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students to deal with unfamiliar vocabulary, 5.training students to use dictionaries




9. Teaching vocabulary

The language structure make up the skeleton of language, the vocabulary provides the vital organs and the flesh.
The acquisition of vocabulary is just as important as the acquisition of grammar.

Selecting vocabulary
Whilst there is a consensus about what grammatical structures should be taught at what levels the same is hardly true of vocabulary.
We need to teach more concrete words at lower levels and gradually become more abstract.

A general principle of vocabulary selection has been that of frequency. We can decide which words we should teach on the basis of how frequently they are used by speakers of the language.
Another principle that has been used is that of coverage. A word is more useful if it covers more things than if it only has one very specific meaning.
Computer-based corpuses: small computer programs which will scan texts and tell the users which words are used most often and how they are used.
How useful is it for them? How well does it fit into the topics, functions, structures and situations that we want to teach?

Meaning:
Vocabulary items have frequently more than one meaning. To decipher its meaning we have to look at the context in which it is used. Students need to understand the importance of meaning in context.

Word Use:
What a word means can be changed, stretched or limited by how it is used. Word meaning is stretched through the use of metaphor and idiom. Word meaning is also governed by collocation – that is which words go with each other. What we say is governed by the style and register.

Word formation
Words can change their shape and their grammatical value. Students need to know how suffixes and prefixes work. Students need to know how words are spelt and how they sound and also the way they are stressed. Part of learning a word is learning its written and spoken form.
Word formation means knowing how words are written and spoken and knowing how they can change their form.

Word grammar
Countable/ uncountable (nouns), verb complementation, phrasal verbs, adjectives, adverbs, position etc.


Teaching vocabulary is clearly more than just presenting new words.
Active: vocabulary that students have been taught or learnt and which they are expected to be able to use
Passive: words that students will recognize when they meet them but which they will probably not be able to produce

Interaction with words:
Words may eventually fade through lack of use. A word has a personal meaning for the students. It would be nice to provoke a relationship with words we teach. Students remember best when they have actually done something with the words they are learning. We should get students to interact with the words.
Vocabulary learning needs the deep experience.

Discovery techniques:
Students are often asked to discover for themselves what a word means and how and why it is being used. Rather that teach them new words we can show them examples of words in action. We may want to ask students to try to work out what words mean.
If we provide the right kind of exposure to words for the students and if we provide opportunities for students to practice these words then there is a good chance that students will learn and remember some or all of them.

Examples of vocabulary teaching:
Presentation or explanation is the best way to bring new words into the classroom.
-teacher holds an object and ask students to repeat its name
-mime, action, gesture
-contrast
-enumeration
-explanation
-translation
presenting the sounds of words:
through modeling, through visual representation (by underlining), through phonetic symbols (for recognition purposes)

The importance of dictionaries
Bilingual dictionary usually provides sufficient information for the students to be able to use.
It is a good practice using monolingual dictionaries. There is more grammatical information about pronunciation, spelling, word formation, metaphorical and idiomatic use, examples of words in sentences and phrases. Students at beginner and elementary levels simply cannot access this information. As their English starts to improve we can begin to introduce the monolingual dictionary to complement their bilingual one.
We don’t want the students’ ability to be spontaneous to be limited by constant reference to dictionaries.

Examples of dictionary training material:
They contain so much technical information. Unless we train students in how to understand the information and use dictionaries, the money they spent in buying them will be largely wasted since they will never open them.
Training students in dictionary use:
-to remove the fear
-to train students to understand that information
-to make the dictionary a normal and comfortable part of language study and practice

10. Receptive skills

Reading and listening
In our daily lives we read and listen to a great deal of language and it is possible to divide this language into two categories: interest and usefulness.
We need to have a purpose and we create some expectations.

Receptive skills
-Predictive skills: result of the expectations, predictions will change as they receive more information from the text.
-extracting specific information: scanning
-getting the general picture : skimming
-extracting detailed information
-recognizing function and discourse patterns
-deducing meaning from context

Methodological principles for teaching receptive skills:

Receptive and productive skills
Being able to understand a piece of text doesn’t necessarily mean that students have to be able to write or speak like that.

