achievement and progress in their learning.

 Other reasons:

 You may want to find out a candidate’s suitability to follow a course of study.
 You may need to find out how a student is progressing during a course of study and
possibly identify problem areas before a course ends.
 You may want to compare a student’s performance with that of other students.
 You may want to find out how much a student has learned during the course or academic
year, i.e. compare what students can do at the end of the course with what they could do
at the beginning of the course.

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Test elicitation techniques

1. Questions and answers

o Simple questions may require short or long answers. The more closed the question, the
easier the item will be to mark. Questions that are more open are more difficult, but may
actually test better.
2. True or false

o This does not directly test writing or speaking abilities: only listening or reading. It may be
used to test aspects of language such as grammar, vocabulary, content of a reading or
listening passage. It is easy to design, to administer and to mark.

3. Multiple choice

o The question consists of a stem and a number of options from which the testee has to select
the right one. It is very easy to mark, but it’s time consuming since the process of
comprehesion of the actual question makes take too much time, which raises problems of
validity. Another problem is that these questions are very difficult to design: they often come
out ambiguous or with no clear right answer.

4. Gap-filling and completion

o The testee has to complete a sentence by filling a gap or adding something. This usually
tests grammar or vocabulary. It is tedious to compose, and it is more easily administered in
writing than in speech. The marking is simple. There may be more than one possible right
answer.

5. Matching

o The testee is faced with two groups of words, phrases or sentences, each item in the first
group has to be linked to a different item on the second. This usually tests vocabulary and it
is best presented written. Items can be time-consuming or difficult to compose. Answers are
easily checked.

6. Dictation

o The tester dictates a passage or set of words; the testee writes them down. This tests
spelling and, perhaps, punctuation and listening comprehension. It is very easy to prepare
and administer. It is relatively easy to mark.

7. Cloze

o Words are ommited from a passage at regular intervals. Usually the first two or three lines
are given with no gaps. This tests reading, spelling, vocabulary and grammar. It is easy to
prepare and administer. Marking can be tricky, you may find it difficult to decide if a specific
item is “acceptable” or not.

8. Transformation

o A sentence is given; the testee has to change it according to some given instruction. For
example, write a present tense sentence in the past tense. This is easy to design, administer
and mark. It tests the ability of the testee to transform grammatical structures, which is not
the same as testing grammar. The testee may perform well on trasformation items without
knowing the meaning of the target structure.

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9. Rewriting

o The testee has to rewrite a given sentence, incorporating a given change of expression, but
preserving the basic meaning. For example, instead of saying he came to the meeting in
spite of his illness, the testee can say although he was ill, he came to the meeting. These
tests the same sort of thing as transformation, but it involves paraphrasing the entire
meaning rather than transforming a particular item. It is difficult to compose and the marking
may be more subjective.

10. Translation

o The testee is asked to translate expressions, sentences or entire passages to or from the
target language. Translation items are relatively easy to compose and administer, in either
speech or writing. Marking may sometimes be more difficult.

11. Essay

o The testee is given a topic and asked to write an essay of a specific lenght. This tests
general writing abilities. It is relatively easy to provide a topic and tell the class to write an
essay about it, but marking is extremely difficult and time-consuming. The aspects to take
into account in essay writing are spelling, grammar, punctuation, content and organization.

12. Monologue

o The testee is given a topic or question and asked to speak about it for a minute or two. This
tests oral fluency and overall knowledge of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. To
choose a topic is not so difficult, but to assess is very difficult indeed, demanding
concentration and a very clear set of criteria.

Designing a test

Guidelines for test preparation

1. Validity: check that your items really test what they are meant to.

2. Clarity: make sure the instructions for each item are clear.

3. “Do-ability”: the test should be quite do-able: not too difficult with no trick questions.

4. Marking: decide how you will asses each section of the test, and how much percentage you will
give it. Make the marking system as simple as you can, and write the points after the
instructions for each question.

5. Interest: try to go for interesting content and tasks, in order to make the test more motivating for
the learners.

6. Heterogeneity: include both difficult and easy items for beginners and students who are more
advanced. Make one or more of the difficult ones as optional.

Test administration

 How a test is actually adminitered and returned can make a huge difference to motivation and
performance. Sensitive presentation of a test can significantly reduce learner anxiety.

Questions on test administration

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Before the test

 How far in advance do you announce the test?

 How much do you tell the class about what is going to be included, and about the
criteria of marking?
 How much information do you need to give them about the time and place, any
limitations or rules?
 Do you expect them to prepare at home, or do you give them some class time for
preparation?

Giving the test

 How important is it for yourself to administer the test?

 What do you say before giving the papers?
 Do you add anything when the papers have been distributed?
 During the test? Do you interact with your students or are you passive?

After the test

 How long does it take you to mark and return the papers?
 Do you then go through them in class?
 Do you demand any follow-up work on the part of the students?

Kinds of tests

1. Proficiency tests

 Describe what students are capable of doing in a foreign language regardless any training
they may have had in that language and are usually set by external bodies such as
examination boards.
 Proficiency tests enable students to have some proof of their ability in a language.
 The content of a proficiency test is not based on the content or objectives of language
courses but on a specification of what candidates have to be able to do in the language in
order to be proficient.
 They have traditionally consisted of multiple choice tests on grammar, vocabulary, reading
comprehension and writing.
 They represent stages people have to reach if they want to be admitted to a foreign
univerisity, get a job or certificate.

