State University B.P.

Hasdeu of Cahul

COURSE NOTES ON
ENGLISH DIDACTICS

CAHUL 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION..3
I. ON DIDACTICS AND ENGLISH METHODOLOGY
DIDACTICS-THE GENERAL THEORY ON THE
EDUCATIONAL PROCESS5
TYPES OF COMPETENCES...7
THE CONTENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
12
THE PRINCIPLES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE
TEACHING13
II. FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS
TRADITIONAL METHODS.20
COMMUNICATIVE METHODS..27
INNOVATIVE METHODS33
III.STUDYING LANGUAGE SYSTEM
TEACHING LISTENING.40
TEACHING SPEAKING..46
TEACHING READING53
TEACHING WRITING.57
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION.63
TEACHING VOCABULARY..65
TEACHING GRAMMAR.71
TEACHING WITH VIDEO..81
BIBLIOGRAPHY.94
APPENDIX95
2

INTRODUCTION
Didactics, according to Comenius is the art of teaching
others employing various strategies that derive from a
branch of it-called Methodology.
Methods of teaching a foreign language is understood
as a body of scientifically tested theory concerning the
teaching of foreign language in schools and other
educational institutions.
Teaching a foreign language is essentially different
from teaching many school subjects where students
(pupils) are required to memorize and apply factual
information.
Certainly, there is a body of knowledge to be acquired
about language-facts, about grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation - and there is a place for conscious learning.
However, this is just a part of what a successful
language teacher and learner does.
The present course of lectures deals with the study of
three main problems:

Competences and subcompetences in teaching a

foreign language-that is why to teach and learn;

content of teaching that is what to teach to achieve

the competences mentioned above;

methods and techniques of teaching that is how to

teach a foreign language to achieve the aim in the
most effective way.
Language teaching is also concerned with teaching
students how to develop and form pupils habits and skills
in listening, reading, speaking and writing.
The focus of this course is not so much on the
language and the language skills being taught, but on the

teaching skills and techniques where the teacher is required

to direct or orchestrate the learning activities of the class.
It is very important for a student to understand the
importance and social value of his future profession (job)
as a teacher. The present course is meant to help the
students to acknowledge these values.
It is intended for students who have practice in
schools and high-schools. The aim of the course is to help
students to realize the main objectives of his lesson and to
teach students different methods of teaching English in
order to make theirs and learners activities more efficient.

DIDACTICS-THE GENERAL THEORY ON THE

EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
Topics:
1. Object of study
2. English Methodology- a branch of specialty didactics
3. Social and educational factors
1. The term didactics comes from the Greek
didaskein meaning to teach others. Comenius- the
scholar who wrote Didactica Magna defined Didactics as
the art of teaching the others. Didactics deals with the
educational process and is based on certain principles,
goals concerning the cognitive process employing scientific
methods and procedures.
Didactics studies:
-the educational process as a cognitive and formative one;
- the educational system;
- the didactic principles;
- the content of teaching;
-the methods of teaching;
-the didactic technology-the curriculum
- the teacher-student relationship, the teachers roles;
-school architecture;
-the process of evaluation.
Didactics can be:
-general-responding to general standards of human health
and development;
-special- responding to specific needs and peculiarities of
people with physical and mental disabilities.
Didactics embraces various subjects directing its objects
of study towards diverse Methodologies of Specialty such as
5

English Methodology, Geography Methodology, Biology

Methodology, etc. Since this course intends to prepare teachers
of English for their pedagogical trainings, English Methodology
will constitute the primary source for instruction.
2. Methods of teaching a foreign language is understood as a
body of scientifically tested theory concerning the foreign
language teaching in schools and other educational institutions. It
covers three main problems:
- Competences and subcompetences-that is goal setting
that will answer the question what for or why to teach a
foreign language
- content of foreign language teaching- that is what to
teach
- methods and techniques of foreign language teachingthat is how to teach a foreign language in order to attain
the aims of this science in the most effective way.
3.Social and educational factors determine in a way teachers
activity within the social attitudes towards the English language.
Learning will partly determine how much effort teachers have to
put into motivating children. The presence of English in
community will immediately facilitate practice opportunities
such as writing reviews of English films and TV programmes,
keeping a diary of extra curricular activities, outside visits, or
encounter projects. Its absence creates greater but not
insuperable challenges for teachers, who will need to think about
sources of authentic input, about creating a balance of skills
work to make the most productive use of class and out of
class time. The educational system in which teachers work will
be influenced by cultural notions of authority which affect the
potential roles of teachers and learners.

TYPES OF COMPETENCES
Communicative Area
1. linguistic competences require the learning of the
linguistic system of a language together with its levels of
communication(phonetic, grammatical, lexical, stylistic).
The role of metalanguage ( formation rules, definitions,
linguistic terms) is not emphasizes excepting the simplest
notions as gender, number, case, conjugation, etc that will
facilitate logical combination of linguistic phenomena with
a certain communicative situation. In other words the
linguistic competences are included in the learners lexical,
grammatical,
semantic,
phonetic
orthographic
competences.
2. communicative competences will demonstrate learners
ability to use the linguistic competences, to understand the
oral(comprehension, fluent, expressive, speedy, selective
reading) and written messages, to produce and reproduce
the oral and written messages based on the syllabus
material as well as on other situations.
a) Recepting oral messages:
1.1. identifying the general(global) meaning of an oral message,
presented clearly and at an average speed
1.2. eliciting specific information from a short oral message
1.3. defining a logical order of events in a short, clearly presented text.
1.4.following the speakers instructions appropriately
b) Recepting written messages:
3.1. identifying the type of text
3.2. identifying the global meaning of a message( silent reading)
3.3. extracting the main ideas from an unknown text
3.4. associating the information from a text with a set of pictures or a
picture

3.5. selecting ideas from a text and arranging them into an appropriate
scheme
c) producing written messages:
4.1.asking for and giving personal information
4.2. providing a complete and clear description of a person or event
4.3. providing a description of the students household duties
(according to a given plan)

3. pragmatic competences will demonstrate learners

abilities to choose the communicative strategy that fits to a
concrete communication act( using nonverbal means like
gestures and mime when the speaker has lexical blanks, the
use of synonyms, antonyms, etc.). The learner should be
able to apply the linguistic competences and the nonverbal
means in filling his blanks, in writing letters, sending emails with the aim to communicate, to contact, to
congratulate, to invite, to show initiative in communication,
to find out a solution for difficult communicative situations,
to pass over the barrier of communication discomfort as a
result insufficient knowledge by substituting the unknown
grammatical forms with simpler ones, to perceive the
constitution, emission of diverse speaking acts.
a) producing oral messages and interaction:
2.1. asking for and using information about the students families
2.2. participating in a dialogue on a familiar topic to exchange simple
information
2.3. synchronistically translating into the students native language a
sequence of 4-5 short sentences on a familiar topic
2.4. providing a short fluent description of the students family
members.

Cultural Area
Social/multicultural competences show the learners
ability to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes
8

necessary to increase the cross-cultural awareness

concerning the allophone country(traditions, holydays,
historical, cultural personalities, etc. This group of
competences places the learner within a multidimensional
world where there are different races, nationalities, peoples.
Graduating from secondary school the learner will show
knowledge in geographic, historic, social, cultural
peculiarities of the allophone countries, awareness in
foreign language and literature importance as means of
national and international communication, the recognition
of different cultures integration within the context of socioeconomic globalization.
Graduating from secondary school the learner will posess:
a)interlinguistic competences based on the foreign
languages studied.
b)terminological competences based on the domains of
languages studied
c)intercultural competences based on the languages
studied
For example:
1. identifying and respecting the norms of verbal and non-verbal
communication while interacting orally and in written form
2. Identifying some elements of the systems of education of English
speaking countries (timetable, school subjects, school activities,
vacations
3.Knowledge of simple literary texts which belong to the culture of
English-speaking countries
4. knowledge of some cartoons for children their structure , characters,
actions, -and identifying the ways of expressing attitudes and feelings
5.indentifying the general meaning of traditional songs
6. knowledge of famous people of the target language community
7. cooperating with classmates to fulfil some study activities showing
responsibility respect and tolerance in the course of communication

Comparison Area
9

Interdisciplinary competences constitute a system of

knowledge , skills, attitudes, and values acquired during the
learning process beginning with the secondary school when
the learning of foreign languages and other subjects related
to them takes place. These competences formation let the
learner notice, identify, evaluate similarities and differences
among the grammatical, lexical, semantic, orthographic
systems of the studied languages, among the terms used in
the studied languages, among the linguistic, social-cultural,
and civic interference blanks.
For example:
1. Comparing fairy tales characters in English speaking countries and
Moldova
2. Comparing some topics of poems and songs for children in English
speaking countries and Moldova
3. Comparing structures and content of cartoons for children in English
speaking countries and Moldova
4. Comparing the ways of explaining the rules of games and giving
instructions in a standard language
5. Comparing the ways of giving an address.

Integrated Skill Combination

Methodological competences derive from the foreign
language teaching-learning-evaluation process because the
learner is placed within a specific didactic environment
being the subject of it together with his competences. This
process is designed for the learner, is realized with his
participation being tutored by the teacher. These
competences presuppose learners awareness concerning
the didactic methods and means necessary in teaching a
foreign language and their abilities to use the didactic
means independently( the copybook, the textbook, the
audio, video, CD, DVD recordings, the TV set, the
computer, the dictionary, the internet, etc.). The learner
must know the methods of working with the didactic
10

material and sometimes be able to identify by himself the

didactic means necessary to carry out the given tasks with
self-formation and self-evaluation aims.
Learning about interlinguistic and intercultural
similarities and differences
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Identifying simple expressions similar to the ones in the

students mother tongue in simple written and spoken
sentences
drawing and explaining a plan
drawing pictures and collages in the course of study activities
correctly writing and pronouncing numbers in the course of
study activities
making a full description of pets
listening to and interpreting songs for children
employing non-verbal means of communication- body
movements, facial expressions and actions-through active
games
memorizing and reciting rhymes, short poems and simple
dialogues fluently and with proper intonation.

Community Area
Civic competences(attitudinal and axiological) are
destined to self-evaluation and deepening. The foreign
language learning within this dimension will contribute to
the increase of toleration, altruism, condescension,
indulgence, responsibility for ones own opinions and
judgements, stimulating learners to aspire to a continuous
improvement of his knowledge and skills in a certain
domain.
1. identifying the ways of behaviour and speech acts which are related
to various communicative situations: at the library
2. identifying and respecting certain forms of written interaction
! The sample subcompetences were taken from the Moldovan
national Curriculum, the Vth grade compartment.

11

THE CONTENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE

TEACHING
There is no single acceptable way to go about teaching
languages today.
Topics:
1. The first component- four language skills.
2. The second component- linguistic component
3. The third component- methodological component.
The component of foreign language teaching or what to teach
is one of the main problems the main methodologists deal with.
1. The four language skills.
The 1st component of what to teach is: skills which pupils
should acquire while learning a foreign language according to
the competences of learning this subject (listening, speaking,
reading and writing). The four language skills are divided into
two groups:
a)
receptive-these are listening and writing because by
their means we receive or input information.
b)
productive- these are speaking and writing as they help
output information or produce or reproduce it.
The level of skills and habits is determined by the syllabus
for each form. However qualitative and quantitative characters of
skill or so called terminal behaviour is not defined yet for
different types of schools and strategies of instruction.
2. Linguistic component.
The second component of what to teach is a linguistic one
which includes language material, sentence patterns, pattern
dialogues, texts in different styles, arranged topics and serving as
starting points for the development of oral language and written
language which allows the teacher to reach the linguistic,
communicative, methodological and cultural competences set by
12

the syllabus. On the other hand, linguistic material for example

phonology grammar, vocabulary is carefully selected for this
purpose. The selection of the linguistic material is very
important. For example minimum vocabulary, grammar has
always been one of the most important and difficult problems to
be solved.
3. Methodological component.
The third component of what to teach is a methodological
component. Pupils should be taught how to learn the foreign
language how to work at the subject to attain the aims. For
example how to memorize words and keep them in memory,
how to perform drill exercises in the most effective way, how to
perform creative exercises which require a personal approach on
the part of the pupils.
So the content of foreign language teaching involves three
main components:
1. Psychological habits and skills which ensure the use of the
target language as a means of communication in oral (listening,
speaking) and written (reading, writing) forms.
2. Linguistic component- language and linguistic material
which should be assimilated to be used in language skills.
3. Methodological component- the techniques which pupils
should acquire, to learn a foreign language in a most effective
way.
THE PRINCIPLES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE
TEACHING
Topics:
1. The principle of scientific approach.
2. The principle of information accessibility.
3. The principle of durability.
4. The principle of conscious approach.
5. The principle of activities.
6. The principle of visualisation.
13

7. The principle of individualization.

Principle is defined as a guide to teaching methods of foreign
language based on the fundamental principles of Didactics.
Every school-subject realises these principles in its own way.
Thus didactic principles employed in teaching a certain subject
become methodological principles for teaching this subject.
1.
The principle of scientific approach.
Scientific approach in foreign language teaching implies
careful determination of what and how to teach in order to
achieve the competences set by the syllabus. The other aims can
be achieved through the practical command of the target
language. One of the main methodological principles is the
principle of the practical and communicative approach. It means
pupils should be involved in written or oral communication.
Throughout the whole comes out the learning of the foreign
language. This principle is realised by means of competences
and subcompetences and teaching materials now used in schools.
Pupils are taught to use the target language as a means of
communication for listening, comprehension, writing, speaking
and reading. Each language activity has its own set of actions
which are characteristic to this activity.
2.
The principle of information accessibility.
The next principle is closely connected with the selection of
material and its arrangement in order to provide accessibility for
language learning on the part of the pupils. As pupils learn the
target language for communication the material should be
arranged in a more suitable way for the purpose. In modern
methodology various approaches to the arrangement of the
teaching materials for teaching purposes are observed:
1.
Linguistic approach- when in foreign language
teaching a certain linguistic theory is applied. The material is
arranged and interpreted in accordance with the theory.
14

2.