Authentic and non-authentic text:
Authentic texts are designed for native speakers.
Non-authentic texts are written especially for language students. This language is artificial. Speakers use perfectly formed sentences all the time.

Reasons for giving students reading and listening material:
-being better readers and listeners
-acquiring language, (to read and listen improves students general English level)
-success (the right kind of material, frequent diet of successful reading)
Students would become unsuccessful and demoralized if they are presented with language that is simply too difficult for them.
What we need are the texts which students can understand the general meaning of, texts whether authentic or not must be realistic models. If teachers can find genuinely authentic material which their students can cope with that will be advantageous. The text should be roughly-tuned rather than finely-tuned. Material must at least simulate authenticity.
Purpose, desire and expectations
People usually read or listen to something because they have a desire to do so and some purpose to achieve. Task should be realistic and motivating. Teachers have the responsibility to make students interested and to encourage them to tackle the text with positive anticipation. We need to create a desire to read and allow students to develop expectations.

Receiving and doing:
Work on comprehension skills, react to something, to give opinions, summarizing, conversation based on the text.

Teaching receptive skills:
1.Treatment as a whole, (reading for a general picture)
2.Extract specific information, (detailed comprehension, guessing strategies)

A Basic Methodological Model for Teaching of Receptive Skills:
LEAD-IN: prepare for the task, to create expectations and arouse interest
T DIRECTS COMPREHENSION TASK: the teacher makes sure that the students know what they are going to do
SS LISTEN/READ FOR TASK: students read or listen to a text to perform the task
T DIRECTS FEEDBACK: if successfully
T DIRECTS TEXT-RELATED TASK: some kind of follow-up task

Reading material
Reading is an exercise dominated by eyes and the brain. Reading text moves at the speed of the reader.

Reading to confirm expectations
Students are involved in reading in order to confirm their expectations about the information they think the text will contain. This technique places great emphasis on the lead-in stage and gives an interesting and motivating purpose.

Reading to extract specific information
Students should see the questions or tasks they are going to answer or perform before reading the text.
-open-ended questions, yes/no questions, transferring information using the predictive skill, follow-up tasks (role play, write an article, discussion)
It is preferably possible to read a text for general understanding first and then look for details.

Reading for communicative tasks
-reassembling of a text that has become disordered, (pair activity, then read the story out loud in the correct order, then a discussion)
The reading should be purposeful and communicative.


Reading for general understanding
This type of reading is focused on students skimming to get the general picture.
Standard questions for general understanding:
-What do you think about the text?
-Who was it written by?
-Who was it written for?
-What is the writer’s intention?
-Do you like it?
General comprehension is a skill that involves absorbing only the main points of the text to get an overall understanding of the text.


Reading for detailed comprehension: information
-open-ended questions, detailed questions

Reading for detailed comprehension: function and discourse
It is important for students to understand the way in which texts are structured, and to recognize the functions that are being performed. They must be able to decode if they wish to understand the text fully.
-context questions, identifying function, explain words in the text, re-write the text in the blanks, identifying paragraph structure

Listening material
It shares many similarities with reading. A written text is static. It can be consumed at the speed to the reader, and read again and again. Audio or video tapes can certainly be repeated but it still happens at its speed. Spoken language differs markedly form the
written text. A good piece of writing develops an argument or a point of view. Writers can amend, re-draft and correct what they have written before releasing their final version. The setting is structured. The speech looks sometimes very messy, repetition is redundant, common hesitation devices.
Speech phenomena:
Hesitation, reformulation, redundancy, topic change are a natural part of spontaneous speech.
There is no limit to the variety of voices.
Using tape recorders can be a nerve-tackling experience. It’s hard to sit in silence, hear clearly from the last row.
Lead-in:
as clear as possible, students’ expectations are vital
The use of visual material:
pictorial back-up to create expectations and reassure listeners
Listening tasks:
to help students to listen more effectively, to complete before listening, to predict the content
The equipment
It needs to be in a good condition.