2. Diagnostic tests

 They are used to find out problem areas, to identify students’ strenghts and weaknesses.
 While other types of tests are based on success, diagnostic tests are based on failure. We
want to know in which areas a student or group of students are having problems, which
parts of a course or learning objectives those students cannot cope with.
 The teacher identifies those difficulties students need special focus on, and, probably,
includes them in the curriculum.

3. Placement tests

 Place students into appropriate levels of language proficiency.

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  The aim is to produce groups which are homogeneous in level that will use institutional and
teacher time most effectively.
 They typically include sampling material to be covered in the curriculum and, thereby,
provide an indication of the point at which students will find a level or class to be neither too
easy nor too difficult, but appropriately challenging.

4. Summative tests

 These are administered at the end of courses.

 Their objective is to see if students have achieved the objectives set out in the syllabus.
 They can be used effectively as a way of deciding whether students move on to a higher
level.

5. Progress tests

 They are administered during courses.

 They may be administered after certain blocks of study, for example, after x number of
units, at the end of each week, each term, etc.
 They aim to find information about how well classes as a whole and individual students
have grasped the learning objectives, how well the course content is functioning within the
specified aims and objectives and future course design.
 They should reflect progress, not failure. So teach items that students are familiar with.

6. Achievement tests:

 They measure the acquisition of course objectives at the end of the period.
 They are limited to particular material covered in a curriculum within a particular time frame,
and are offered after a course has covered the objectives in question.

7. Aptitude tests:

 They measure the students’ ability to learn a foreign language and to be successful in that
undertaking.
 They are given prior to any exposure to the second language.

Principles for effective testing

 not excessively expensive

PRACTICALITY  stays within appropriate time and institutional constraints
 relatively easy to administer concerning equipment, space
and furniture
 specific and time-efficient scoring procedure
 rater reliability: two or more scores should yield consistent
RELIABILITY scores
Consistency  construct reliability: different groups, exposed to the same
kind of learning, same number of instruction hours, same
materials, taking the same test, get the same or very
similar test results.
 content validity: using a reading text to test reading
VALIDITY comprehension/ Was Hippocrates a doctor or a
degree to which philosopher?
the test actually  construct validity: including items that test the four skills
measures what when considering proficiency (currect TOEFL)
is intended to  face validity: expected format with familiar tasks , doable
measure within time limits, clearly organization and directions,
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 reasonably challenging level of difficulty.
 natural language , contextualized items, meaningful topics,
AUTHENTICITY real world or closely approximate tasks.

 positive: constructive criticism on weaknesses, feedback,

WASHBACK remedial work.
effect of testing  negative: “cramming” before exams, teaching to the test
on teaching and because content focus and techniques differ from what is
learning done in class.

Final tips!

Consider the objectives formulated for the course

Draw clear specifications

Draft the test

WHEN TESTING
Revise the test

Final-edit and type the test

Use tests as opportunities for students to see how much

they know, not how much they still have to learn.

Test what has been taught in the way it has been taught

International Exams

 Among the international exams that students can take are the following:

Cambridge exams

o They are offered by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES).
These are General English Exams, there are five main levels. Each level will test your English
skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking.

1. Key English Test (KET) for elementary candidates

2. Preliminary English Test (PET) for lower intermediate candidates
3. First Certificate in English (FCE) for upper intermediate candidates
4. Certificate of Advanced English (CAE) for upper intermediate advanced
5. Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE) for very advanced candidates

City and Guilds International ESOL Qualifications (Pitman Qualifications):

o These qualifications are ideal if you are studying English as a foreign language and planning
to use your language skills for general purpose. You will have to demonstrate skills in reading,
writing, and listening. Exams are offered in:

 Communication in Technical English

 English for Bussiness Communication
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  English for Office Skills
 ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages)
 ESOL for young learners
 Spoken ESOL
 Spoken ESOL for young learners

IELTS (International English Language Teaching System)

o IELTS is owned, developed and delivered through the partnership of the British Council, IDP
Education Australia: IELTS Australia and the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations.

o IELTS is a comprehensive test of your English proficiency. IELTS measures your ability to
communicate using all four language skills - Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking -
language skills international employers, education institutions and professional associations
are demanding.

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)

o Evaluates the ability of an individual to use and understand English in an academic setting.
Institutions such as government agencies, licensing bodies, businesses, or scholarship
programs may require this test. A TOEFL score is valid for two years and then will no longer
be officially reported since a candidate's language proficiency could have significantly
changed since the date of the test. Colleges and universities usually consider only the most
recent TOEFL score.

Errors and Mistakes

Distinction between errors and mistakes

Errors Mistakes

 reflect a gap in the learner’s  reflect occasional lapses in

knowledge performance
 occur because the learner doesn’t  occur because the learner is not able
know what is correct to produce what he knows.

How do we distinguish errors and mistakes?

 Check the consistency of the learner’s performance and see whether he continues to
produce the incorrect form or if in more simple contexts he uses the correct form.

 Ask the learner to correct himself. When he is unable to do so, the deviations are errors; but
when the student successfully corrects himself, the deviations are mistakes.

Sources of errors

 Students may commit errors of omission, overgeneralization and transfer.

1. Omission: students leave affixes or complete words, in order to make complex tasks simpler.

2. Overgeneralization: students overgeneralize forms that they find easy to learn and process,
such as adding the –ed participle to irregular verbs in the past simple.