The structural-functional approach- when material is

arranged in structures.

3.
The principle of durability.
This principle implies the ability of pupils to keep in
memory linguistic and language material they learn of ready
access. The pupils can use units of language and sentence
patterns, whenever they need them for oral and written
communication. The durability is insured by:
1.
Vivid presentation of the material when pupils are
involved in presentations. Their thinking and senses are at work.
2.
Constant revision or drill- pupils reproduce the
material and review it out of their auditory visual kinaesthetic
and motor analyses are at work.
3.
The use of the material on the part of the learners for
communication. Pupils read texts with various assignment to get
information through listening and reading they carry on
conversations within the topics:
4.
Systematic control.
5.
Constant supervision of pupils habits and skills on the
part of the teacher.
Under these conditions pupils keep the material longer in
their memory because it is constantly reviewed by them and
revised by the teacher.
4.
The principle of conscious approach.
Language learning comprises comprehension of a linguistic
phenomenon of language material usually by means of native
language or the arrangement of the material in sentence patterns
some elements which are singled out as teaching points. In all
cases pupils understand both: the form and content of the
material. They are to learn and they are aware of how they
should treat the material while performing various exercises the
aim of which is to develop habits and skills in using it. Such an
15

approach to language learning is achieved with the help of

explanation, drills, clarification exercises, argumentation and
examples. The pupils should acquire the rules of the language in
order to be able to follow these rules in the act of communication
and the teachers tasks is to help the pupils in this respect.
Preceding to psychological peculiarities or foreign language
assimilation and taking into account the basic progress of
thought, we may come to the conclusion that in order to master a
foreign language, pupils must have a lot of practice in listening,
speaking, reading and writing. As for the mother tongue, we can
not eliminate it- we should use it as a means of teaching
whenever it helps pupils in acquiring knowledge necessary for
developing habits and skills.
Conscious approach in foreign language teaching implies the
pupils understanding of the materials they are to learn to be able
to transform it and to apply it in communication in the target
language.
Transformation is connected with pupils abilities to make
the material fit to any new situation and new tasks.
Comprehension is achieved:
1. through situations in which the material is used.
2. through contexts and other linguistic means(synonyms,
antonyms, definitions)
3. through translations into the mother tongue
4. through visual presentation(pictures, objects, gestures)
5. pointing out some features which are characteristic for
this amount of material
6. through creating so called orientation, to be able to
perform a necessary action with the material.
5.
The principle of activities.
Foreign language teaching is of great importance. The pupil
is an active participant in the process- he is involved in language
activities. Throughout the whole course of instruction in modern
16

Psychology- activity is now generally considered to be the main

characteristic of cognitive progress. Activity arises under certain
conditions. The pupil should fulfil a need to learn a subject and
have necessary pre-required sets created for a satisfaction of this
need. The main sources of activity are:
-motivation
-desire
-interest
So in foreign language teaching it is necessary to stimulate
pupils activity by involving them in the act of communication in
the target language either in oral or written form.
If pupils are not involved in communication and remain on
the level of performing drill of exercises, they soon loose their
interest in the subject and become passive at the lesson. It is
pupils who should work and not the teacher during the lesson.
Some ways to solve these problems are:
1. work in unison.
2. mass work when pupils are invited to listening to a text,
to read a text silently, to do some exercises in written form when
they learn for themselves and do the same work.
3. work in small groups when pupils are divided into four
five groups and each group received a special assignment either
reading or speaking the work results in conversation between
group I and the class, group II and the class.
4. work in pairs.
5. individual work in programmed instruction when each
pupil can work with the programme he receives either through
visual or auditory perception at his own pace.
6. The principle of visualisation.
This principle has always been very important for long
learning since the gaining of knowledge begins either with
perception or with what has been formally perceived with
previous experience.
17

Visualization may be defined as a specially organised

demonstration of linguistic material and language behaviour
characteristic of the target language with the purpose of helping
the pupils in understanding, assimilating and utilising this in
connection with the task set.
Since pupils acquire a second language in artificial
conditions visualisation should be expanded.
Visualisation allows the teacher to create natural conditions
for pupils of oral and practical activities and free conversation.
Visualisation can be used in teaching under various aspects of
language: phonology, vocabulary, grammar and the development
of four language skills.
The use of visualisation makes foreign language lessons
emotionally coloured and increases pupils interest.
Visualisation implies an extensive use of audio-visual aids
and audio-visual materials for presenting and memorizing the
linguistic material and for developing oral and written language
although they are to be used differently according to the stage of
instruction, the age of pupils, etc.
In foreign language teaching in schools it is necessary to
follow the oral approach as it is the one that allows the pupils to
deal with the language in its primary functions as a means of
communication.
7. The principle of individualization.
This principle is of great importance since the subject is an
essential one and according to the curriculum each pupil should
acquire habits and skills the syllabus sets.
Some individuals in a class learn more rapidly than others,
sometimes an individual enters in a period of fast learning,
sometimes enters in a period of poor-learning.
The teacher should assess the progress of each individual and
find the way how to manage the classroom activity so that the
slowest learners are not depressed by being left behind and the
18

fastest and most able learners are not frustrated by being held
back.
Individualisation in foreign language teaching is achieved:
1.
through the use of individual cards compiled by the
teacher who is aware of pupils ability.
2.
through the use of the programme, materials when
each pupil can work at his own pace.
3.
by special selection of exercises for each group of
pupils in class, bright, average and full.
4.
by the use of additional material
5.
by arranging pupils communication in the target
language so that each pupil can do his best as a participant of
different activities.
So in order to apply the principle of individualisation in a
foreign language the teacher should be familiar with the class
with its individuals.

19

FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS

Topics:
1.
Approach. Method. Procedure. Technique
2.
Traditional Methods
3.
Communicative methods
4.
Innovative Methods
Before each group of methods is described together with its
specific common features a strong necessity is felt to draw the
distinction among the notions of approach, method,
procedure and technique. Here are the definitions proposed by
Jeremy Harmer:
a) Approach refers to theories about the nature of language
teaching that serve as a source of practices and language
teaching. An approach describes how language is used and how
its constituent parts interlock. It also offers a model of language
competence, it describes how people acquire their knowledge of
language, it makes statements about the conditions which will
promote successful language learning.
b) Method is the practical realisation of the approach. It
implies types of activities, roles of teachers and learners, kinds
of helpful material and some model of syllabus organization. It
includes procedures and techniques. When methods have clear
procedures informed by a clearly articulated approach they are
easy to describe.
c) Procedure is an ordered sequence of techniques. A
sequence can be described as: first you do this, then this and
this. It is smaller than a method and bigger than a technique.
d) Technique is an activity that is a part of a sequence of
activities applying a skill in doing something.
! Methods may easily be mixed up with techniques as
sometimes techniques generate methods and vice versa.
20

Traditional Methods of Teaching

The Cognitive Theory
The Cognitive Theory underlays the Grammar Translation
Method and according to it the language is a set of rules whether
grammatical or communicative which the teacher explains and
the learners assimilate. This theory is considered to be the oldest
and the newest in the same time as it implies such a term as
Monitor Model by means of which the adult learners consciously
monitor their speech and are aware of the rules they are using.
a) The Grammar Translation Method.
The Grammar Translation Method appeared in Germany.
The leaders of this school were Johann Seidenstuker and Karl
Plotz. It looks upon the language as an intellectual activity. This
method was commonly used in Europe to teach Latin and Greek
and this is why it is also called the Classical Method. In the
XXth century the Grammar Translation Method was used to help
students read and appreciate foreign literature. It was considered
that through the Grammar of the foreign language the students
will get familiar with the grammar of their native language, that
they will read and write better in their mother tongue, that it will
help them grow intellectually. This method dominated from
1840-1940.
The main characteristics of the Grammar Translation
Method are:
1.
The aim of foreign language study is to learn a
language in order to read its literature or in order to benefit from
the mental discipline and intellectual development that from
foreign language study. Grammar Translation is a way of
studying a language that approaches the language first through
detailed analysis of its grammar rules.
21

2.
Reading and writing are the major focus; little or no
systematic attention is paid to speaking or listening.
3.
Vocabulary selection is solely on the reading texts
used, and words are taught through bilingual word lists,
dictionary study and memorization. In a typical GrammarTranslation textbook the grammar rule are presented with their
translation equivalents, and translation exercises are presented.
4.
The sentence is the unit of reading and language
practice. Much of the lesson is devoted to translating sentences
into 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
comparison to be made between the foreign language and the
students native language.
8.
Although the Grammar-Translation Method often
creates frustration for students, it makes few demands on
teachers. It is still used in situations where understanding literary
texts is the primary focus of foreign language.
b) The Direct Method
Gouin had been one of the first of the 19th century reformers
to attempt to build a methodology around observation of child
language learning, that is to naturalistic principles of studying a
language.
The principal characteristics of the Direct Method are:
1.
Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in
the target language.
2.
Only everyday vocabulary and sentences were taught.
22

3.
Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully
graded progression organized 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 by association of ideas.
7.
Both speech and listening comprehension were taught.
8.
Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized.
These principles as seen in the following guidelines for
teaching oral language are still followed in contemporary Berlitz
schools:
- never translate: demonstrate.
- never explain: act.
- never make a speech: ask questions.
- never imitate mistakes: correct.
- never speak with single words: use sentences.
- never speak too much: make students speak much.
- never use the book: use your own lesson plan.
- never jump around: follow your plan.
- never go too fast: keep the pace of the students.
- never speak too slowly: speak normally
- never speak too quickly: speak naturally.
- never speak too loudly: speak naturally.
- never be impatient: take it easy.
In the Direct Method the four language skills are taught from
the beginning, but a special emphasis is placed on speaking.
Classes often start with the reading aloud of a specially graded
text which introduces the lessons vocabulary and grammatical
structural. Practice follows with exercises such as guided
conversation, where the teacher asks questions on the students
answer using full answers.
23

Teachers sometimes complain that it is time consuming to

mime vocabulary, when a simple translation would do. Some
words are difficult to mime. Its necessary to use the common
sense in the question of translation.
c) Audiolingual Method.
This method was influenced by behavioural psychologist
who believed that foreign language learning is basically a
process of mechanical habit formation like when training an
animal to do something. To do this, its necessary to follow a
three-stage procedure where the stages are: stimulus, response
and reinforcement. For example: signal-light stimulus; the rat
presses the bar-response; tasty food- reinforcement.
1. The entry of U.S.A into the Second World War had
significant effect on language in America. To supply the U.S.
Government with personnel who were fluent in foreign
languages (German, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.) who
could work as interpreters, code room assistants, and
translators, it was necessary to set up a special language training
program. The Government commissioned American universities
to develop foreign language programs for military personnel.
Thus the Army Specialized Training Program was established in
1942. Fifty five American universities were involved in the
program by the beginning of 1943. The objective of the army
personnel was for students to attain conversational proficiency in
variety of foreign languages. Since this was not the goal of
conventional foreign language courses in the US, new
approaches were necessary. Linguists, such as Leonard
Bloomfield at Yale, had already developed training programs a
part of their linguistic research that were designed to give
linguistic and anthropologists mastery of American Indian
languages and other languages they were studying. Textbooks
did not exist for such languages. The technique Bloomfield and
his colleagues used was sometimes known as the informant
24

method, since it used a native speaker of the language the

informant who served as a source of phrases and vocabulary
who provided sentences for imitation, and a linguist, who
supervised the learning experience. The Army Specialized
Training Program lasted only about two years but attracted
considerable attention in the popular press and in the academic
community. But the linguists who developed ASTP were not
interested primarily in language teaching. The methodology of
the Army Method, derived from the intensity of contact with the
target language rather than from any well developed
methodological basis. It was innovative mainly in its underling
theory. However, it did convince a number of prominent linguists
of the value of an intensive, oral based approach to the learning
of a foreign language. Linguists and applied linguists during this
period were becoming increasingly involved in the teaching of
English as a foreign language. America had now emerged as a
major international power. There was a growing demand for
foreign expertise in the teaching of English. Thousands of
foreign students entered the United States to study universities,
and many of these students required training in English before
they could begin their studies. These factors led to the
emergence of the American approach to ESL, which by the mid
fifties had become Audiolingualism.
Distinguishing features. In the Audio-lingual Method, skills
are taught in the natural order: listening, speaking, reading,
writing. Audio-lingual classes begin with a dialogue, which
introduces the lessons sentence patterns. The students memorize
this dialogue, then practice grammar in drills such as listen and
repeat, substitution, chain, and transformation. Accuracy in
pronunciation is emphasized and fostered through minimal pair
drills where students learn to differentiate between sounds such
as the vowels ship or sheep, hit and heat, bit and beat.
Lessons are sequenced according to grammatical complexity.
Translation, considered to cause interference from the mother
25

tongue, is not allowed. Learning is tightly controlled by the

teacher, who follows the text closely. So, in the Audio-lingual
Method:
1. Foreign language learning is basically a process of
mechanical habit formation. Good habits are formed by giving
correct responses rather than by making mistakes. By
memorizing dialogues and performing pattern drills the chances
of producing mistakes are minimized. Language is verbal
behaviour that is, the automatic production and comprehension
of utterances and can be learned by inducing the students to do
likewise.
2.
Language skills are learned more effectively if the items to
be learned in the target language are presented in spoken form
before they are seen in written form. Aural oral training is
needed to provide the foundation for the development of other
language skills.
3.
Analogy provides a better foundation for
language learning than analysis. Analogy involves the processes
of generalization and discrimination. Explanations of rules are
therefore not given until students have practiced a pattern in a
variety of contexts and are taught to have acquired a perception
of the analogies. Hence, the approach to the teaching of grammar
is essentially inductive rather than deductive.
4. The meaning that the words of a language have for the native
speaker can be learned only in a linguistic and cultural context
and not in isolation. Teaching a language thus involves teaching
aspects of the cultural system of the people who speak the
language (Rivers 1964:19-2).