Listening with video
Students can have a visual context for what is being said. We need to set motivating and challenging tasks.
Silent viewing as a powerful predictive exercise, the students speculate.
Freeze frame to predict what the characters will say.
Sound only
Jigsaw viewing: half of the class watch, the other one hear, comparing and building a complete picture,

Listening to confirm expectations
When students listen to confirm their expectations they have a clear view of what it is they are going to listen to. This helps them to cope with the material and achieve success.

Listening to extract specific information
The teacher will make sure that they understand the meaning of the words the students are going to work with.
Feedback – follow-up task – discussion

Listening for communicative tasks
Communicative task should be as much like real life as possible and in which involves students working together to solve the problem.
Jigsaw listening: an activity in which different students get different information from different listening passages which they then have to share in order to perform some kind of task.

Listening for the general understanding
In order to get the general idea of what the main points are without getting too much stuck on individual words.
Students are simply asked to get the general gist of quite a long interview or so.
Teachers will want to rewind the tape and have students listen again to pick up points of detail, including, for example, linguistic detail.

Listening for detail: information and discourse structure
A first listening will not be enough to ensure the students’ understanding of a tape extract. Students should listen to the tape at least twice. On the second time they try to extract more detail than on the first one.
Script dictation: to try to fill in the gaps in the following extract before listening to the tape again

Making your own tapes
Teachers and their colleagues could write and record their own dialogues, interviews, stories and readings.

Dealing with listening problems
Panic and Difficulty
facing a difficult task can raise panic: e.g. to refuse to play the tape more than once, to expose an individual student’s lack of success in the listening task.
Students can become unnerved and irritated by our inability to find our place. It is worth making absolutely sure that you set the counter to zero before you start.
It is a good idea to let students check their answers together in pairs before organizing a feedback stage. Shared confusion is not nearly so damaging.
If the tape is proving difficult:
-don’t play all the tape straight away
-give students the first third of the tape script
-give one group a tape recorder
-preview vocabulary
-use the tape script
-give the students the interviewer’s questions

11. Class Management

The most effective activities can be made almost useless if the teacher does not organize them properly, and disruptive behavior can spoil the best classes if it is not checked.
Teachers who do not use a variety of student groupings may be missing valuable opportunities to create a cooperative atmosphere in the class and to maximize student practice.

The role of the teacher in the way the teacher behaves:
Two extremes:
CONTOLLER--------------------------------------------------------------------FACILITATOR

A controller stands at the front of the class like a puppet-master or mistress controlling everything. A facilitator maintains a low profile in order to make the students’ own achievement of a task possible.

Teacher as a controller is in complete charge of the class. The introduction of new language, where it makes use of accurate reproduction and drilling techniques, needs to be carefully organized. Thus the instruct-cue-nominate cycle is the perfect example of the teacher acting as controller.
Teachers are addicted to being the center of attention. Some teachers have a gift of inspiring and motivating us even though they never seem to relax their control. And at their best teachers who are able to mix the controlling role with a good performance are extremely enjoyable to be taught, they tend to do a lot of the talking.

Teacher as an assessor
A major part of the teacher’s job is to assess the students’ work, to see how well they are performing or how well they performed.
Two types of assessment: correction and organizing feedback
The teacher’s function is to show where the incorrectness occurs and help the student to see what has gone wrong so that it can be put right. Students are involved in an immediate creativity or in doing a drill-type activity in pairs.
Gentle correction: not making a big fuss about it. The teacher says things like: Well that’s not quite right… we don’t say /////// we say //////////. It is enough that the mistake has been acknowledged.

Organizing feedback
Two different kinds of feedback: Content feedback = how well the students performed the activity as an activity rather than as a language exercise. Form feedback = record the errors and correct them afterwards (pen and paper notes: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, style and appropriacy). Write some of the most prominent and serious errors from the list on the board. In pairs students have to identify the errors and correct them. Individual students or suggesting a cure, suitable for small groups.
To record the students’ performance on tape = Community Language Learning.
Video content feedback.
Feedback include correcting language mistakes and means also reacting to the subject and content of an activity and telling students what went right.