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 3. Transfer: students apply the knowledge they have about their L1 into the L2. For example,
some students tend to place the adjective after the noun.

Scope of errors

 The teacher will need to evaluate in what way these errors interrupt communication

1. Global errors: they violate the overall structure of the sentence, and may make the
understanding of the untterance impossible.

2. Local errors: they affect only a constituent of the sentence, but the sentence can be
understood.

Depending on how disruptive errors are, the teacher will decide when and
how to correct them

Mistakes and Feedback

Feedback

 Feedback is information given to the learner about his/her performance of a learning task,
usually with the objective of improving it.

 Feedback encompasses correcting students and offering them an assessment.

 The way we assess and correct will depend on the kind of mistakes and on the type of activity.

Students make mistakes

 Mistakes can be divided into three categories:

1. slips: mistakes which students can correct themselves once the mistake has been pointed
out to them.

2. errors: mistakes which students cannot correct

3. attempts: when a student tries to say something but doesn’t yet know the correct way of
saying it.

Causes for the errors

 L1 interference: when L1 and English come into contact with each other there are confusions
which provoke errors in a learner’s use of English. This can be at the level of sounds, grammar,
word usage, etc.

 Developmental errors: for example, over-generalization errors. Errors of this king are part of a
natural acquisition process. When learners make errors, they are demonstrating part of the
natural process of language learning.

Teachers should provide feedback and reshape the process of learning rather than
telling students off because they are wrong.

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Assessing student performance

Teachers assessing students

 Assessment can be explicit, for example when we say That was really good!; or implicit, for
example, during a language drill we pass on to the next student without making any
comment.

 We can assess students’ work in the following ways:

1. Comments: we can comment on the students’ performance

2. Marks and grades: when students get good grades their motivation is often possitively
affected. Bad grades can be extremely disheartening. If we want to give grades, we
need to decide on what basis we are going to do this and be able to describe this to the
students. It will be helpful to demonstrate a clear criterion for the grading we have
given. Offering some kind of marking scale or offering written/spoken explanation of the
basis on which we’ll make our judgement.

3. Reports: at the end of the term of year, some teachers write reports on their students’
performance. Such reports should give a clear indication of how well the students have
done and an assessment of future prospects.

Students assessing themselves

 Students can be successful at monitoring and judging their own language production.

 We can encourage students to reflect upon their own learning. We can ask them how well
they think they did an activity, we might ask them to give themselves marks or grades.

 Students can be given material to guide them marking their own judgements.

Feedback during oral work

 How to react to oral performance will depend upon the stage of the lesson, the activity, the type
of mistake made and the particular student.

Accuracy and fluency

 We need to decide whether a particular activity is designed to expect the students’ complete
accuracy or whether we are asking the students to use the language as fluently as possible.

 Make clear distinctions between non-communicative and communicative activities.

 When students are involved in accuracy work, the teacher’s function is to point out and
correct the mistakes.

 During communicative activities, the teacher shouldn’t interrupt.

 Speaking activities act as a switch to help students transfer learnt language to the acquired
store forcing students to think carefully about how best to express the meanings they wish to
convey.

 Teacher intervention in communicative activities can raise stress levels and stop the
acquisition process.

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  There are times during communicative activities when teachers may want to offer correction
or suggest alternatives because the students’ communication is at risk.

Feedback during accuracy work Feedback during fluency work

 If students cannot correct themselves  The way in which we respond to students

after we have pointed out a mistake, we when they speak in fluency activities will
can: be significant for their future performance.

 Show incorrectness by:  We need to respond to content not just to

language form. This can be done through:
1. Repeating
2. Echoing: we repeat what the  Gentle correction:
student has said emphasizing the
part of the utterance that was  If there are communication breaks
wrong. during a fluency activity we should
3. Statement and question: we say intervene.
That’s not quite right.  If we offer help with tact and
4. Expression: a simple facial discretion, there is no reason why
expression or a gesture may be such interventions shouldn’t be
enough to indicate that something helpful.
doesn’t quite work.
5. Hinting: we just might say the  Recording mistakes:
word “tense” to help students
activate rules they already know.  Act as observer, watching and
6. Reformulation listening to students so that you can
give feedback afterwards.
 Get it right by:  The problem is that you may forget
the mistakes. Therefore, write down
1. Saying the correct version points you may want to refer later
emphasizing the part where there is (grammar, words and phrases,
a problem pronunciation, etc)
2. Saying the incorrect part correctly
3. Explaining a grammar or a lexical  After the event:
issue
4. Asking students to correct each  After we have recorded students’
other performance we’ll want to give
feedback to the class. We can put
some of the mistakes on the board
and ask students if they can
recognize the problem.
 We can also write individual notes
recording mistakes from students
with suggestions about where they
might look for information about the
language.

Feedback on written work

 It will depend on the kind of writing task and the effect we wish to create.

 When students do workbook exercises based on controlled activities, we’ll mark their efforts
right or wrong.

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 However, when we give feedback on more creative or communicative writing, we’ll approach the
task with circumspection and demonstrate our interest in the content of the students’ work.

Written feedback techniques

 These are devises to help students write more successfully in the future:

1. Responding

o When we respond, we say how the text appears to us and how successful we think it
has been.

o Students may show us a first draft of their work, our response will be to say how it is
profressing and how we think they might improve it in subsequent drafts.

o When we respond to a final written product, we can say what we liked, how we felt about
the text and what they might do next time.

o Another way of responding is showing alternative ways of writing something.