26

Communicative Methods
No one can learn to communicate in a new language if he is
never allowed to make mistakes in it.
In late 60s there was seen a shift from the Audio-lingual
Method to Communicative language teaching. This shift evolved
partly as a result of studies carried out by the Council of Europe,
which began to identify the language needed in a variety of
social situations by someone immigrating to Common Market
countries. The studies sought to evaluate how language itself is
used, how native speakers of a language express themselves in
various situation. The studies had a major impact on the teaching
of English as a foreign language. Teachers and curriculum
designers began to look at content, at the kind of language
needed when greeting or shopping. The emphasis on form, on
explicitly learning grammar rules or practicing grammatical
patters, was downplayed in favour of an approach designed to
meet learners needs when using the language in daily
interaction. The table that follows shows some of the language in
daily interaction and some of the differences between Grammar
Translation, Audio-lingual and Communicative Language
Teaching.
A comparison of distinguishing features of three approaches
to language teaching
Grammar
Tr. Meth.
Grammar rules

Audiolingual Communic.
Method Lang. Learn.

Central
feature

Not
explained

27

Explained when
Necessary

Meaningful
Not
Communication important
Pronunciation
Not
considered
Use of
Central
translation
feature
Sequencing of
Follows
lesson
linguistic
complexity
TeacherTeacherstudent
centred
Roles
Attitudes to
errors
Balance of
language skills

Limited

Central feature

Target
native-like
Forbidden

Target
Comprehensible
Used when
necessary
Follows
learners needs

Follows
linguistic
complexity
Teachercentred

Teacher
facilitates
student-tostudent
interaction
Accuracy
Accuracy
Errors part
emphasized emphasized of
Learning
Process
Reading
Listening
Skills taught
and
and
according to
writing
speaking
learners needs
emphasized emphasized

According to the Humanistic Theory the aim of learning

the target language is not necessarily to communicate with
others but also to develop in learners the potential of human
beings. The teacher is more an educator than an instructor
who focuses more on students personal feelings and
emotions. This theory has given birth ot the
Communicative language learning.

28

Communicative Language Learning

The Communicative Language Learning was
developed by H.G. Widdowson. While using this method
the emphasis is placed on using the target language to
accomplish a function such as complaining, advising, or
asking for information; in other words to communicate
through interaction. Attention is also paid to the social
context in which this function takes place. For instance,
different language will be used when complaining to a
teacher than when complaining to a close friend.
Distinguishing features:
All four language skills are taught from the beginning. In
speaking the aim is to be understood, not to speak like a
native. In the sequencing of lesson, priority is given to
learner interests and needs. This is the contrast to the
Grammar Translation Method, which may start with verb
tenses, and work through from the preset simple to the
conditionals. In a Communicative approach if a learner
needs to know how to give advice (If I were you, I
would) then this conditional is taught. Interaction
between speakers and listeners or readers and writers is at
the root of all activities. Chapters on teaching Speaking,
Reading Listening give many examples of the kind of
activities to be found in a classroom following the
communicative approach. Learners usually work in pairs or
groups for role play, information sharing or problem
solving.
Exercises using or recording from the radio, are
selected so that learners can practice language in real
situations where possible.

The Total Physical Response

29

This method was developed by James Asher, a

professor of Psychology and encourages teachers to teach
the language through physical activity. Involving the use of
gamelike movements the Total Physical Response method
is intended to reduce learners stress, to create a positive
mood and to facilitate learning.
The comprehension skills development is under the major
focus, in other words the comprehension abilities will
precede productive skills in learning the language. The
teaching of speaking must be delayed until comprehension
is achieved. Skills are acquired through listening and
teaching emphasizes meaning rather than form.
Distinguishing features:
Skills are taught in natural order
Learners are given different commands
After the first stage students will be ready to speak
After the second stage they will be ready to direct other
students
This method is useful and fun and is recommended to be
used with beginners.

The Acquisition Theory

This theory is based on the distinction between
acquisition and learning.
Acquisition is the knowledge leading to common
performance, a subconscious process.
Learning is knowledge leading to the ability to monitor
the language, a conscious process.
Mirela Codruta Stanisoara proposes 4 theories of
acquisition:

30

1. The Comprehensible Input Acquisition where input is

the language that students hear or read and is based on
learners previous experience in a context at a higher level.
2. Natural Order Hypothesis that stands for teaching
languages in a consequent order(from simple to
complicated).
3. The Monitor Hypothesis promotes the idea that
acquisition and learning intermingle in the process of
production ability to produce utterances and to correct
them.
4. The Affective Filter
Not only the comprehensible input is necessary for
foreign language learning but also the affective factor that
functions as a block that prevents language to be acquired.
The lower these affective filters(negative emotions such as
anxiety, fear, stress) are the more probable the learners will
be successful in passing over the barrier of communication
while learning the target language.
The Acquisition Theory gave birth to the Natural
Approach.

The Natural Approach

The Natural Approach was proposed by Tracy Terrell
and incorporated naturalistic principles. It focuses on
teaching communicative abilities and views communication
as the primary function of language. Language is left to
emerge naturally as it is viewed as a vehicle of
communicating meanings and messages. This approach
also reveals the idea that acquisition can occur when people
understand messages in target language.
According to
the Natural Approach developing the Input Hypothesis is
31

possible when using the following the I+1 formula that

stands for having an input before passing to another stage.
Learners emotional state and attitudes constitute the
filter that impedes or blocks the input. In order to increase
the language input, these affective filters should be low, in
other words motivated students have better results, those
who are self confident are likely to be more successful
because their level of anxiety and stress is low and they are
not afraid of making mistakes, of feeling discomfort, of
looking silly, of being criticized, of participating actively in
the learning process.

The Competency Based Approach

The Competency-Based Approach was developed and
applied in the USA to help immigrants and refugees learn
English and life skills in the same time. It is based on
theories of adult learning which states that in order
effective learning to take place; adults need to know that
what they are studying will improve their lives.
Distinguishing features:
Learners dominate in the Competence-based Approach
because language skills, the grammar and vocabulary they
study are sequenced according to their needs. Translation is
used when necessary for communication. Context is used
as much as possible to help the learners induce the
meanings of lexical structures or the formation of
grammatical structures. Authentic materials are used and
the learners are encouraged to practice the language by
performing real tasks outside the classroom. Like the
Communicative Approach the Competency Based
Approach bases its activities on interaction. Pair work and
32

group work are used to generate communication in

activities such as problem solving, filling information gaps,
questioning, making surveys, etc.

Innovative Methods of Teaching

The teacher works with the student, the student works
with the language.

The Silent Way

The Silent way is a method introduced by Caleb
Gategno, a methodologist who revived the interest in the
use of coloured wooden sticks called cuisenaire rods and
the series of Words in Colour, an approach to the teaching
of initial reading in which sounds are coded by specific
colours. His materials are copyrighted and marked through
an organization he operated, called Educational solutions
Inc., in New York. The Silent Way method is based on the
premise that the teacher should be silent as much as
possible in the classroom and the learner should be
encouraged to produce as much language as possible.
The Silent Way shares a great deal with other learning
theories and educational philosophies. The hypotheses that
follow belong to Gategnos work within this method:
1. Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers rather
than remembers and repeats what is to be learned.
2. Learning is facilitated by accompanying physical
objects.
3. learning is facilitated by problem solving involving
the material to be learned, which represent Benjamin
Franklins words:
Tell me and I forget,
33

Teach me and I remember,

Involve me and I learn.
In the Silent Way learners are actively responsible for
their own learning. Learning a language is seen not as a
process of habit formation like in the Audiolingual Method,
but rather a process whereby the learners discover the rules
of the target language and then applies those rules to
understand and use the language. Mistakes are considered
as a part of the process of discovering the rules and the
teacher should not interfere in the process by correcting the
learners' mistakes.
Distinguishing features:
All four language skills are taught from the beginning,
though reading and writing are sequenced to follow what
has been produced orally. Special charts are used to teach
pronunciation. First, there is a sound-colour, each one
representing a sound in the target language. The teacher
and student point to blocks of colour on the chart to form
syllables, words and sentences. Second, there are word
charts containing words whose letters are colour coded in
the same way as the sound-colour chart. The teacher and
students make up sentences, point to words on the chart and
read the sentences they have written or told. Third, there
are sounds of the language with their spelling. For example
ay, ea, ei and eigh, which are all different spellings
of the sound [ei] in English, they are listed and colourcoded together.
Cuisenaire rods(bits of wood varying in length and
colour) are used to introduce vocabulary and structures. At
the beginning level they can be used to teach numbers and
colours(take two red rods). At the intermediate level they
can be used to teach comparatives(the red rod is longer
than the blue one, the prepositions( the green rod is
above the yellow one), the difference between the definite
34

and indefinite articles (take a/ the red rod) with the help
of the finger technique. At a later stage they can be used to
teach conditionals (If I had a red rod I would give it to
you).
The Silent way is designed to be used with small
groups of learners. Teachers using this method usually
undergo intensive training in its techniques and philosophy.
The usefulness of this method consists first, in the fact that
the knowledge the learners discover for themselves is
retained and owned in a more permanent and meaningful
way than are materials which have been packaged and only
require students to memorize them. Second, there is the
idea of peer coaching in a non-competitive environment.
Having presented the material, the teacher stands back and
lets his students experiment with the rules and generate talk
in English. The teachers role during this group work is to
make sure that the group atmosphere is open to the
contribution of all its members.

Community Language Learning

Community Language Learning is a method developed
by Charles A. Curran and his associates. Curran was a
specialist in counselling and a professor of psychology at
Loyola University. His application of psychological
counselling techniques to learning is known as Counselling
Learning. Community Language Learning represents the
use of Counselling-learning theory to teach languages.
In Community Language Learning the aim is to
involve the learners whole personality. Affective and
intellectual well-being is given equal weight. The teacher is
the counsellor who gives assistance and support to the
learners, who are the clients. The teachers role is to
understand learners fears and vulnerabilities as they
35

struggle to master another language. By being sensitive to

the learners fears, the teacher can turn their negative
energy of these fears into positive energy and enthusiasm to
learning. The relationship between the learner and the
teacher and among the learners themselves, therefore, take
on great importance.
The following procedures are typical in a CLL class:
1. Translation. Learners form a small circle. A learner
whispers a message or a meaning he or she wants to
express. The teacher translates it into the target language
and the learner repeats the teachers translation.
2. Group Work. Learners may engage in different tasks such
as small group discussion on 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.
3. Recording. Students record conversations in the target.
Language.
4. Transcription. Students transcribe utterances and
conversations they have recorded for practice and analysis
of the linguistic forms.
5. Analysis. Students analyse and study transcriptions of the
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 experiences as a class or group. They usually
consist of expressing feelings-sense of one another,
reactions to silence, concern for something to say, etc.
7. Listening. Students listen to a monologue involving
elements they might have elicited or overheard in class
interaction.
8. Free conversation. Students engage in free conversation
with the teacher or with other learners. This might include
36

discussion of what they learned as well as feelings they had

about how they learned.
Like the Silent Way, CLL is a method which works best
in small groups and which requires special training for its
teachers. It also includes useful principles which can easily
be implemented during the lessons. You can lower the
stress of your students by making your goals and
expectations clear, by coaching your students in
examination strategies, and by providing lively activities
which make learning funny. CLL encourages learners to
produce their own materials. Helping the students to write
their stories which are then published in the school
magazine, organizing them to write and act plays or skits,
and developing project work, the teacher may accomplish
two goals: to give students a sense of ownership and pride
and to sidestep the problem of trying to teach with few or
inadequate textbooks.