Teacher as an organizer
It is the most difficult and important role. The success of many activities depends on good organization and on the students knowing exactly what they are to do.
To give clear instructions, get the activity going, organize feedback.
It is always wise to check if the students grasped what they have to do. It is wise to plan out what you are going to say beforehand and then say it clearly and concisely. Teachers must be careful about when they get students to look at the material they will using for the activity.
Lead-in: introduction of the subject
Teacher instructs: students are told exactly what they should do, in monolingual class it may be a good idea to get a translation of these instructions to make sure the students have understood, possibility of a demonstration of the activity
Teacher initiates: final check if students understood, adding a competitive element which is highly motivating
Lead-in------------instruct (demonstrate)-----------initiate------------organize feedback


Teacher as a prompter
Teachers need to encourage students to participate or need to make suggestions.
The role of a prompter has to be performed with discretion, helping only when it is necessary.

The teacher as participant
He participates as an equal. There is a danger that he will tend to dominate. It might improve the atmosphere in the class. It gives students a chance to practice English with someone who speaks it better than they do.

The teacher as a resource
He offers help if it is needed. Students can consult the teacher when they wish.

The teacher as a tutor
He acts as a coach and resource. This is the role the teacher adopts where students are involved in self-study or where they are doing project work of their own choosing.
He approximates to a counseling function.

The teacher as investigator
Teachers themselves will want to develop their own skills.
Investigating what is going on, observing what works well in the class and what does not, trying out new techniques and activities and evaluating their appropiacy.
Teachers who constantly seek to enrich their understanding of what is learning all about.

Student groupings:
Lockstep is a class grouping where all the students are locked into the same activity. Lockstep is a traditional teaching situation where a teacher-controlled session is taking place. The accurate reproduction stage, the students working as one group and the teacher acting as controller and assessor.
Lockstep has certain advantages. All the class are concentrating getting a good language model from the teacher, it can be very dynamic.
Students working in lockstep get little chance to practice or to talk at all. Lockstep always goes at the wrong speed either for students or for the teacher. Shy and nervous students don’t feel good while exposed in front of the whole class.
Lockstep involves too much teaching and too little learning.
Pair work can be used for a great variety of work including writing and reading. It increases the amount of student practice. The use of language encourages students to co-operate. There is a strong percentage of communicative efficiency. Teachers sometimes worry about noise and indiscipline (attitude – to remain in front of the class – to stop the activity in case of noise – to continue more quietly – or to stop totally). We need to familiarize students with pair work.
A decision has to be taken about how students are put in pairs: strong students with weak students or a random approach).
Group work
The increase in the amount of student talking time, students really use language to communicate with each other, teaching and learning in the group exhibiting a degree of self-reliance, more dynamic than pair work, greater possibility of discussion, more relaxing.
The biggest problem is the selection of the group members, (use of a sociogram).
Teacher can give different tasks to be performed according to students’ interests in the class. Group size is also slightly problematical: more than seven students can be unmanageable. It is probable a good idea to have an odd number in each group for decisions to be taken since in that way a split decision is impossible.
Flexible groups: students start in set groups and as an activity progresses the groups split up and re-form.
The group leader = group organizer, making sure that the task was properly done that the information was properly recorded or collected.
Mini-teacher = student conduct a drill or a dialogue.
Group work offers enormous potential.
The use of the mother tongue
One of the biggest problems in the use of pairwork and groupwork is the use of the mother tongue by students in monolingual groups.
How can a teacher try to discourage the use of the mother tongue? Should a teacher always discourage it?
Communicative activities should be strictly held in English.
But for example a vocabulary-matching exercise in pairs doesn’t have to be strictly English oriented.
It is important that students realize that our attitude to their language depends on the activity in question.
1.Talk to the class
have a discussion with the students. Ask them to think the point of communicative activities and get them to agree that it is essential for them to try and stick to