2. Coding

o This makes correction neater, less threatening and more helpful than random marks and
comments.

o We can show mistakes on the paper by writing capital letters next to those mistakes. For
example:

S. incorrect spellling
W.O. wrong word order
T. wrong tense
P. wrong punctuation

o We can also restrict feedback to a particular aspect of language. For example, we can
tell students that we’ll give feedback in spelling, and next time we’re going to focus only
on punctuation or tense.

UNIT 8

Teacher Development

Training and Development

Michael Wallace

What is action research?

 Action research is the systematic collection and analysis of data relating to the improvement of
some aspect of professional practice.

Why Action Research?

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 Action research drives you to collect data systematically on your everyday practice and analyse
it in order to come to some decisions about what your future practice should be.

Professional development

 The value that is placed on “experience” in most job-descriptions shows that the expectations
of improvement after a period of practice are true.

 In some jobs, the expectation may be that the process of professional development levels off
after an adequate level of competence is reached. However, people working in a profession
like teaching may have more demanding expectations of themselves and their colleagues,
because they regard the process of professional development as continuous and on-going.

 The strategies for professional developement should help up to turn the problems we face in
our professional careers into positive rather than negative experiences.

 Strategies for our professional development may be formal (reading professional journals for
ideas and suggestions, attending conferences) or informal (having discussions with our
colleagues on classroom experiences).

Areas for development

 Some teachers tend to be very self-critical. This is better than being totally complacent, since
self-development will never take place without the perceived need of it.

 Self-awareness of potential areas of improvement is therefore helpful provided that it goes

along with a reasonably self-image.

 Just because something is a “strenght” does not mean that it need not to be developed
further.

Increased effectiveness

 It is concerned with areas of our expertise (special skills or knowledge in a particular subject
that you learn by experience or training) that we feel could be improved. Teachers are
generally more concerned with such areas than they are aware of their strenghts.

 You can think of a possible application of action research to those areas of concern. You can
think of an area in which you think you could be more effective in your work and ask
questions on the topic. For example:

Topic/Area Questions

o When I have experienced discipline?

I could be a more o What form did the discipline take?
effective teacher if I o Did I react appropriately or not?
could keep better o Who was responsible?
discipline o Why did the indicipline take place?
o What sources of help or guidance are available to me?

 Although asking the questions does not solve the problem, it may help you to “objectify” the
situation and enable you to think of a proactive plan of action.

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 A continuous process of professional development is an intrinsic part of the good
professional’s life. There is a wide range of possible activities that we can get involved
in to develop our professional expertise. For example, isolating an area and ask some
questions about it.

Inquiry

 Inquiry means the act of seeking an answer to a question. Examples in ELT may be:

o What makes a good ESP syllabus?

o How should I teach the present perfect tense?
o How effective is task-based learning?

Research

 Many of the questions relate to established facts or to views and opinions of colleagues. Both
these sets of facts and these opinions can form raw data, which we can use as a basis for our
decisions on what we are going to do with the problems we identified.

 This process of data collection, the setting up of a data base and the subsequent analisys of
data form the core of research.
 Research is a special kind of inquiry since not all inquiry is based on data collection and
analysis. Some inquiry takes the form or pure reasoning from first principles and is especially
common in disciplines like maths and philosophy.

 Inquiry derived from deduction of principles is characterized as deductive, and inquiry derived
from data collection and analysis is characterized as inductive (research in our terms).

Research, Inquiry and Professional Development

 Wallace has proposed a model for teacher education. This model is a process of reflection on
professional action, and it’s called “the reflective cycle”. This process provided the momentum
for increased professional competence

The Reflective Cycle

Professional Professional
Reflection Development
Practice

 There’s more than one way into the reflective cycle, since the process of professional
development varies from one person to another.

 Strategies for PD (Professional Development) often give us information or ideas which cause
us to reflect out own practice and perhaps change it.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Strategies for PD
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 INQUIRY - BASED OTHER

attending conferences
considering informal discussions
problems/issues etc.
Non-databased
ask questions inquiry
REFLECTIVE
CYCLE ACTION RESEARCH deduction from first
. principles
belief systems
data collection etc.
and analysis
REFLECTIVE
application to CYCLE
profesional action

 An action research cycle: the teacher first considers problems or issues in her teaching which
lead her to design questions in order to collect data. Having collected the data, she analyses
the results, and it’s on the basis of those results that she decides what to do next, she
decides on future action.

Structured reflection

 Most problems benefit from being aired and discussed in some controlled or structured way;
and this should be true of professional problems. It is suggested that action research is a form
of structured reflection.

Action research is problem focused

 Action research nearly always arises from some specific problem or issue arising out of our
professional practice. It is very problem-focused in its approach and very practical in its
intended outcomes.

Action research and inquiry

 Problems or issues give rise to questions. Generating questions gives us the lead into various
possible areas of investigation. Action research is therefore a sub-area pf inquiry, which
simply means the process of answering questions by using various kinds of evidence in some
kind of reasoned way.

Research and non-databased inquery

 Questions can be answered by a process of data collection and analysis (action research),
or by other means (arguing from general principles or conclusions from “belief systems”)

 Any conclusions or ideas we derive from database inquiry can also feed back into the
reflective cycle. For example, when faced with a particular problem, I may ask a more
experienced teacher for advice. I may reflect on the advice and follow it or modify it.