Suggestopedia
Suggestopedia is a method developed by the Bulgarian
psychiatrist educator Georgi Lozanov. Suggestopedia is a
specific set of learning recommendations derived from
Suggestology-a study concerned with the systematic study
of the nonrational and/or nonconscious influences that
human beings are constantly responding to. Lozanov
believes that the power of suggestion(learning a foreign
language successfully) is in desuggestion(lowering
students psychological barriers to learning). He has
developed the process of desuggestion which is designed
to promote a relaxed frame of mind and to convert learners
fear into positive energy and enthusiasm for language
learning. So before we suggest, we must desuggest a lot.
Distinguishing features:
37

In Suggestopedia great attention is paid to environment.

The seating is as comfortable as possible, the light is not
harsh, Baroque music plays on the background. Colourful
posters and charts are pinned on the wall. The posters show
attractive sights in the target language country. The charts
contain grammatical information which in causal readings
the students will absorb without conscious effort. This is
called peripheral learning. The Suggestopedia teachers
tone is always calm as students are reassured that language
learning is easy and fun. The Suggestopedia lesson consists
of three stages:
1. Deciphering-the teacher introduces the grammar and the
vocabulary.
2. Concert session-that is divided into two substages
a) active-the teacher reads the text at a normal speed
and students follow;
b) passive-the students relax, close their eyes and listen to
the teacher reading the text calmly. Music is played in the
background.
The left column of the text is given in the target
language; the right column is in students mother tongue. c)
Elaboration- students finish what they have learned with
dramas, songs and games.
For homework, the students are asked to read the text just
before going to bed and on getting up in the morning. The
teacher leads the class in role play, question and answer and
other activities based on the text. During these activities
students are invited to use their imagination and to take on
new names and new personalities in the target language.
They are encouraged to visualize themselves as successful
people in their new identities with exciting jobs and good
standing in the society.
Having described briefly some of the methods of
teaching English as a foreign language, we may conclude
38

that no one is sufficient on its own. Whiled teaching,

different learning styles should be taken in consideration;
especially those you feel working best with your students in
different surroundings. The main thing is that your students
should be interested in learning the language.

39

UNIT II: STUDYING LANGUAGE SYSTEM

Topics:
1. Teaching Listening
2. Teaching Speaking
3. Teaching Reading
4. Teaching Writing
5. Teaching Pronunciation
6. Teaching Vocabulary
7. Teaching Grammar
8. Teaching with Video

TEACHING LISTENING
Listening skills are very important in language learning
as we cannot develop speaking skills unless we also
develop listening ones; to have a successful conversation
learners must understand what is said to them. The
language may be also listened to while watching films,
listen to radio programs or while listening to foreign
visitors.
To develop this ability, learners need plenty of practice
in listening to English at a normal speed. In real life we
listen to a variety of things starting with radio and music
and finishing with lectures, talks, instructions, directions,
announcements, conversations, debates, stories, jokes,
sounds like footsteps, laughter, screaming, telephone rings,
etc.
Why do we listen? We may listen for information, for
pleasure, for feedback, attitudes, turn-taking, testing.
Listening involves more skills and these are: phoneme
discrimination, word recognition, identification of stress,
intonation, predict and infer the development of message,

40

process/challenge ongoing message, creative/ active

perception and linguistic knowledge.
Ana Gorea distinguishes two types of listening:
a)casual listening-listening with no particular purpose(for
example listening to the radio while doing homework)
b) focused listening-listening for a particular purpose, to
find out the information that we need to know(for example
listening to a piece of news on the radio, listening to
someone explaining how to operate a machine, or to do
some job). In this situation we listen much more closely.
Jeremy Harmer proposes two other types of listening:
a) extensive listening- where the teacher encourages his
students to choose for themselves what they listen to and to
do so for pleasure and general language improvement. It
will usually take place outside the classroom, in the
students home, car or on personal stereos as they travel
from a place to another.
b) intensive listening listening to taped material during the
lesson at the teachers choice or provided by the
coursebook.
If the teacher decides to give students a listening task it
is necessary to take the following steps:
1. prepare the students for what they are going to hear;
2. never ask the students just to listen;
3. make sure the tasks you ask students to do are realistic
and varied as possible;
4. introduce the topic(predict what it is going to be about);
5. pre-teach the vocabulary;
6. give guiding questions before listening;
7. divide(if necessary) the listening into stages: first
step(listen for main idea only, to answer the guiding
questions, this helps to focus on main points); second
step(listen for details).
41

8. vary the question types you use with the students;

9. train the students not to expect to understand every word
they hear;
10. vary the types of listening(tapes, videos, teacher, other
students, visitors, conversations, announcements, songs,
news broadcasts, weather forecasts, poems, etc.).
If the teacher uses recorded material, he must make
sure that the quality of tapes is good, that the recorder
functions well, that there is electric power in the classroom
when he intends to use it.
There are some advantages and disadvantages in using
intensive listening:
a) advantages:
- variety of voices, native speakers;
-recorded material is useful for listening to dialogues,
interviews;
-the cassette can be stopped and played back;
- taped materials are extremely portable and readily
available;
-most coursebooks include listening exercises, cassettes,
and tapescripts.
b) disadvantages:
- in classrooms with bad acoustics listening may be
difficult;
-listening is more difficult as there is no eye contact, no
clues, no gestures, no lip movement;
-everybody has to listen at the same speed, a speed dictated
by the tape, not by the listeners;
Types of Listening Tasks
Good listening exercises are characterized by the
following:
- provide interesting content;
- include listening preparation;
42

- offer visual support;

- encourage whole-message listening;
- encourage listening for specific details;
- communicate real meaning;
- require listener response
Tony Lynch in Listening proposes the following
listening tasks:
Listen and do
During or after listening students are asked to perform
some non-linguistic actions: numbering a drawing,
completing a map, ordering items in a list, matching items,
labelling, ticking.
Listen and do nothing
Listen to a story or a poem.
Listen and follow
Matching what students hear with a visual. Students may have a map or
a picture and have to follow a route according to the tape.
Listen and respond
Affective response. Students listen and are then asked whether they
liked/disliked the text, who they sympathized with, etc.
Listen and answer
Students have to find answers to questions: true/false, Wh-questions,
multiple choice, etc.
Listen and compare
Listening for(dissimilarities, between two(or more) language inputs
like jigsaw listening or a mix of print and tape materials( for example
radio and press reports on main incident).
Listen and complete
Gap-filling. Cloze type exercises; listening cloze(with words) masked
by noise.
Listen and predict

43

Partial text provided and students have to anticipate the next move or
outcome. What will Mrs. X say next? How will Mr. Y respond? How
will the story end?
Listen and correct
Students have a printed text which they alter to match the spoken
version.
Listen and write
Students take notes as they listen in order to prepare a summary or to
reach agreement as to what was said.
Listen and discuss
Using tape as information source for oral interaction
Deduction or assessment of information, problem-solving, etc.
Listen and react
Expressing value judgements. Students are asked to evaluate opinions
given or actions described on tape. For example: Did X do the right
thing?

Pre-Listening Activities
Pre-Listening is the period of time before the teacher
presses the button play on the tape- recorder or before the
material is read. The teacher must prepare very well if he
wants to hive students a listening task.
Mr. Underwood in Teaching Listening (1989)
suggests the following pre-listening activities:
-looking at pictures and talking about them;
-looking at a list of items/thoughts;
-making lists of possibilities/ideas, suggestions, etc.;
-reading a text;
-reading through questions (to be answered while
listening);
-labelling;
-completing part of a chart;
-predicting/speculating;
44

-pre-listening language
-informal teacher talk and class discussion.
While-Listening Activities
While-listening is the period of time that begins when
the teacher starts reading something to students or when he
presses the button play and ends when he presses the
button stop or finishes reading something to students.
Here are some while-listening activities:
-marking/checking items in pictures;
-matching pictures with what is heard;
-storyline picture sets;
-putting pictures in order;
-completing pictures;
-picture drawing;
-carrying out actions;
-making models/arranging items in pictures;
-following a route;
-completing grills;
-form/chart completion;
-labelling;
-using lists; listing;
-true/false;
-multiple-choice questions;
-text completion(gap-filling);
-spotting mistakes;
-predicting;
-seeking specific items of information;
-extending lists;
-sequencing/grading;
-matching with a reading text;
-extending notes into written responses;
-summarizing;
45

-using information for problem solving and decision

making activities;
-jigsaw listening;
-identifying relationships between speakers;
-establishing the mood/ attitude/ behaviour of the speaker.
Post-Listening Activities
Post-listening is the period of time after the teacher
presses the button stop or finishes reading to students.
Here are some post-listening activities:
-role-play/simulation;
-dictation;
-summarizing;
-reproduction;
-decision-making activities.
TEACHING SPEAKING
Speaking as a skill has emerged as a need to express
ones thoughts, feelings, experience. This information
exchange takes place when there is something that one
person does not know and wants to find out, and that is
why he or she is asking a question. We can say that a
person has a communicative need. Very often we talk in
order to tell people things they do not know, or to find
things out from other people. The speaking skill implies
two characteristics:
b)fluency- the ability to speak at a normal speed, not too
quickly, not too slowly.
The ability to speak fluently presupposes not only a
knowledge of language features but also the ability to
process information and language on the spot.
46

Among the elements of spoken production, are the

following:
1. Connected speech: effective speakers of English need to
be able not only to produce individual phonemes of
English(as in saying I would have gone), but also to use
fluent connected speech (as in Idve gone). In connected
speech sounds are modified(assimilation), omitted(elision),
added(linking r), or weakened(through contractions and
stress patterning).
2. Expressive devices: native speakers of English change
the pitch and stress of particular parts of utterances, vary
volume and speed, and show by other non-verbal means
how they are feeling. They allow the extra expression of
emotion and intensity.
3. Lexis and grammar: spontaneous speech is marked by
the use of a number of common lexical phrases, especially
in the performance of certain language functions. Teachers
should therefore supply a variety of phrases for different
functions such as agreeing or disagreeing, expressing
surprise, shock, or approval.
4. Negotiation language: effective speaking benefits from
the negotiatory language we use to seek clarification and to
show the structure of what we are saying. We often need to
ask for clarification when we are listening to someone else
talk. A useful thing teachers can do is to offer them phrases
like Im sorry I didnt quite catch that, Im sorry, I
dont understand, Could you explain that again,
please?.
When speakers do not know a word or just cannot
remember it, they may employ some or all of the strategies
to resolve the difficulty they are encountering:
1. Improvising: speakers sometimes try any word or
phrase that they can come up with in the hope that it is
47

about right. Such improvisations sometimes work, but they

can also obscure meaning.
2. Discarding: when speakers simply cannot find words for
what they want to say, they may discard the thought that
they cannot put into words.
3. Foreignising: when operating in a foreign language,
speakers sometimes choose a word in a language they
know well(such as their first language) and foreignise it
in the hope that it will be equivalent to the meaning they
wish to express in the foreign language.
4. Paraphrasing: speakers sometimes paraphrase, talking
about something for cleaning the teeth if they do not know
the word toothbrush , or saying that they are not happy with
somebody when they want to say that they are really fed
up. Such lexical substitution or circumlocution gets many
speakers out of trouble, though it can make communication
longer and more convoluted.
Besides the strategies mentioned above, there is another
factor that has an impact upon good speakers productive
abilities. These are rapid processing skills that talking
necessitates:
1. Language processing: effective speakers need to be able
to process language in their own heads and put it into
coherent order so that it comes out in forms that are not
only comprehensible, but also convey the meanings that are
intended.
2. Interacting with others: most speaking involves
interaction with one or more participants. This means that
effective speaking also involves a good deal of listening an
understanding of how the other participants are feeling, and
a knowledge of how linguistically to take turns or allow
others to do so.
48

3. On-the-spot information processing: quite apart from

our response to others feelings, we also need to be able to
process the information the moment we get it. The longer
the pause between the information is got and the response
is formulated, the less effective we are as instant
communicators. However, it should be remembered that
this instant response is very culture-specific, and is not
prized by speakers in many other language communities.
The classroom interaction while teaching speaking can
be of two types: teacher controlled and learner directed.
When it is teacher controlled it gives students practice in
grammar and vocabulary (accuracy work). Learner
directed is putting the stress on fluency through a
combination of pair work and group work. It is important
that students benefit from either work. Accuracy activities
can be controlled by the teacher and done by the whole
class(with such activities like: drills, games, controlled
conversation, listening, writing) or directed by the learners
and done in groups and pairs( with such activities like:
exercises, controlled conversation, role play, games,
questionnaires, listening, writing). Fluency activities can
be controlled by the teacher and done by the whole
class( with activities like: conversation, discussion,
simulation, games, story-telling, listening, writing) or
directed by the learners and done in groups or pairs(with
activities like: discussion, games, role play, project work,
debate, listening, reading, writing).
Communicative activities
There are many available ways of making learners speak. A
wonderful one is to practice using pictures. Pictures may
serve as an endless source of talking. Here are some
activities that may improve learners speaking skills:
49

