Questions for discussion and practical tasks

1. What is the difference in teaching grammar, vocabulary, reading to adults and young learners?

2. What are the main rules for presenting grammar structures to young learners?

3. What are the main ways for presenting the meaning of the new vocabulary to young learners?

4. Name the main pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading activities used in teaching reading to young learners

Lecture 4

Formation of the basics of intercultural communication

Teaching listening

 

In teaching listening clear and accurate pronunciation of the teacher is important. Teachers should make sure that they know exactly how to pronounce the words to be presented in the classroom

The stages in the listening process are: pre-listening, while-listening, post-listening. At the pre-listening stage the teacher introduces the learners to the topic and focuses their attention; also he presents some vocabulary. At the while-listening stage students might:

1. complete in the picture, map, table.
2. correct factual mistakes in the text
3. do instructions as they hear them

4. draw a person, a place, an object

1. listen to the description of a person, object, place and try to guess who or what it is
2. Listen to the description and match it to people, pictures, objects, places

At the post-listening stage

Songs can be an effective way of teaching children and can encourage them to become actively involved in their learning. While listening to the song the children may dance or do physical actions. With dancing actions vocabulary is reinforced. Songs are memorable because they often include a lot of repetition. Songs contain chunks of language that children can remember and use. Because songs must be sung at a reasonably fast speed they encourage natural phonological features like linking and weak forms. Children have energy and want to make noise. Songs will channel these natural inclinations positively. Parents will enjoy hearing their children singing in English. Singing is a happy and stress-free activity that will add to a positive classroom learning environment.

Procedure of using a song:

• Prepare the learners before they listen to anything.
• Show them pictures of characters from the song.
• If it’s a song about teddy bears than bring in some teddy bears to show them.
• Use actions as much as possible to accompany songs so that the children can participate. This will help build their confidence, increase their enjoyment and give them extra clues as to the meaning of the words they are listening to.
• Young learners should predict, ‘imagine’, what they are going to hear. Again, sticking with the teddy bears, ask them if they think the teddy bear is happy or sad.
• When they are listening they should always have something to do. They need a reason for listening. You could allocate part of the song to a small cluster of children so they have to listen out for their part and sing along to that part only.
• Use the same song again and again. Listening is a difficult skill so building their confidence is vital at all stages of language learning.

Teaching speaking

The tasks for speaking should meet the level of the students. Teachers keep them interested by introducing new approaches to speaking in class. This could mean talking to different people, talking to different numbers of people, speaking as a whole class, half a class or in small groups.

For different levels in the same class tasks for speaking can be different. For example, the weaker students tell how many teddy bears there are in the song and the stronger ones tell what the teddy bears are doing in the song.

Textbooks are usually filled with situation dialogues, helping the students learn language in real-life situations. But learning these dialogues by heart is a definite no-no. It is much better and far more useful to substitute the words so that they are true to students and their world. Thus each student uses his/her own variation, there is an obvious transition from pure imitation to conscious changing, which speeds up remembering and offers varied communicative opportunities.

Students should be exposed to English as much as possible. The teacher should use simple classroom instructions, like:

-How are you today?

-Could you repeat?

-Here you are

-Show me your homework

-Let’s write

-Could you repeat? Etc.

Some examples of speaking techniques are:

1) Ask and answer – Learners ask and answer questions.

2) Describe and draw – In pairs. Learner A has a picture, which learner B cannot see. Learner A describes the picture to the partner and learner B draws it.

3) Discussion – Learners work in pairs or groups to find out each other’s ideas or opinions on a topic.

4) Guessing – The teacher, or some of the learners, have information which the others have to guess by asking questions.

5) Remembering – Learners close their eyes and try to remember, for example, items from a picture or the location of objects in the classroom.

6) Miming- A learner mimes, for example, a feeling or action which the others have to identify.

7) Ordering – Learners arrange themselves in a particular order (for example alphabetical) by asking questions until they find their correct position.

8) Completing a form/questionnaire – Learners ask and answer questions, or provide information, in order to complete a form or questionnaire.

9) Pole play – Learners act out an imaginary situation. They either use a dialogue, or the teacher gives them instructions about what to say.

Teaching writing

Simple writing activities are used with young learners: copying down sentences from the board, writing out a jumbled word sentence from a workbook, filling in the blanks. They are often very important activities as they help students with their writing. If students are unable to copy sentences correctly, then they will make lots of mistakes when they come to write something longer.

Students should be motivated to write. If students see a reason for writing they will write. It is not enough for a teacher to say, "I'd like you to do this because it will be good for you."

When we write in our daily lives we always have a reason for doing so. So, if students write lots of texts and emails, why not start with these?

Also, when we write in real life we often receive some kind of response. This may be in the form of a phone call, a spoken comment or a written reply. Perhaps students can write to each other!

Collaborative writing is where students work in pairs or small groups to produce a piece of writing. In many cases this involves only one student actually putting pen to paper but all the students contributing through ideas, discussion on content and language and checking through the final product then refining, editing and improving.

By getting students to work together the focus shifts from being solely product orientated to emphasizing the process - how you get to produce the final piece.

Activity for writing

e.g. Students have been learning vocabulary to describe people. Choose a character appropriate for the age of your students like an alien, a robber, a super hero. First ask the students to shut their eyes and imagine this character. Then they tell each other what this character looked like in their mind’s eye. Next they decide on how they want the character they are going to write about to look. They could draw a picture first. After this they write a list of all the main characteristics e.g. evil eyes, a long scar on the right cheek, blue skin. Once they have plenty of ideas, they must write a descriptive paragraph together (the length depends on the age and ability of the children). While they write they must try to be as descriptive and interesting as possible. They can make as many changes as they want while writing. Once they are happy that they have got a really good description they can write it up neatly.

Pair dictations

Students of all ages all like doing picture dictations, which are very easy to set up and get lots of language practiced. First the teacher describes a picture and students must draw what they hear. For example it could be to practice describing people (He is very tall, he has large round eyes and a square shaped nose…) or for prepositions of place (There is a house on top of a mountain. An airplane if flying over the house, an elephant is standing in front on the house…)

Get students to draw their own pictures without showing them to their partners and then take turns describing their picture to their partner who must draw the picture. They check each others’ dictations by comparing the pictures.