Action research and the reflective cycle

 Action research involves the collection and analysis of data related to some aspect of our
professional practice. This is done so that we can reflect on what we have discovered and
apply it to our professional action.
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  This is a loop process in the sense that the process can be repeated until we find a solution
that satisfies us.

The status of action research

 It’s natural, and appropriate, for teachers to develop their expertise by reflecting on their
practice. It is not being argued that every teacher should be a researcher in any traditional
sense of that word.

 Action research has been proposed as an “empowering” procedure. But if it becomes

another top-down requirement, it turns into the reverse: not only is it an additional burden
upon the teacher, but also creates a new kind of dependency on (non-teaching) experts.

 What constitutes proper action research? Action research should:

o be collaborative or team-based
o publicate the process and results of the investigation
o have the requirements of validity, reliability and verification for conventional research.

 Since action research is primarily an approach relating to individual or small group

professional development, the generalisability of the findings to other contexts will not be of
primary importance. The important thing is that the processes involved are helpful to the
practicing teacher’s reflection.

 The aim is not to turn the teacher into a researcher, but to help him or her to continue to
develop as a teacher, using action research as a tool in this process.

SUMMARY

Most language teachers wish to develop professionally on a continuing basis.

One method of doing this is by reflecting on interesting or problematic areas in
a structured way. This process of reflection should be structured through the
systematic collection and analysis of data. This is called “action research”.

Action research is different from other conventional types of research since it

focuses on individual or small-group professional practice and is not so
concerned with making general statements. The main function of action
research is to facilitate the “reflective cycle”, providing an effective method for
improving professional action.

.
No Teacher is an Island: some approaches to sharing ideas

Overview

 In which ways involvement in action research can help us break out of the isolation of the
teacher’s role and tap into the expertise of the wider language teaching community?

 There are two aspects to be discussed:

1. making use of the ideas, insights and findings of colleagues, other teachers, writers
and researchers.

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 2. sharing your own ideas, insights and findings with others.

“No teacher is an island”

 Most teachers face their classes alone. This professional isolation is ultimately a barrier to
professional development. Action research can be a helpful means to break down
professional isolation.

 Being aware of other colleagues’ ideas can give us a fresh slant on problems and ideas for
our own action research. Similarly, sharing our ideas with others can be beneficial in various
ways.

 The feedback from colleagues can be motivating and rewarding, and it can provide the basis
for further reflection.

Collaborative action research

 One of the most effective ways of exercising our individual initiative in the context of action
research is through collaboration.

 Collaboration can be with:

o our students: students researching their own writing process and comparing the
results is a very helpful exercise for them, and for us, since this will give us insights
into how our students write.

o colleagues in the same school or institution: here there is ease of contact. It is more
convenient when planning activities and analysing data. Data collection is easier too
(e.g. observing one another’s classes)

o colleagues outside the school or institution: it is very stimulating to get insights from
fellow-professionals operating in different contexts.

o colleagues with a different area of expertise: (teacher and trainer, teacher and
researcher) this can lead to useful division of labour. For example, collaboration
between a teacher and a trainer can lead to the pooling of different kinds of data.

o colleagues in other countries: interesting comparative and contrastive data could be

found. For example: some action research done in another country to see if the
results are similar.

o Colleagues in other disciplines: (foreign language teacher and mother tongue

teacher) also foreign language and mother tongue comparisons of reading and
writing processes can be set up.

Advantages and disadvantages of collaborative action research

Advantages Disadvantages

 Depth and coverage: the more people  Colleagues who have never spoken to
are involved in an action research one another again.
project, the more data can de
gathered, either in depth (e.g. a single  Problem of status: when professionals
case study) or in coverage (e.g. with different kinds of expertise come
several complementary case studies) together.

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 or in both.
 Solution: spend time discussing the
 Validity and reliability: involving others following questions:
makes it easier to investigate an issue
from different angles, using different  What are we trying to do?
research techniques. For example,  Why are we doing this?
using triangulation, which should make  How are we going to do it?
our findings more reliable, and  How much time are we going to
subjecting them to different people’s spend?
scrunity within the action research  How often do we meet, where and
team should help to make the findings when?
more valid.  What is the end product going to be?

 Motivation: working as a member of a

team is much more motivating than
working on our own.

Sources of ideas

 The most congenial way of getting ideas about teaching methods and materials is probably
in informal conversation with colleagues. Teachers can have informal professional
discussions through the Internet: through electronic mail or electronic discussion lists.

 Another popular way of getting ideas is from talks or workshops. They can give us the
chance to try out teaching materials, put ideas into action, ask questions or discuss
problems.

 Another source of ideas can come from teachers’ programmes on radio or television.

 New ideas can also be found in written sources such as books, magazines and journals

Literature search

 This term has little to do with literature in its usual sense. It actually means a search for the
books, articles and other writings, which may have a bearing in the research area you are
interested in.

 The starting point for a literature search is a bibliography or list of references attached to an
article that has caught your interest.

Other sources

 There are different ways of accessing databases:

o by means of print medium

o electronically, by means of CD-ROM
o electronically, on-line
o by means of microfiche

CONCLUSION

Action research is one of the ways in which teachers can solve professional
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 problems and improve their practice through reflection-on-action. This
reflection is done through the systematic collection and analysis of relevant
data, and by applying the results.

Action research also encourages collaboration. The pooling and sharing of

ideas can demonstrate the rewards of collaborative action research.
Collaboration has to be voluntary: it cannot be imposed.