1. Predict the picture

You may tell your learners that you have a picture but
dont show it to them. You only say that there is a man, a
woman and a train in the picture. The learners must find out
exactly what the picture is about by asking questions. You
can answer only Yes/ No questions, but you can help by
giving hints(for ex: you still dont know where the train is).
After that you can draw the picture on the board as the
students describe it. And then show the real one. With
senior learners you make take a more complicated picture,
show it to the class for an instant, then ask questions of the
type: Where do you think the action takes place? What
have you seen in the picture? Everybody is given the
opportunity to say what he thinks he saw in the picture.
After everybody gave his opinion show the picture to the
class and describe it, letting the learners give their opinions
of what they think it suggests.
2. Put the pictures in order
This is a very interesting way of making learners talk.
There should be a series of pictures connected by the same
content, each picture showing a different action. They are
cut separately and each student gets one. They shouldnt
show the pictures to each other. Students take turns in
describing what they see in their pictures. When one
student talks, the rest must listen attentively as latter they
will have to decide on the correct sequence of the actions.
When everybody finished describing, students get engaged
in discussing what in their opinion, might be the correct
sequence, they may ask any questions, but they mustnt
show the pictures yet. When they believe they reach a final
decision, they put the pictures face up in the sequence they
have decided upon. During the activity the teacher is silent,
50

though the teacher should foresee what vocabulary the

students might need and present the words beforehand. In
the end the teacher may give the glue. The most important
thing about such an activity is that everybody has the
chance to participate in the discussion. Guessing is not
central though. Its a wonderful way of practicing grammar,
such as Present Progressive, Present Perfect, etc.
3. Spot the differences
For this activity it is necessary to have two identical
pictures but which contain some slight differences in them,
it may be the colour, a missing button, a different position,
etc. The teacher should have enough copies of pictures for
each pair of learners. One student will ask questions, and
the other will answer them until all the differences are spot.
Its good to tell learners initially how many differences they
have to find.
4. Complete the drawing
Its a good activity especially for learning the use of
prepositions, things in a flat, pieces of furniture, etc. Two
students have the same drawings of a room for example
with the difference that in one picture is placed and in the
other there is no furniture. By asking questions the student
that has the empty picture room must guess where it stands
and complete his drawing, so that it is identical with the
other students.
5. Photos
Any photos can also serve as means of developing
speech habits. They may be photos of learners families, old
photos with their grandparents, etc. They may speak about
the people in them, the way they look like, the way they are
51

dressed, what relations are among them, when the photo

was taken, what was the occasion, etc.
6. Guessing
Guessing is a perfect way of making learners ask
questions and practice grammar. The teacher, may for
example want the learners to repeat asking general
questions in the Past Simple Tense. The teacher says:
Yesterday I went somewhere and I did something. Guess
where I went and what I did. Learners take turns in asking
questions of the type: Did you go to the market? Did you
go to the hospital? The teacher might have thought that
she went to the bank to pay some bills. If students guess
quickly the activity might be continued by asking how the
teacher went to the bank. Did you go by bus? Did you go
by bike? The activity may be often repeated and students
themselves have the role of the ones who think of
something to be guessed.
7. Guess who I am?
A student may think that he/she is a famous person and
the rest ask questions of the type: Are you dead or alive?
Are you English? Are you a writer? Until they guess who
the person pretended to be is.
8. Miming
Miming is another way of guessing especially when
practicing Present Progressive. One student mimes an
activity and the rest have to guess the situation: opening a
can, changing the light bulb, etc.
9. Unfinished sentences
52

Its a source of beginning a conversation. Students are

given a list with unfinished sentences and picking any at
their choice they have to develop it into a discussion. The
sentences might be composed according to the age, pupils
abilities and the taught topics.
10. Find someone who
This kind of conversation implies moving too, getting a
list of suggested actions students have to walk round the
class talking to the classmates and find two other people
who do the activities suggested in the list.
11. Who scores more?
The class may be divided into two groups and asked to
fill out a list of different things that begin with the same
letter of the alphabet. That may be the name of an insect, a
kind of sport, an object, an article of clothing, an animal or
bird, a town, a means of transport, a colour. If both groups
name the same word, each gets one point, if they name
different things, they get two points. In the end the total
number of points is counted and the winner is announced.
The success of the speaking activities will greatly
depend on the teachers abilities of organizing the work.
Speaking activities should be practiced as often as possible.
Speaking may be also done on the basis of a reading or a
listening activity, even writing.

TEACHING READING
In real life we do not normally read because we have to
but because we want to. We usually have a purpose in
53

reading: there is something we want to find out, some

information we have to check or clarify, some opinions we
want to match against our own. David Nunan in Designing
Tasks for the Communicative Classroom adopts some other
purposes: to obtain instructions on how to perform some
tasks for our work or daily work, to act in a play, play a
game, do a puzzle, to keep in touch with friends by
correspondence or to understand business letters, for
enjoyment or excitement, to find out how a story develops
What will happen next?
We do not usually begin reading with a completely
empty mind, we have some idea of what we are going to
read about. We will usually have some certain questions in
our mind(things we want to know) and we may also be able
to make a number of predictions or guesses(things that we
expect to find out).
Newspaper headlines, book titles, chapter headings
often make us think about the text before we begin to read.
If, for example, we have a newspaper headline Plane
Crashes in Desert we think that the article will probably
give details of the crash, explain how it happened, what
caused it, etc. Then we ask questions that we may have in
mind: Which desert? Where? Any survivors? How did it
happen? Whose fault? Which airline? Was anyone I know
involved? Questions and guesses make us want to read
(because we want to know the answers), and they also help
us read( because we are looking for particular information).
As we read, we can partly predict what we will find in the
text.
It is important to give reasons for reading and to give
the students information so that they want to find the
answer to. This can be done in two ways:

54

- be giving a few questions to students to think about as

they read and discussing the answers afterwards(they are
called guiding questions or support questions.
-by organizing an activity before the students read a text,
which arouses their interest in the topic and makes them
want to read.
As reading, as listening is a receptive skill, a lesson
based around the comprehension of a reading text is similar
in many ways to that designed to practise listening skills.
The different ways of reading:
skimming -when reading a newspaper we often
glance over the headlines until we find on article that cathes
our interest. If we are in a hurry we read through the article
quickly probably not reading every word, maybe reading
only the first sentence of each paragraph.
Scanning -next we may want to see whats on T.V.
this evening at 8 oclock.. We are unlikely to start reading
from the beginning of the list of programmes starting
with whats on at 6 oclock in the morning. Instead our eyes
move quickly over the page until we find 8. p.m and then
we start reading the details of the programmes.
Intensive reading. In the same newspaper we may
find something that we want to read in detail. Perhaps the
article we skim read at first is really interesting and we
want to read it again in order to make a mental note of
some details.
Extensive reading. This is the way we usually read
when we are reading for pleasure perhaps a navel or a
biography.
2. Stages in a reading skills lesson.
before reading
Encourage the students to think about and discuss what
they are going to read. Consider whether there are any key
55

words which you want to teach before the students read the
text.
- first reading
1.
Set a task to assist overall understanding
(question,task,etc).
2.
The students read the text.
3.
Feedback.
- Second reading

56

Teaching Basic Reading

If the teacher works with learners beginners, where they
only begin to study English, it is necessary first of all to
teach
TEACHING WRITING.
Writing as a skill is very important in teaching and
learning a foreign language, first of all, it helps pupils to
assimilate letters and sounds of English language, secondly,
because together with speaking, listening and reading, form
the four language skills without which a foreign language
cannot be taught. It is important for everyone, especially
for pupils and students to know how to write essays, letters,
compositions, dictations. Writing is the result of employing
strategies to manage the composing process, which is one
of gradually developing a text. That is why, Writing is a
means of teaching a foreign language. It involves a
number of activities: setting goals, generating ideas,
organizing information, setting appropriate language,
making a draft, reading and reviewing it, then revising and
editing. The writing process was recursive and generative,
with students re-reading their work, assessing it, reacting
and moving on. Without knowing how to write, we wont
be able even to communicate with people through letters or
e-mail. We should know how to write correctly a sentence,
because in English there is a specific structure of writing a
sentence.
It the 1970s the interest developed that second language
writers actually do as they write, motivated largely by a
belief that if we wish to influence and improve the
outcomes of writing for our learners, then we need to
57

understand how a piece of writing comes into being. A big

concern of researchers into second language writing has
been to identify these mental operations, and a number of
research methods have been used to do this: interviews,
observation, audio and video recording. The writing
process was recursive and generative, with pupils rereading their work, assessing it, reacting, and moving on.
The greatest disadvantage of teaching writing is that many
pupils hate the writing process. Some of them think that it
is not so important to write an information or an exercise in
their copybooks. From their point of view, it is easier to
circle the correct answer in their books, or to try to
memorize what teacher says than to put down the
information. Many pupils think that writing takes a long
time to be taught and beginning with the first steps in
studding a foreign language, teachers should know how to
attract pupils attention and to make the rules easier to be
understood. Pupils learn to write letters, words, and
sentences in the target language more successfully if the
understand what they write, have good patterns to follow,
and make a lot of attempts in writing what they are
satisfied that the work is well done. The most important
thing is that we should teach pupils depending on their age,
interests and level. We can identify the range of written
products that any particular group of pupils needs. For
example, in English the convention and stile of formal and
informal letters differ, and both may differ in format and
style from letters written in the pupils native language.
And many pupils enjoy the change to be creative with
writing. We can give beginners to write simple poems,
intermediate learners we can give a dictation, and for
advanced learners it is better to write an essay.

58

First of all, before writing an essay we should take into

account the four stages of writing an essay which are:
Prewriting, Writing, Revision and Publishing. Ron White
and Valerie Arndt want to stress that writing is re-writing;
that re-vision seeing with new eyes has a central role to
play in the act of creating text.3
Beginning with Prewriting, we have to be sure that we
have chosen the right theme for the right person or a group
of pupils, because we cannot give the beginners the same
themes we give to advanced learners. The reason is that the
beginners dont have a sufficient rich vocabulary to make a
good essay which can be written by the advanced learners.
And again, we cannot give to the four grade pupils the
same themes as we give to seven, ten, or twelve grades
pupils.
Discussing with pupils, teachers have to find an interesting
theme for the essay. For example, for the four grade
teachers can give pupils to write a short essay about their
best friend, or about their pet. Beginning with the seventh
and eighth grades, we can give pupils the possibility to
choose from such themes as: My ideal place, or The day
I will never forget. Even at these ages (13 15), pupils
dont have a large experience of life. They will have to
imagine or to think maybe of something impossible. For the
eleventh and twelfth grades the best themes for essays can
be:
If I were millionaire
The diseases of the XX-th century.
Drugs.
Lets analyze the last one:

59

Theme Drugs is too general and it can be difficult for

pupils to speak about it, that is why teachers can give some
options as:
The relation between infected people and the
others.
Diseases which are connected with drugs.
Pupils can choose one option given by the teacher or to
write their own subthemes.
Some pupils do very well on essays. If they have
learned how to read essays questions, if they have had
experience organizing their thoughts quickly, if they have
had quick editing skills, they were likely to succeed. It is
good for those pupils who are familiar with these skills, but
many pupils, still have no idea of how they should write an
essay. Many times this happens because the questions are
not clear for pupils and some of them are ashamed to ask
their teacher for explanation. Well constructed essay
questions often use a series of code words that pupils must
understand: describe, discuss, compare, contrast, explain,
comment..If teachers see that pupils are confused with
understanding these words, they have to explain and
analyze them, by giving examples. The most common
mistake is that almost all pupils do not taught the theme
they have chosen. In this case the help of the teacher is
inevitable. When pupils ask questions, teachers have to
help them. If a pupil do not understand the key word
describe the teacher have to give some examples which
involves this term. These themes can be given for little
children.
-

Describe your mothers appearance.

Describe your first day at school.

