Teaching speaking

topic-based and task-based activities The topic-based activities ask participants to talk about a topic, the main objective being clearly the discussion process itself. The task-based asks them actually to perform a task, where the objective is the production of some kind of clear result characteristics of a successful speaking activity Learners talk a lot pair or groupwork should be used, interesting topics and/or tasks should be given Equal participation pairwork or in groupwork the teacher could designate a discussion leader Motivation is high interesting/motivating topic or task Acceptable level of L pre-taught items, L1 monitors, based on easy language, clear guidelines possible problems of speaking activities Shyness and inhibitions (speaking requires some degree of real-time exposure to audience) Finding things to say (students dont always have something relevant to say, even if the topic is interesting) Low participation (only one student can talk at a time and sometimes there are dominant students) L1 use (students often fall back on their L1 because it feels more comfortable)

Teaching writing
Fluent writing Fluent writing aims to improve students ability to compose written text for communicative purposes. The main focus is on writing meaningful texts. To make these activities successful, they have to raise the Ss interest, have to be at an appropriate level and relevant with some personal appropriateness. Process writing Process writing is one of the ways to improve students writing skills. It is done through the processwriting cycle: the students write a first draft, hand it in, get feedback and rewrite the text again. Every student (best or worst) can benefit from this process. Creative writing Creative writing tasks are those that require imagination and creativity, they are mostly easy and pleasurable to compose if based on appropriate stimulus. Such as: poems, stories, anecdotes. Discourse-level writing task Interpersonal communication These tasks are more suitable for older teenagers and adults because they require knowledge of formal English and interpersonal ethics. These activities require students to perform real-life communication in writing. These tasks can be: blogs, emails, letters.

Teaching grammar
the self-directed approach Students discover knowledge and work out rules without guidance, developing their own understanding. The role of instruction is merely to provide a suitable environment in ordet to facilitate understanding. teachability hypothesis According to Pienemanns (1984) research, there is a certain fixed orded in which grammatical structures are acquired by the learners. Thus the teaching of a grammatical item for which the learner is not developmentally ready will not result in learning.

the inductive way of grammar teaching The inductive way means that the teacher gives a set of examples to students and then asks them to work out the rules for themselves. The deductive is the other way around, when the students are taught the rules but have to come up with examples. guided discovery An alternative to giving explanations would be to create activities that allow - learners to generate their own discoveries and explanations. Tasks at just the right level will draw attention to interesting language issues. Teacher questions (and use of other techniques) will 'nudge' the learners towards key points. In this way, long explanations can be avoided and learners take a more active role in their own progress. controlled drills Students produce examples of the structure. These examples are predetermined by the teacher or materials and have to conform to very clear, closed-ended cues. They can often be done without understanding. Eva likes tea but she doesnt like coffee. Eva likes English but she doesnt like Spanish. controlled activities --> free activities Controlled drills Ss produce examples but their choice of words is given by the teacher thus making it very close-ended Meaningful drills Ss produce examples but they can make a limited choice Guided, meaningful practice Ss form sentences according to a pattern but they can choose the words they want to use Free sentence composition Ss are provided with a situational cue and are asked to compose their own responses, they are also directed towards using a certaing grammatical item Discoures composition Students hold a discussion or write a passage according to a task. They are directed to use some examples of the gram. structure Free discourse No specific direction to use a structure meaningful drills The students give responses that are very controlled but the students can make a limited choice and needs to understand in order to answer. She likes ice-cream. She enjoys playing tennis. She loves drinking wine. gradual deletion The teacher writes up a number of sentences with the grammatical structure to be presented. Step-by-step one word from each sentence is deleted but the students have to remember the sentences. After a while only the first letters of each word is given, so the students really have to focus to remember the sentences. explicit and implicit grammar teaching Explicit teaching means that the teacher explicitly provides explanations of each grammatical structure. Implicit teaching means that the teacher implicitly tries to provide plenty of opportunity for the students to hear, read and use correct forms but not explain them, thus leaving it up to the students to work out the rules. situational presentation A method in grammar teaching when the teacher first provides a context (a situation) in which the students can use the new item. The teacher then explains or elicits the meaning of the target item basd on the situation. The item is then introduced and explained explicitly, after which the students produce more sentences based on the situation.

Teaching vocabulary
the Lexical Approach The basic concept on which this approach rests is the idea that an important part of learning a language consists of being able to understand and produce lexical phrases as chunks. Students are thought to be able to perceive patterns of language (grammar) as well as have meaningful set uses of words at their disposal when they are taught in this way. concept questions aspects of vocabulary knowledge the burden of a word form pronunciation and spelling of the word grammar (if not covered by grammatical rules, e.g. ing or to) meaning what the word denotes in the real world collocation words that co-occur with the given word connotation emotional, positive-negative associations with the word moist damp appropriateness taboo words, formal and informal words weep cry mnemonic devices A mnemonic device is any learning technique that aids information retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the brain can retain better than its original form. closed set/open set Lexical items (or content words) are open sets, because items are constantly added, lost or changed. Grammatical items (or function words) are closed sets, because it is highly unlikely that the language will acquire new grammatical items. pre-teach vocabulary hyponyms In linguistics, a hyponym is a word or phrase whose semantic field is included within that of another word. Hyponyms are items that serve as specific examples of a general concept. For example, dog, lion and mouse are hyponyms of animal. word formation Word formation includes every way in which a word can be formed: morphological (derivation, conversion, inflection), blending, acronym, calque, back-formation, neologism etc.