Action research can be facilitated by the development of electronic

communication through the Internet. Not only communication can become
easier, but also the whole issue of access to library sources will be simplified.

With the right kind of institutional and management support, teachers could
use action research to improve their own teaching and perhaps also to help
raise the level of performance generally in their working situation.

Teacher – Research: The Theory and Practice Dichotomy

Donald Freeman

Two sides of teaching

 Freeman talks about uniting the two sides of teaching – the doing and the wondering – into one
form of practice called “teacher – research.”

 Freeman’s aim is to help you to examine what you do as a teacher, how your work is structured
and how you carry it out on a daily basis, why some things you do work or don’t work, and how
the work can be done differently and better.

Five propositions about teacher – research

 The following five propositions build a cumulative theoretical position on what teacher-research
is and how it can reshape the work of teachers and the knowledge-base of teaching. They are
propositions because they are open to argument in the best sense.

Proposition 1

To truly make research a central part of teaching, we must redefine research

 The “teacher” is a person and “research” is a process. Teaching and researching have been
separated and seen as distinct.

Researching Teaching

 Research is supposed to generate  Teachers are supposed to implement

knowledge. knowledge.

 Researchers contribute to the understanding  Teachers have a community that is based

and knowledge of a professional community. on activity.

 They can enter a classroom without ever  Although teachers work in classrooms
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 teaching, thay can understand what happens everyday, they don’t have access to the
in the environment and gather information same level of information, knowledge and
about it. understanding.

 For them, it is difficult to find time to collect  Teachers do not control their own
data, to reflect, reread, or share with personal schedules in the same way as
colleagues. researchers do.

 They have far greater control over what they  They don’t have much autonomy in
do and how they do it. directing their work: other people set the
curriculum, select the materials, etc.

 Research is concerned with asking  Teaching is concerned with doing things

questions, examining phenomena, and so that others can learn.
documenting understandings of why things
happen.

 Although teacher and research may differ in terms of the means they employ to do their work
and even the ends they aim to achieve, they can share the common focus of understanding
teaching, learning, and learners within the organized settings of classrooms and schools.

 Both teaching and researching are concerned with processes of knowing and establishing
knowledge. For teachers, these processes focus on the learning of students. For teacher-
researchers, the processes concentrate on what is going on in classroom teaching and
learning.
 For teachers to do research, research must be redefined to make it sensibly and actively a part
of teaching.

Proposition 2

Research can be defined as an orientation toward one’s practice. It is a questioning

attitude toward the world, leading to inquiry conducted within a diciplined framework.

 This proposition introduces three key words: orientation, inquiry and discipline, on which the
conception of teacher-research is built.

 Lee Shulman describes research as drawing on two interrelated meanings of the word
“discipline”: discipline as a methodological practical undertaking and discipline as a field of
study.

 Being disciplined involves both how one examines something and how one reports or makes
public what one has found through the investigation. A disciplined statement tells you what and
how you find something.

 Shulman uses the words “scientific community” to link to the second meaning of discipline as a
field of study. This is the meaning we refer to when we talk about the academic disciplines of
mathematics, philosophy, or linguistics. Each discipline has its own community, the group of
practicioners who accept the rules of its game. Disciplines and their communities are closed
but permeable systems; you have to believe in their “ground rules for creating and testing
knowledge” in order to belong, and by learning to believe you come to belong.

 Teaching is not a discipline. It does not have unified or commonly held “ground rules for
creating and testing knowledge.”
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  Education is not a discipline but a field of study, which Shulman defines as “a locus containing
prenomena, events, institutions, problems, persons and processes.”

 When researched, education in general and teaching in particular is examined through the
lenses of multiple disciplines. When applied to education, these disciplines are modified by the
objects of their investigation. Thus we have educational psychology, educational statistics,
sociology of education, etc. These modifying terms highlight the fact that the discipline is
somehow transformed when it is applied to classrooms, schools, teaching and learning.

Proposition 3

There is no publicly recognized “discipline” of teaching. Teachers do not think of

themselves as producing knowledge; the think of themselves as using it.

 Teachers are seen as consumers rather than producers of knowledge. Other people write the
curriculum, create the materials, make policies and procedures about education that teachers
are supposed to implement. But the knowledge always changes in the implementation. For
example, teachers use exercises from a textbook, but they can transform those activities into
the concrete messiness of their students. Curriculum, materials and pedagogy are transformed
into actual practice.

 In schools and classrooms, teachers are isolated form one another. The knowledge or wisdom
of practice that could make up a discipline of teaching resides in individual teachers; it is not
shared, exchanged or communicated as in other disciplines. Teachers talk about what they do,
the materials they use and how their students are doing. But these conversations are highly
individual and thus do not build a larger shared realm of inquiry.

 Teacher-research can be a solution to this problem. Teacher-research makes public these

private conversations and individual intuitions. Thus teacher-research is the creation of a
professional disciplinary community.

 What is important and worth knowing in teaching? This is the central point in this proposition.
Thus far, teachers have left it to others to define the knowledge that forms the official basis of
teaching.

 The alternative is to build an autonomous professional community of teaching to host its own
questions and to determine its own “principles of discovery and verification that constitute the
ground rules for creating and testing knowledge.” This is the direction that teacher-research
represents. In moving from interest and questions embedded in local circumstances and
experience to a larger disciplinary framework of teaching, teacher-research is defining its own
territory.