60

But if the key word is not understood by the 12-th grade

pupils, they may be ashamed to ask for explanation. The
role of the teacher is to be sure that all pupils understand
about what they have to write. If they do not understand the
word comment, the teacher has to ask questions which
involves this word. For example, she can ask pupils to
comment on the following proverbs:
Never put of till tomorrow what you can do
today.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating
Practice makes perfect
If the teacher shows her authority and does not want to
explain questions to pupils, she does nothing instead of
creating a barrier between whole the whole class and
herself. When pupils try to give some of their ideas,
teachers have to support them and to encourage them by
saying that their ideas are good. Many studies support the
need for active participation by pupils in the writing class if
affective learning is to take place. Pupils have to think of
their own ideas, to invent, to discover, write and analyze.
They must develop themselves some kind of authority,
because when pupils write about personal experiences, they
are the only one who really know what happened.
A very enjoyable activity that involves productive
skills of writing and speaking is based on free writing. At
the beginning of each lessons the teacher gives pupils not
more than five minutes to write everything that comes to
their mind in that moment. It can be simple words, word
combinations or sentences. All pupils have to start at once
and end when the teacher says. After the given period of
time, the teacher asks some pupils to tell to the rest of the
class what they had written about. It is very interesting
because all pupils think in their own way and no one of
61

them do not think at the moment in the same way. The

contents of their written work almost depends on their
mood and feelings, some of pupils may write about what
they want to eat; another, where they would like to go;
others, of their friends and family. Some pupils may be shy
to read what they have written, but the teacher has to
encourage them.
Another kind of exercises that involves the writing
process is dictations. In a way, dictations are difficult for
those pupils who do not have enough knowledge in words
spelling that is why dictations cannot be given to the
beginners. Dictations are a valuable exercise because it
trains the ears as well as the eyes, it fixes in the pupils
mind the part of each sentence pattern, because the teacher
dictates a text part by part. Dictations can be of different
forms and the way they are conducted. It can be visual
dictations, dictation drill, self dictations. After a long
studding of mistakes made in dictations, the teacher can
give those tests. But in testing pupils skills in writing the
teacher should use those kinds of work with which pupils
are used and which they can do because they must be well
prepared before they begin to write the test. Each pupil
should feel pride in a way when they are completing tests.
Whenever pupils are writing, the teacher can walk round
the class, looking what pupils are doing and putting a dot at
the end of those lines that contain mistakes. The pupils
have to find mistakes and correct them.
Anyway, the progress in writing a foreign language
is possible in condition that pupils have enough preparation
for writing, because it is impossible to teach someone the
rules of writing if he/she does not have the elementary
knowledge of writing. In order not to create a dislike from
pupils side, the teacher has to use some visuals and modern
62

technology, and to explain how they influence the writing

process.
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION
Topic:
1. Pronunciation issues.
Pronunciation difficulties.
2. When to teach pronunciation ton.
1. Pronunciation issues. Almost all English language
teachers get the students to study grammar and vocabulary,
practise functional dialogues, take part in productive skill
activities, and become competent in listening and reading.
Yet some of these teachers make little attempt to teach
pronunciation.
However, the fact that some students are able to
acquire reasonable pronunciation without specific
pronunciation classes and exercises should not blind us to
the benefit of a focus on pronunciation in our lessons.
Pronunciation teaching not only makes students aware of
different sounds, but can also improve their speaking
immeasurable.
2. Pronunciation difficulties and problems. Two
particular problems occur in much pronunciation teaching
and learning:
- What students can hear: some students have great
difficulty features which we want to reproduce. Speakers of
different first languages have problems with different
Englipeaking sh sounds (/b/; /v/; //; //) they dont have in
their native language.
There are two ways of dealing with this: in the first
place we can show students how sounds are made through
demonstration, diagrams, and explanation. But we can also
63

draw the sounds to their attention every time they appear on

tape or in our conversation. When they can hear correctly
they are on the way to being able to speak correctly.
- The intonation problem: for the most teachers the most
problematic area of pronunciation is intonation. Some of us
find it extremely difficult to hear tunes or to identity the
patterns of rising and falling tones.
The fact that we may have difficulty recognizing
specific teaching does not mean that we should abandon
intonation teaching altogether. One of our tasks is to give
the students opportunities to recognise moods and
intentions either on tape, or through the way we model
ourselves to them.
3. When to teach pronunciation. Teachers have to
decide when to teach pronunciation into a lesson sequence.
- Whole lessons: making pronunciation the main focus of a
lesson does not mean that every minute of the lesson has to
be spent on pronunciation work. Sometimes students may
also listen to a longer tape, working on listening skills
before moving to the pronunciation part of the sequence.
Sometimes students can work on vocabulary before going
on to work on word stress, sounds, and spelling.
- Discrete slots: some teachers insert short, separate bits of
pronunciation work into a lesson sequence. Over a period
of weeks they work on all the individual phonemes either
separately or in contrasting pairs. At other times they spend
a few minutes on a particular aspect of intonation, say, or
on the contrast between two or more sounds.
-Integrated phrases: when we model words and phrases we
draw our students attention to the way they are said; one of
the things we want to concentrate on during an accurate
reproduction stage is the students correct pronunciation.

64

PRESENTING VOCABULARY
Topics:
1. Presenting vocabulary.
2. Developing a variety of techniques for the teaching
vocabulary.
3. Vocabulary expansion.
1. Presenting vocabulary.
The development of an ability to communicate in
English must be a major goal of any effective course or
lesson. For any approach to work, certain conditions are
essential, such as dynamic lessons and motivation. In this
chapter will be discussed about the importance of
vocabulary in communication or expressing certain
information and the need to give adequate attention in
teaching its items meanings.
In spite of the fact that for many years vocabulary
was neglected, the modern human experience showed that
really teaching vocabulary involves more knowledge and
skill than many teachers think. For this reason, this chapter
is made up to draw teachers attention while teaching
vocabulary at the
words meaning, their use in
communication, their pronunciation and spelling and to
suggest ways of dealing with them- shorter saying- how
can vocabulary be understood and presented.
This chapter provides an overview of linguistic
approaches to the analysis of the English vocabulary
system and uses insights from this analysis to develop
principles for the learning and teaching of vocabulary.
-Say the word clearly and write it on the board.
-Get the class to repeat the word in chorus.
-Translate the word into the learners own language.
-Ask the learners to translate the word.
-Draw a picture to show what the word means.
65

-Give an English example to show how to the word is used

in context.
-Ask questions using the word.
To teach the meaning of a word is best in a context
and can be introduced by showing real objects such as
window, door, etc.
New words may be introduced by showing pictures,
which may be drawn on the board, such as tree; cow;
tractor etc. or found in books and magazines.
Sometimes words may be presented by miming,
using actions and facial expressions, such as sneeze,
stumble, and smile.
Words may be presented in a context. For example:
Houses are buildings. This school is also a building.
Sometimes it is easier to introduce a new word in a
simple sentence instead of giving complicated
explanations.
A combination of techniques is also good to show
the meaning of a word. To introduce the word smile we
may draw a picture, use the facial expression.
Using pictures is interesting and learners can
remember words easily. Facial expression give meaning
clearly.
Active and Passive Vocabulary
It is a good idea for teachers to make often a
distinction between active and passive vocabulary while
teaching it. Passive reffers to vocabulary which can be
recognised when encountered, in a text for exmple, but
which the learner cannot easily produce in speech or
writing as active vocabulary. However, this is too simple a
characterisation of language learning. There are words
which learners can remember or reactualise from memory
and use them automatically. There are other for which
66

learners experience a tip of the tongue effect, recalling

something of the word but not its precise form. Yet other
words exist in the memory but prove difficult to recall. Let
consider learners mother tongue, for instance. There will
be items which learners are able to recognise and
understand, but which they find difficult to recall or do not
know sufficiently well to use accurately.30 There can be
other items which learners understand, but do not use,
perhaps because they occur in contexts or types of
discourse which are alien to them.
In the language learning situation, must be stressed
the importance of decision- making by the teacher about
which items are worth learning for productive use and
which are only useful for purposes of recognition. This
decision- making has several implications; the teacher will
need to select what he feels will be most relevant for the
students productive vocabulary and this, in turn, will affect
his treatment of those items in the classroom. Clearly, the
teacher has a great responsibility since his knowledge of
the complexities and usefulness of the items is likely to be
superior to the students knowledge. Nevertheless, the
learner may be in a much stronger position to decide
whether an item is worth acquiring productively.31 It is also
worth stating at this point that the learner who perceives the
vital personal relevance of an item may well acquire it
whether the teacher pays great attention to it or not.
Conversely, the learner may consciously or subconsciously
reject items which the teacher is trying to teach him.
Very often this transition of an item from a students
receptive (passive) vocabulary to his productive (active)
one is a gradual process. Repeatedly hearing or reading the
item over a period of time is often the most common way in
which this transition takes place. In the classroom, teachers
may at times be attempting to speed up this process by
67

making an issue of the item: thus clarifying its meaning

and form and encouraging controlled practice.
Dividing vocabulary into productive and receptive
categories in this way may seem rather artificial and indeed
in many cases the decisions to be made are by no means
clear- cut. Nonetheless it seems useful to bear the
distinction in mind and to strive towards selectivity based
on the students needs and learning environment.
Since vocabulary consists of a series of interrelating
systems and is not just a random collection of items, there
seems to be a clear case for presenting items to a student in
a systematised manner which will both illustrate the
organised nature of vocabulary and at the same time enable
him to internalise the items in a coherent way. Semantic
field, or, as they are commonly called in pedagogical terms,
lexical sets, are made up of sets semantically similar items.
These fields may range from very broad categories, such as
life and living things to smaller areas such as kinds of
man (e.g. man, gentleman, fellow) or kinship relations
(e.g. son, daughter), and clearly the same item will occur in
different fields. Man may occur in a semantic field with
types of servant or human gender. From the teachers
point of view, too, many of the groupings listed bellow are
convenient. Lexical sets, for example, form useful building
blocks and can be revised and expanded as learners
progress; they often provide a clear context for practice as
well.
The groupings bellow consists of different types of
semantic fields as well as phonological and gramatical
sets.32 Clearly, some groupings are more appropriate at
certain levels that at others.
Items related by topic

68

One of the most common and useful groupings found in

course books e.g. types of fruit, articles of clothing, living
room furniture, etc.
Items which are similar in meaning
These are items which are easily confused e.g. pretty,
lovely, attractive. Also to be included within this grouping
are commonly taught sets such as ways of walking (e.g.
limp, tiptoe, amble, etc.) or ways of looking (e.g. peer,
squint, glance, stare, etc.).
This type of group needs to be handled extremely carefully;
the items need to be contextualised properly, and it is vital
to highlight to learners the differences between items as
clearly as possible. One common danger is that grouping
items in this way may force teachers into including items of
different levels of usefulness or frequency.
Items which form pairs
These can be synonyms, contrasts and opposites e.g.old/
new, buy/ sell, lend/borrow, obstinate/ stubborn.
Contextualisation is essential here.
Items along a scale or cline, which illustrate
differences of degree
For example describing an essay- excellent/ very good/
good/ satisfactory/ weak
human age- a child/ a teenager/ an adult
The meaning of items within a scale or cline is obviously
relative; for example, a hot day is not the same as a hot
furnace, but this rarely causes confusion in context.
Items within word families
It is often possible to group items of vocabulary to illustrate
the principles of word building, the meanings of prefixes
and suffixes and the related phonological difficulties:
e.g. biology- biologist- biological
psychology- psychologist- psychological
69

or

pleasant- unpleasant
helpful- unhelpful
friendly- unfriendly
Items grouped by (a) grammatical similarity and
(b) notional similarity
This can be particularly useful at lower levels when dealing
with areas such as adverbs of frequency or prepositions, but
may be just as relevant at later levels to group together
nouns with irregular plurals, or words expressing
probability or possibility (e.g. There is a good chance
that, Hes likely to, Its bound to).
Items which connect discourse
There are a variety of different types of connectives which
act as signposts in discourse and can be grouped and
treated as lexical items. The grouping of sentence
adverbials used in listing, for example, could include to
begin with, in the second place, last of all. In a similar
type of grouping, one might find items such as unless,
otherwise, or else, provided (that) which are related in
that they impose some form of condition.
Adverbs ending in + ly (e.g. unfortunately, happily,
surprisingly) are also important connectives, but may not
cause as much difficulty as the examples above e.g. He ran
out of cash. Fortunately, he had his American Express card
with him.
This is an extremely important area since an understanding
of these signposts is vital in comprehension, and unless
they are understood, contextual guesswork may become
almost impossible.
Items forming a set of idioms or multi- word verbs
Certain sets of multi- word verbs or idioms can form
coherent groups e.g. to ring up, to call up, to get through, to

70

ring back; out of sorts, under the weather, on top of the

world.
Items grouped by spelling difficulty or
phonological difficulty
This can be approached within a topic area e.g. food
vocabulary- menu, pie, vegetable, recipe, tough meat,
steak.
Items grouped by style
This may be a useful way to distinguish between items
which are neutral or colloquial: cigarette= ciggy, toilet=
loo.
Similarly to deal with British and American English:
petrol= gasoline, pavement= sidewalk, lorry= truck.
It may therefore be most useful to see vocabulary
knowledge as a scale running from recognition of a word at
one end to automatic production at the other, with the help
of different contexts. However, knowledge of some words
will remain at the recognition end of the continuum and
will be called on in reading and listening but might never
become part of learners productive ability. This
characterisation of vocabulary knowledge is complicated
by the phenomenon of forgetting: this can happen quite
rapidly if distracting activities interrupt effective storing of
the word, or more slowly if the word has been stored in the
memory but it rarely encountered or used. There are
various reasons why people remember some words better
than others: the nature of the words themselves, under what
circumstances they are learnt, the method of teaching and
so on.
TEACHING GRAMMAR

71

Grammar is something that produces the

sentences of a language (Paul Roberts)
I. General Considerations on Teaching Grammar
Grammar plays an important role in the process of
foreign language learning because in order to understand a
language and to express oneself correctly one must
assimilate its grammar mechanism. Moreover, no speaking
is possible without the knowledge of grammar, without the
grammar mechanism formation. If a learner has acquired
such a mechanism, he can produce correct sentences in a
foreign language. Still the role of grammar shouldnt be
overemphasized when we refer to the communicative
approach in teaching and though we cannot deny the
syllabus requirements the amount of grammar rules should
be strictly structured according to the learners age, level,
needs, and allotted time. Too much grammar may lead
young and beginner level learners to demotivation as they
have to learn many abstract rules and constantly practice
the structural patterns which they may find scary, boring or
frustrating. The research surrounding grammar is often
conflicting. On the one hand, one can learn to communicate
in a language without the language being taught
grammatically. On the other hand, once one has reached a
certain level of performance or competency, grammar
becomes more important. So the aprroaches proposed
below are contrastive but worth considering.
II. The Approaches in Teaching Grammar
1. Teaching Grammar as Product-Deductively
It is by far the most widespread approach. According to
it
teaching
is
structured
round
a
certain
product(grammatical form) to be taught in one or two
72

lessons. Deduction is the process of extracting the

particular from the general. Viewed in the grammatical
context it is deducing the grammatical pattern(particular)
from the grammar rule(general). Learners are presented
with explicit information about rules and their functions
and they are guided to figure out the grammatical structures
and reinforce their forms in drills and other types of tasks.
These manipulations are mechanical as they do not require
much effort on the part of the learners being mostly under
teachers control.
2. Teaching Grammar as Process-Inductively
Process teaching engages learners directly in the
procedures of language use. Through discovery techniques
they are oriented to task-based activities to discover and
practice by themselves general features of grammar(rules)
out of the structures
proposed in specific
contexts(patterns)- a conscious process that requires effort
on the part of the learners as they have not only to induce
the rules but also consider the quality of the language used
in their tasks and reflect on possible improvements.
Although there is a strong emphasis on inductive
grammar teaching, particularly in communicative language
teaching approaches, both inductive and deductive
strategies are required in the classroom given the many
learning styles of students. The more similar the grammar
structure is to the L1, the easier it is for students to grasp.
Questions to consider in relation to the teaching of
grammar include:

Should the item be taught deductively (giving the rule and

then getting learners to produce examples of target structure)
or inductively (giving examples of the target structure and
getting learners to generate the rule)?
Is the explanation clear?

73

Are there sufficient examples?

Are teachers themselves sure of the rules? (Nunan, 1999)

One way of teaching grammar to beginners is to use

minimal grammar but to show patterns and help these
students see that there are patterns, so that when they get to
more intermediate and senior levels of learning they will be
able to transfer the word pattern to the label of a grammar
concept.
3.

Teaching Grammar as Skill-Self Discovery

74

It is a kind of balanced approach which combines the

product teaching with its focus on grammatical
forms with the process teaching which emphasizes
self-expression of the grammatical forms in
meaningful context. This approach means guiding
the learners attention to grammar and designing
tasks which enables them to develop the skill of
using and attending to grammar. It is for this
reason that the approach is called teaching
grammar as skill. More explicitly, learners are
given words which they gradually combine in
order to grammaticize.
Irrespective of the perspective of teaching grammar,
the goals are achieved only when the learners are able
to produce grammar correctly in their own contexts in
the process of communication this is why grammar
teaching shouldn't be restricted to product or
process only, exploring grammar as skill will increase
efficiency and productivity thus enhancing creative
thinking.
III. Teaching Grammar Stages
The process of teaching a foreign language has
several stages which are best represented by Jeremy
Harmer who has designed a general model for teaching
grammar, vocabulary, etc. These are: Presentation,
Practice and Production. During this process both:
teachers and students assume certain roles.
1. Presentation

75

Presentation is the stage at which students are

introduced to the form, meaning and use of a new
piece of language. At the same time as learning
how the language is constructed, they learn what
it means and how it is used. As a whole, at this
stage they learn how to put the new syntax, words
and sounds together. So it is very important for
the presentation to be a good one. In Teaching and
Learning Grammar Jeremy Harmer enumerates
the characteristics of a good presentation which
should be: clear, efficient, lively and interesting,
appropriate for the language that is being
presented and last but not least productive.
During the presentation stage the purpose is that
of
recognition:
hearing/reading
and
understanding. Students must hear the structure
correctly. That is why the teacher can check by
repetition, question/answers or translation(very
limited) and the students are supposed to
understand the structure only roughly. Here are
some ways of presenting grammatical structures
and functions:
a) Modelling -the teacher gives a clear spoken
modelof the new structure with normal speed,
stress or intonation. The teacher can give this
model a number of times, then ask the students
to repeat it in chorus or individually.
b) Isolation-teachers frequently isolate parts of the
sentences they are modeling in order to give
them special emphasis. This might be done for
more complicated structures using color,
highlighters, etc.
c) Explanation is another technique appropriate,
even it is abstract and makes use of technical
76

d)
e)
f)

g)

words (metalanguage). Explanations in students

mother tongue should be avoided as much as
possible. For beginner and elementary students
isolation and visual demonstration of grammar
on the blackboard could be done by means of
diagrams, charts, drawings, underlined words,
boxes, arrows, etc.
Time-Lines-a favourite technique for many
teachers who introduce verbal tenses to
intermediate and advanced students.
Visuals-teachers may use cards, handouts,
pictures, slides and other video workshops to
introduce a new grammatical pattern.
The Finger Technique- pointing out fingers that
stand for parts of speech, parts of sentence,
contracted structures or other patterns in order
to visually demonstrate the ne grammatical
structures formation and use.
Discovery
Technique-students
are
given
examples of language and asked to find out how
they work. This might function better with
intermediate to advanced students because they
are asked to discover the rule rather than be told
what it is requires a good vocabulary as well as
the appropriate skills. This is done in certain
steps:

1.1. Text study: for ex: decide what the new

grammar point is in the second passage?
1.2. Problem Solving-the teacher sets up a problem
and asks students to solve it or asks students to
identify certain mistakes.

77

1.3. Drawings-this technique is actual with young

learners, for ex. Marking the adverbs of
frequency with squares.
2. Practice
The second stage in grammar teaching is intended to
reinforce the knowledge acquainted in exercises
such as drills in order to increase accuracy. Here
are some techniques:
a) Repetition-under the form of repetitive drills
with the whole class or with the students in pairs.
The teacher is able to get students to ask and
answer questions quickly and efficiently. This
technique
has
both
advantages
and
disadvantages. The chief advantage of this
technique is that teachers can correct any
mistakes that the students make and can
encourage them to concentrate on difficulties at
the same time. The problem with drills is that
they are not very creative. Teachers make sure
that they are not overused and that they do not
go on for too long.

78

For ex: Lets +verb

Teacher: Lets play tennis
Students: Lets play tennis

b) Substitution-under the form of drills it gives the

students more freedom of choice even if it remains
very controlled language practice:
For ex: Lets +verb
Teacher: You want to play football
Students: Lets play football

c) Single Word Prompts

For ex: Lets +verb
Teacher: Cinema
Students: Lets go to the cinema

d) Prompts on the Blackboard may be organized

and written under the form of charts or simply in a
sequence of words like this:
8 oclock-get up-breakfast
Bus stop-bus-empty-surprised
School-closed-remembered-holiday

All these activities are fairly mechanical ways of

getting students to demonstrate and practice their
ability to use specific language items in a controlled
manner. There are also other activities more
meaningful and more enjoyable designed so that
students work together, exchange information in a
purposeful and interesting way. These are:
Interaction Activities. They are of different types:
a) Information Gaps- The students work in pairs.
They may ask each other questions in order to fill in
maps, forms in order to close the gaps in the
information which they both have.
b)Charts/Grids are very useful to promote
interaction between students. In order to complete
them the students have to question each other and
note down the replies appropriate for this technique.
79

c) Games-various kinds of games have been used in

language teaching for a long time and they are both
useful and highly motivating for young learners
especially.
d) Multiple Choice students have to choose the
correct answers from a number of alternatives.
3. Production
Many activities appropriate for the practice stage
can also apply successfully to the production one.
The difference is that the first ones provide a
mechanical practice while the latter ones give a
more meaningful communicative practice. Here are
some typical examples of activities used during the
production stage:
a) Knowledge Quizzes-they can be used to practice
various grammatical items but the most common
ones are those based on comparisons. For ex: What
is the highest mountain in the world? Students
answer the questions either orally or in writing
preferably in complete sentences. For ex: Mount
Everest is the highest mountain in the world. They
can be put in pairs or in groups and do the quiz with
a time limit. This kind of practice can take the form
of a contest, thus becoming more enjoying and
motivating.
b) Questions/Answers using a structure/a picture/ a
situation/a text
c) Sentence Writing-students are asked to write their
own sentences for applying different structures:
-Sentences about a picture using a particular verb
tense;
- sentences to finish if clauses, For ex : If I
were you,
d) Building sentences from key words
80

e) Word Order-students are given jumbled sentences

which they have to unscramble. For ex:
At/gets/Margaret/home/half past six/usually.
f) Guessing what someone is miming-this is a good
productive exercise for orally applying new
grammatical patterns
g) Personalization- the students use the new
grammatical structures to say things which really
mean something to them or to apply the acquired
knowledge to their situation for example saying
things about themselves, what they do, where they
live, speak about their daily programme, etc. using
the new grammatical pattern.
Irrespective of the activities the teacher chooses for
the production stage they should be oriented from
controlled to less controlled or freer practice so that
the students are able to grammaticize when they
communicate in English.

81

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83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Taba, H. (1962) Curriculum Development: Theory and Practice New

York: Harcourt Brace.
2
Stern, H.H. (1983) Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3
Tyler, R. (1949) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction New
York: Harcourt Brace.
4
Lawton, D. (1973) Social Change, Educational Theory and
Curriculum Planning London: Hodder and Stoughton.
5
Wheeler, D. (1967) Curriculum Processes London: University of
London Press.
6
Stenhouse, L. (1975) An Introduction to Curriculum. Research and
Development. London: Heinemann
7
Nunan, D. (1988) Syllabus Design Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9
Eltis, K. and B. Low (1985) A review of the teaching process in the
AMEP, Canberra.
10
Alcorso, C. and M. Kalantzis (1985) The learning process and being
a learner in the AMEP, Canberra.
11
Willing, K. (1985) Learning Styles in AME. Sydney: NSW AMES
12
Nunan, D. (1985) Language Teaching Course Design: Trends and
Issues. Adelaide: National Curriculum Resource Centre.
13
Candlin, C. (1984) Syllabus design as a critical process Oxford:
Pergamon.
14
Long, M. (1985) Modelling and Assessing Sound Language
Acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
15
Skillbeck, M. (1984) School-based Curriculum Development.
London: Harper and Raw.
16
Nunan, D. The Learner-Centred Curriculum A Study in Second
Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press.
17
Prabhu, N. (1983) Procedural Syllabuses Singapore.
18
Willis, D. (1990) The Lexical Syllabus: A New Approach to
Language Teaching. London: Collins.

94

3
3

APPENDIX

Appendix 1.
You may need it while planning your lessons
To convey information, use:
lecture field trips
discussion group interviewing an expert
selected reading case studies
demonstration by an expert

To provide balanced presentation of a controversial subject, use:

discussion group panel discussion
selected reading simulation
debate

To involve people, use:

discussion written work
field trips case studies
role playing group work

 guided experience

To teach a skill, use:

demonstration by an expert shopwork
labs guided experience
practice with feedback (coaching)

To pool thoughts and ideas, use:

discussion brainstorming
group work

To reinforce memory, use:

drill memory aids
practice with feedback (coaching) written work

Other methods and techniques:

Conversation, finger technique, spidergram completion, brainwriting, clustering, problematization,
synectics, case study, prognosis (predicting, speculating), Dictionary work, questioning, frontal
questioning, opinion sharing, argumentation, analogy, induction, deduction, role play, class
discussion, debate, cinquain, chorus repetition, explanation, exercise, review, dialogue, skimming,
scanning, videotape( freeze frame, partial viewing, pictureless listening, picture or speech, fast
forward), gap filling, multiple choice, labeling, straight copying, rewriting, substitution, matching,
searching, selection, sentence building, error correction, listing, classification, description, planning
outline, discovery, Venn diagram, graphic organizers, bingo, picture drawing, chart completion,

marking(checking items in picture), pictures reordering, spotting mistakes, summarizing, jigsaw

listening, sequencing(grading), grill completion, following a route, guessing, miming, Hoku,
achrostich, lecture with discussion, guided reading, panel of experts, small group discussion, reportback session, survey, guest speaker, values clarification exercise, classroom set up, peripheral
learning, interview, demonstration.

You think that I can't live without your love

You'll see,
You think I can't go on another day.
You think I have nothing
Without you by my side,
You'll see

Somehow, some way

You think that I can never laugh again
You'll see,
You think that you destroyed my faith in love.
You think after all you've done
I'll never find my way back home,
You'll see
Somehow, someday
All by myself
I don't need anyone at all
I know I'll survive
I know I'll stay alive,

All on my own
I don't need anyone this time
It will be mine
No one can take it from me
You'll see
You think that you are strong, but you are weak
You'll see,
It takes more strength to cry, admit defeat.
I have truth on my side,
You
You'll

only
see,

have
somehow,

deceit
someday

Truly Madly Deeply

~ performed by Savage Garden
I'll be your dream,
I'll be your wish
I'll be your fantasy.
I'll be your hope,
I'll be your love
be everything that you need.
I love you more with every breath
truly madly deeply do..

I will be strong I will be faithful

cause I'm counting on
A new beginning.
A reason for living.
A deeper meaning.
I want to stand with you on a mountain.
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lay like this forever.
Until the sky falls down on me...
And when the stars are shining
brightly in the velvet sky,
I'll make a wish send it to heaven
then make you want to cry..
the tears of joy for all the pleasure
and the certainty
that we're surrounded by the comfort
and protection of..
the highest power.
In lonely hours.
The tears devour you..
I want to stand with you on a mountain,
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lay like this forever,

Until the sky falls down on me...