 Teachers are creating a new and viable community around the ideas and issues of teaching
that are central to their work. This means separating from the disciplinary communities and
defining new relationships with them.

Proposition 4

Inquiry – and not procedure – is the basis of teacher-research.

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  For teachers, focusing on procedure and not considering the professional disciplinary
community that gives meaning and value to that procedure is a risky proposition. It can trap
teachers in the ways in which their work is conventionally defined and valued.

 Teachers are not paid to ask questions about what they do, they are paid to do. They are paid
to get students to learn, their job is to teach effectively.

 When teachers start to puzzle about what, how and why they do as they do and to ask
questions and speculate about alternatives, they incorporate the element of inquiry into their
work. Inquiry is a state of being engaged in what is going on in the classroom that drives one
to better understand what is happening and can happer there.

 In other disciplines, being a professional entails being able to apply what is known in the
discipline. This does not happen in teaching. Teachers are valued as professionals when they
know what to do. In classrooms, teachers usually have to deal with the new, novel or unkown
without adequate time, support or preparation to investigate it.

 Teacher-research comes about when teachers start to define inquiry as a routine and
expected function of their working lives in classrooms. Teachers working as separate
individuals will not support inquiry or foster disciplinary communities of teaching. So the
process of engaging in teacher research involves changing both the ways in which schools
work and what is expected of what teachers do.

Proposition 5

Creating a discipline of teaching requires making public one’s findings. To do so

teacher-researchers need to explore new and different ways of telling what has been
learned through their inquiries.

 Creating a discipline of teaching requires public sharing and testing of ideas. It requires, as
mentioned in proposition 2, the ability to present and argue for the results and how they have
been arrived at.

 For teacher-researchers to talk about and write like researchers gives them access to research
communities; it also constrains them to the issues and ways of thinking that are valued and
meaningful to those communities. Therefore, to see teaching in new ways, teacher-
researchers will need to create new forms of expression, new genres, and new forms of public
conversation about teaching.

 Our first job must be to discover and strengthen the indigenous ways of telling what teachers
come to know about teaching and learning through inquiring into their work as teachers. It is
from this position of some strength that teacher-researchers can build an independent
disciplinary community that captures what they are capable of seeing.

STARTING ANEW

o Teacher-research starts with and brings about a shift in the status-quo of teching and
learning, therein lies its joy , its strength, and its challenge.

o If you accept the argument that teacher-research is about repositioning teaching and about
who generates the primary knowledge in which work in classrooms is based, then doing
teacher-research involves starting anew as a teacher. It means moving away from the
perspective of doing and being certain that usually animates our work as teachers to see

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 teaching from a new and different perspective, one of puzzling, questioning, wondering and
not knowing.

Teacher – Research Cycle

 These are the six elements in the complete cycle, which serves to organize what you do as you
enter into teacher-research.

1. Inquiry

o Inquiring is speculating about why something is as it is, why it happens or works the way
it does.

o It is a state of being engaged in what is going on in the classroom that drives one to
better understanding.

o It is a state of mind that allows you to be unsure, off-balance, intrigued, interested, and
wanting to find out more about something in your classroom, your students, what and
how you are teaching, or your work as a teacher.

o If teaching is about knowing, inquiry is about not knowing.

o Inquiring unfolds into a chain of speculation, wonderings, questions or puzzles that can
be transformed into a research plan and design.

2. Question/Puzzle

o A question or puzzle is the concentration of a line of inquiry into an articulated form. It

focuses and specifies the broader inquiry in a form that can be acted upon through
investigation.

o While inquiry provides the deep structure of the process of speculation and wonder
about teaching and learning, research-able questions become the surface-structure
manifestations of inquiry.

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 o Not all questions are research-able; some may exceed the scope of teacher-research in
time, resources, and access to data.

o Puzzles spark the teacher-research process. They can capture the sense of speculating,
wondering, and not-knowing on which teacher-research is based without forcing it into
the format of a question.

o Articulating a research-able question or puzzle launches you into action.

3. Data Collection

o Data collection is the process of gathering information in a disciplined and systematic

way about a puzzle or a research-able question.

o There are two facets reflected in the term data collection. There is the issue of data, that
is, what kinds of information can respond to the question or puzzle. Having determined
the types of data, there is also the issue of how to collect them.

o The point in recognizing data and collection as separate issues is that they are often
confused. People assume that the data and way they are gathered are one and the
same. So “students talk”, which is data, is confused with audiotaping, which is a means
of collection.

4. Data Analysis

o Data analysis involves taking the data apart to see what is there and then putting them
together to see how they respond to the question or puzzle under investigation.

o The form core of data analysis is disassembling and reassembling data. Data come
prepackaged in assumptions. For example, data on class attendance will tell us who is
present or not in the class. Analizing these data can have another value, so taking the
data apart is a crucial step that can allow you away from your assumptions and
perspective on the inquiry.

o An example of how to disassemble and reassemble data is the following: there is a

group of students who often miss classes. Teachers begin to review the attendance
data, to disassemble it, and they discover that these children live on outlying bus routes,
often riding as much as an hour or more to school. The teachers then analize, or
resassemble, the attendance data by students’ home addresses and create a map that
shows where the students live. Finnaly, teachers discover an explanation for the
students’ poor attendance.

5. Understandings:

o Understandings are the new – or existing – information, interpretations, insights, and

perspectives on the question or puzzle that accumulate through the research process.

o Understandings do not always answer the question or solve the puzzle. Rather, they are
the building blocks of further work.
o The understandings that result from the teacher-research process are disciplined, which
means that they can show both what has been learned and how it has been learned.

6. “Publishing” – Making Public:

o Publishing is the point at which teachers voice their understandings and enter into public
conversations about them with others beyond the immediate research setting.
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 o Publishing may be through discussion, presentations, or advocacy; it may be in print or
through other media.

o Publishing moves the research process forward. Presenting your work leads to
questions about it, to the urge to revise or extend it, and thus to further work.

The Cycle

 Although inquiry is the starting point of the task cycle, the cycle can have several points of
entry. For example, you may decide to keep your students learning logs on their progress and
this can become the data collection. You may begin looking over some students’ written work
and begin to speculate about a particular pattern in their mistakes (data analysis). You may
explain to a colleague why you think a certain activity has been difficult for students
(understandings), and then wonder if that is always the case (question/puzzle). You may hear
or read about someone’s findings (publishing) and question them from your experience
(inquiry).

 The whole cycle except for publishing can remain private to the teacher. But publishing it help
establish a new professional community. It helps to transform education from a practice of
implementation to a practice devoted to understanding learning, and it can strengthen
teachers’ understandings of what they do by attracting others’ informed scrunity of their work.

Action Research, Teacher – Research, and Classroom Research in Language Teaching

Kathleen Bailey

While action research is an actual research method, teacher research is defined by who conducts
it, and classroom research is defined by the setting in which the data are collected.

Classroom Research Teacher Research Action Research

 The research with the  Research conducted by  Research that implies a

longest tradition in language classroom teachers. particular methodological
teaching. approach.
 It is often connected with the
 Also called classroom- concept of teacher  It is often confused with the
centered research. development and other two types of research
empowerment, based on the since it is often conducted by
 Research that concentrates idea that by investigating teachers in language
on the inputs to the teaching and learning classrooms. In addition, it
classroom (the syllabus, the processes in classrooms, we focuses on particular
teaching materials) or on the can imporve our work as features of classroom
outputs from the classroom teachers as we investigate interaction.
(learner achievement about the craft and the
scores). science about teaching.  Action research is an
approach to collecting and
 It tries to investigate what  Research that usually does interpreting data that
happens inside the take place in classrooms, involves a clear, repeated
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 classroom when learners and it typically focuses on cycle of procedures.
and teachers come together. some elements of classroom
interaction, but is doesn’t  The researcher begins by
 Research that treats the necessarily have to. For planning an action to
language classroom not just example, a teacher could address a problem, issue or
as the setting for study the written negotiation question in his/her own
investigation but as the for meaning between her context. This action is then
object of investigation. and her students through the carried out. The next step is
students’ diary journals and the systematic observation
 Research that can be her responses to them. of the outcomes of the
conducted by anyone using Such study would not be action. The observation is
any approach to data considered classroom done through a variety of
collection and analysis. research, it would be teacher procedures for collecting
research because it was data. These include audio or
conducted by the teacher. video recordings, teacher’s
The agent conducting the diary entries, observer’s
research is the defining notes, etc. After observing
feature. the apparent results of the
action, the researcher
reflects on the outcome and
plans a subsequent action,
after which the cycle begins
again.

 The broader goals of action

research are to seek local
understanding and to bring
about improvement in the
context under study.

REVIEW

The term classroom research refers to the location and focus of the study. Teacher research refers
to the agents who conduct the study. Action research might or might not be conducted in
classrooms, and it might or might not be done by teachers.

How do these concepts fit together?

 The following picture depicts the overlapping relationship of classroom research, teacher
research and action research:

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 1= Classroom research conducted by teachers using approaches other than action research.

2= Research conducted by teachers outside of classrooms using approaches other than action
research.

3= Action research conducted by teachers outside of classrooms.

4= Classroom research conducted by teachers using the action research approach.

Continuing your Teacher Education

Brown

 One of the most envigorating things about teaching is that you never stop learning.

 As you embark upon this journey into the teaching profession, you have to think of how best you
can continue to grow professionaly.
 The following goals can provide continuing career growth for many years:

 a knowledge of the theoretical foundations of language learning and language teaching

 the analitical skills necessary for assessing different teaching contexts and classroom
conditions
 an awareness of alternative teaching techniques and the ability to put these into practice
 the confidence and skill to alter your teaching techniques as needed
 practical experience with different teaching techniques
 informed knowledge of yourself and your students
 interpersonal communication skills
 attitudes of flexibility and openness to change

 Are you doing the best you can do? Consider the following four rules to apply to your career:

1. Set realistic goals

o For example:

 Read x number of teacher resource books this year.

 Design my next test to be more authentic, with maximum washback.
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  Observe five other teachers this semester.
 Monitor my error treatments in the classroom.
 Attend two professional conferences/workshops this year.

2. Set priorities

o If you don’t know what is more and least important, you end up spending too much time
on low-priority tasks that rob you of the time you should be spending on higher priorities.

3. Take risks

o You won’t play safe all the time. You shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things. However,
this implies taking risks, accepting possible failure. Then you turn it into an experience
that teaches you something about how to calculate next risk.

4. Practice principles of stress management

o Contrary to some perceptions outside our profession, teaching is a career with all the
makings for high-stress conditions.

o One of the cardinal rules of stress management is setting priorities. Another is knowing
your limitations: don’t take on too many extra duties, take time for yourself, balance you
personal and professional life.

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