Oh can't you see it baby?
You don't have to close your eyes
Cause it's standing right before you.
All that you need will surely come...
I'll be your dream
I'll be your wish
I'll be your fantasy.
I'll be your hope
I'll be your love
be everything that you need.
I'll love you more with every breath
truly madly deeply do...
I want to stand with you on a mountain,
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lay like this forever,
Until the sky falls down on me...
I want to stand with you on a mountain,
I want to bathe with you in the sea.
I want to lay like this forever,
Until the sky falls down on me...

Unfinished sentences:

1. The funniest thing I ever saw was

2. If I had 24 hours to live..
3. On Saturdays I usually

4. I have never
5. Parents should always
6. My children will
7. I like people who
8. I get very angry if

9. Im not interested in
10.If I could be somewhere else now, Id

Find someone who:

1. Find out who has tea for breakfast
2. Find out who can knit
3. Find out who usually sings in the bath
4. Find out who gets up early
5. Find out who can sew on buttons and darn socks

6. Find out who likes classical music

7. Find out who keeps a diary
8. Find out who can dance the tango
9. Find out who can cook a really good meal
10.

Find out who can play a musical instrument

Case N1
Anna, a forth form pupil, surprised and shocked the children in the class because of the long
dangling earrings she was wearing. At first, the teacher decided to ignore this, hoping the children
will soon ignore it also. However the subdued but excited noise continued. Everyone wanted to
touch and see the earrings.
Vocabulary:
Dangling- hanging or swinging loosely
To subdue- overcome, quieten, or bring under control (a feeling or person)

Case N1
Anna, a forth form pupil, surprised and shocked the children in the class because of the long
dangling earrings she was wearing. At first, the teacher decided to ignore this, hoping the children
will soon ignore it also. However the subdued but excited noise continued. Everyone wanted to
touch and see the earrings.
Vocabulary:
Dangling- hanging or swinging loosely
To subdue- overcome, quieten, or bring under control (a feeling or person)
Case N1
Anna, a forth form pupil, surprised and shocked the children in the class because of the long
dangling earrings she was wearing. At first, the teacher decided to ignore this, hoping the children
will soon ignore it also. However the subdued but excited noise continued. Everyone wanted to
touch and see the earrings.
Vocabulary:
Dangling- hanging or swinging loosely
To subdue- overcome, quieten, or bring under control (a feeling or person)
Case N1

Anna, a forth form pupil, surprised and shocked the children in the class because of the long
dangling earrings she was wearing. At first, the teacher decided to ignore this, hoping the children
will soon ignore it also. However the subdued but excited noise continued. Everyone wanted to
touch and see the earrings.
Vocabulary:
Dangling- hanging or swinging loosely
To subdue- overcome, quieten, or bring under control (a feeling or person)

Case N1
Anna, a forth form pupil, surprised and shocked the children in the class because of the long
dangling earrings she was wearing. At first, the teacher decided to ignore this, hoping the children
will soon ignore it also. However the subdued but excited noise continued. Everyone wanted to
touch and see the earrings.
Vocabulary:
Dangling- hanging or swinging loosely
To subdue- overcome, quieten, or bring under control (a feeling or person)
Case N2.
Johns first day in school went smoothly. On the second day, another child sat in the place John
wanted. John refused to sit in any of the vacant places and was given the choice of sitting down at

another place or standing. He chose to stand. His parents came to school several times in the next
few weeks, very distressed that all John did at school was stand.
Vocabulary:
Smoothly- Without problems or difficulties:
Vacant- not occupied; empty:
Distressed- Suffering from extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain:
Case N2.
Johns first day in school went smoothly. On the second day, another child sat in the place John
wanted. John refused to sit in any of the vacant places and was given the choice of sitting down at
another place or standing. He chose to stand. His parents came to school several times in the next
few weeks, very distressed that all John did at school was stand.
Vocabulary:
Smoothly- Without problems or difficulties:
Vacant- not occupied; empty:
Distressed- Suffering from extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain:
Case N2.
Johns first day in school went smoothly. On the second day, another child sat in the place John
wanted. John refused to sit in any of the vacant places and was given the choice of sitting down at

another place or standing. He chose to stand. His parents came to school several times in the next
few weeks, very distressed that all John did at school was stand.
Vocabulary:
Smoothly- Without problems or difficulties:
Vacant- not occupied; empty:
Distressed- Suffering from extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain:
Case N2.
Johns first day in school went smoothly. On the second day, another child sat in the place John
wanted. John refused to sit in any of the vacant places and was given the choice of sitting down at
another place or standing. He chose to stand. His parents came to school several times in the next
few weeks, very distressed that all John did at school was stand.
Vocabulary:
Smoothly- Without problems or difficulties:
Vacant- not occupied; empty:
Distressed- Suffering from extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain:
Case N2.
Johns first day in school went smoothly. On the second day, another child sat in the place John
wanted. John refused to sit in any of the vacant places and was given the choice of sitting down at
another place or standing. He chose to stand. His parents came to school several times in the next
few weeks, very distressed that all John did at school was stand.

Vocabulary:
Smoothly- Without problems or difficulties:
Vacant- not occupied; empty:
Distressed- Suffering from extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain:
Case N3.
Paul, a senior in high school, must outsmart every adult with whom he comes in contact. His need
to feel superior is so strong that he spends hours plotting how he can achieve his goal. He goes to
the library to look up definitions and information of irrelevant subject matter, and confronts the
teacher with questions like: What kind of dress did Josephine wear when she married Napoleon?
Since the teacher cannot answer this question, Paul proceeds with his information and proves his
superiority to the whole class.
Vocabulary:
Senior- Of a more advanced age:
Outsmart- Defeat or get the better of (someone) by being clever or cunning:
To plot- Secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action):
Irrelevant- Not connected with or relevant to something:
To confront- Come face to face with (someone) with hostile or argumentative intent:
To proceed- Begin a course of action:
Case N3.

Paul, a senior in high school, must outsmart every adult with whom he comes in contact. His need
to feel superior is so strong that he spends hours plotting how he can achieve his goal. He goes to
the library to look up definitions and information of irrelevant subject matter, and confronts the
teacher with questions like: What kind of dress did Josephine wear when she married Napoleon?
Since the teacher cannot answer this question, Paul proceeds with his information and proves his
superiority to the whole class.
Vocabulary:
Senior- Of a more advanced age:
Outsmart- Defeat or get the better of (someone) by being clever or cunning:
To plot- Secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action):
Irrelevant- Not connected with or relevant to something:
To confront- Come face to face with (someone) with hostile or argumentative intent:
To proceed- Begin a course of action:

Case N3.
Paul, a senior in high school, must outsmart every adult with whom he comes in contact. His need
to feel superior is so strong that he spends hours plotting how he can achieve his goal. He goes to
the library to look up definitions and information of irrelevant subject matter, and confronts the
teacher with questions like: What kind of dress did Josephine wear when she married Napoleon?
Since the teacher cannot answer this question, Paul proceeds with his information and proves his

superiority to the whole class.

Vocabulary:
Senior- Of a more advanced age:
Outsmart- Defeat or get the better of (someone) by being clever or cunning:
To plot- Secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action):
Irrelevant- Not connected with or relevant to something:
To confront- Come face to face with (someone) with hostile or argumentative intent:
To proceed- Begin a course of action:
Case N4.
Michael, a bright, soon-to-be fifth former, confessed to his teacher that in his view school was no
fun, the teachers were not good, summer should last forever and dogs were lucky because they
didnt have to go to school. The teacher protested that school was important. But Michael, who
didnt share the teachers opinion, answered with a one word question WHY???
Vocabulary:
To confess- Acknowledge something reluctantly, typically because one feels slightly ashamed or
embarrassed:
To share ones opinion-to agree
Case N4.

Michael, a bright, soon-to-be fifth former, confessed to his teacher that in his view school was no
fun, the teachers were not good, summer should last forever and dogs were lucky because they
didnt have to go to school. The teacher protested that school was important. But Michael, who
didnt share the teachers opinion, answered with a one word question WHY???
Vocabulary:
To confess- Acknowledge something reluctantly, typically because one feels slightly ashamed or
embarrassed:
To share ones opinion-to agree
Case N4.
Michael, a bright, soon-to-be fifth former, confessed to his teacher that in his view school was no
fun, the teachers were not good, summer should last forever and dogs were lucky because they
didnt have to go to school. The teacher protested that school was important. But Michael, who
didnt share the teachers opinion, answered with a one word question WHY???
Vocabulary:
To confess- Acknowledge something reluctantly, typically because one feels slightly ashamed or
embarrassed:
To share ones opinion-to agree
Case N4.
Michael, a bright, soon-to-be fifth former, confessed to his teacher that in his view school was no
fun, the teachers were not good, summer should last forever and dogs were lucky because they

didnt have to go to school. The teacher protested that school was important. But Michael, who
didnt share the teachers opinion, answered with a one word question WHY???
Vocabulary:
To confess- Acknowledge something reluctantly, typically because one feels slightly ashamed or
embarrassed:
To share ones opinion-to agree
Case N4.
Michael, a bright, soon-to-be fifth former, confessed to his teacher that in his view school was no
fun, the teachers were not good, summer should last forever and dogs were lucky because they
didnt have to go to school. The teacher protested that school was important. But Michael, who
didnt share the teachers opinion, answered with a one word question WHY???
Vocabulary:
To confess- Acknowledge something reluctantly, typically because one feels slightly ashamed or
embarrassed:
To share ones opinion-to agree

The Unicorn in the Garden by James Thurber

reprinted from
Fables For Our Time
Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to
see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the
bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating
roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.
"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs
and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn,"
said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because

there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he
said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am
going to have you put in the booby-hatch."
The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a
shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he
said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he
went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the
roses and went to sleep.
As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was
very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist;
she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived
they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.
"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the
psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lilly," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and
the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said.
At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a
hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her
into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.

"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The
unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry,
sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."
So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily
ever after.
Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.

New York

Tennis
Internet

grandmother
yesterday

lesson
car
student
Egypt

Microwave oven
Michael Jackson
snow
computer

rose
love
encyclopaedia
Watch

St.Valentines day
mouse
chocolate
School

Mobile phone

Credit card
Shakespeare
MIMING ASSIGNMENT
A monkey eating a banana
A peacock showing off
A champion whose trousers fall down as he raises the barbell
A delicate cat who steps into mud and tries to clean her leg
An old man who watches TV and falls asleep in front of it
A baby who cries because of hunger and is given milk to suck

A girl who puts on make up

Spot the mistakes and correct them:

it was friday and it was pauls big business trip to new york in america/he got up at 5 am got dressed
had a cup of coffee and read the newspaper/ at 6 am a taxi arrived to take him to london airport
paul locked the door and put his bags in the taxi but he left his briefcase in the house his business
papers his money his credit cards his plane ticket and his passport were all in his briefcase luckily
the taxi driver asked paul if he had his ticket paul ran back into the house and got his briefcase but
this time he ran out of the house and left his keys inside.
it was friday and it was pauls big business trip to new york in america/he got up at 5 am got dressed
had a cup of coffee and read the newspaper/ at 6 am a taxi arrived to take him to london airport

paul locked the door and put his bags in the taxi but he left his briefcase in the house his business
papers his money his credit cards his plane ticket and his passport were all in his briefcase luckily
the taxi driver asked paul if he had his ticket paul ran back into the house and got his briefcase but
this time he ran out of the house and left his keys inside.
it was friday and it was pauls big business trip to new york in america/he got up at 5 am got dressed
had a cup of coffee and read the newspaper/ at 6 am a taxi arrived to take him to london airport
paul locked the door and put his bags in the taxi but he left his briefcase in the house his business
papers his money his credit cards his plane ticket and his passport were all in his briefcase luckily
the taxi driver asked paul if he had his ticket paul ran back into the house and got his briefcase but
this time he ran out of the house and left his keys inside.
Continue the story:

That day when Julia came back from work, she knew
something was different.

Define the concept:

An ALIEN is

Help the author of this letter by giving advice:

Problem Page
Dear Mary,
I recently broke up with a man I loved and he married another girl. I have been going out
with someone else ever since. Hes 29 and Im 26. Now he has asked me to marry him and I
suppose I would be mad to refuse. But I dont love him, though Im fond of him. I live in a
small village so Im unlikely to get another chance. I dont want to be left on the self. My
mother says love grows if you marry someone who is good to you. Do you think shes right?
Miss P.J. Suffolk

Help the author of this letter by giving advice:

Problem Page
Dear Marry,
I have been seeing a young man once or twice a week for the past year. I enjoy his company
and have always regarded him as a good friend. He has been very good to me and bought me
anything I have asked for. But lately he has talked of marriage. He seems to assume that Im
serious about him and will eventually settle down in some dull little semidetached house in the
suburbs. But I have no intention of even contemplating marriage for years yet. And he isnt
successful enough or rich enough to be the man I would choose. I dont want to hurt him or
frighten him off because he does give me a good time. But how can I get over to him that Im
only prepared to allow him to be in my company, and not my future husband.
Miss R.W.

Help the author of this letter by giving advice:

Problem Page
Dear Marry,
I have been living with my boyfriend for two years. Im now pregnant and having a dreadful
time with my family because they are trying to pressure us into getting married. I cannot
accept their reasoning that it would be for the good of the child. By the time the baby is of
school age, marriage will be a thing of the past anyway. When will people accept a more
liberal outlook on life?
Ms K. OM