Speaking

- Topic and cues

- Structuring talk
- Avoiding the talk-talk loop
- Open questions
- Playing devils advocate

A few keys to getting a good discussion going

- Frame the discussion well

- Preparation time
- Dont interrupt the flow
- Specific problems are more productive than general issues
- Role cards
- Buzz groups
- Break the rules

Some common communicative activities

1. Picture difference tasks

2. Group planning tasks
3. List sequencing tasks (Ranking tasks)
4. Pyramid discussion
5. Board games
6. Puzzles and problems

Scaffolding techniques

Showing interest and agreeing (nodding, uh-huh, eye contact, yes etc.)
Concisely asking for clarification of unclear information (repeating an unclear word)
Encouragement echo: repeating the last word (perhaps with questioning intonation) in order to encourage the
speaker to continue
Echoing meaning: picking on a key element of meaning and saying it back to the speaker (a foreign holiday)
Asking conversation-oiling questions: ones that mainly recap already stated information (Is it?, Do you?,
Where was it?)
Asking brief questions (or using sentence heads) that encourage the speaker to extend the story (And then,
He went, She wanted etc.)
Unobtrusively saying the correct form of an incorrect word (but only if having the correct word makes a
significant positive contribution to the communication)
Giving the correct pronunciation of words in replies without drawing any particular attention to it
Unobtrusively giving a word or phrase that the speaker is looking for

Receptive skills: listening and reading

Most tasks fall into one of these categories:

Take part in a conversation

Answer questions
Do / choose something in response to what you hear
Pass on / take notes on what you hear

Hear are some brief examples of a range of these tasks

Listen and...

Choose the correct picture

Follow the route on the map
 Walk / sit / move according to the instructions
Choose the best answer for each question from the four options
Say a reply to each comment you hear
Decide which person is saying which sentence
Match the pictures of people with this list of opinions
Note down the leaders suggestion about where the camp should be
Collect all comments made about shops
Tell your partner what Mikhail thought about the hospital
Draw a picture of the alien
Build a model of the office with Cuisenaire rods
Decide whether they like the present or not
Pick up and show the correct picture
Note the exact words Zsuzsa uses to refuse the offer
Take down the message, phone numbers and address
Follow the instructions to make an origami model
Listen again until you have learnt the poem by heart
Argue against the proposition

Some guidelines for listening skills work in class:

Keep the recording short: two minutes of recorded material is enough to provide a lot of listening work
Play the recording a sufficient number of times
Let students discuss their answers together (perhaps in pairs)
Dont immediately acknowledge correct answers with words or facial expressions; throw the answrer back to
the class: What do you think of Claires answer? Do you agree?
Dont be led by one strong student. Have they all got it?
Aim to get the students to agree together without your help, using verbal prodding, raised eyebrows, nods,
hints etc. Play the recording again whenever they need to heat it, to confirm or refute their ideas, until they
agree
Play little bits of the recording (a word, a phrase, a sentence) again and again until its clear
Give help if they are completely stuck but still with the aim of getting them to work it out if at all possible
rather than giving them the answers
Consider giving the students control of the CD player or tape recorder to listen when and to what they wish
Dont cheat them by changing your requirements halfway
Dont let them lose heart. Try to make sure the task is just between their abilities. It should be difficult but
achievable. The sense of achievement in finishing a task should be great

Approaches to reading

Skimming fast reading for: key topics, main ideas, overall theme, basic structure etc.
Scanning fast reading for: specific individual pieces of information (names, addresses, facts, prices, numbers,
dates, etc.)

Here are some specific ideas for reading tasks:

Put these illustrations of the text in the correct order

Put these cut-up paragraphs in the correct order
Find words in the text that mean the same as the words in the list
Read the text and find the mistakes in this illustration (or draw your own)
Read the text and make a list of particular items (e.g. jobs that need doing, the authors proposals, advantages
and disadvantages etc.)
Give a headline to each section of the article (or match given headlines with the sections)
Find appropriate places in the text to reinsert some sentences that have previously been separated from the
text
Write a reply
 Look at the title and the illustrations (but not the text). Predict which of the following list of words you will find
in the text
Solve the problem
Discuss (or write) the missing last paragraph of the text
Discuss interpretations of, reactions to, feelings about the text
Make notes under the following headings:
Before you read this text, make notes about what you already know about the subject
Act out the dialogue, story, episode etc.
Put this list of events in the correct order

Some alternatives to reading aloud round the class

Here are some alternatives to try:

You reading
You reading narrative, but students reading character dialogue
You (having read the chapter yourself before class) telling the story in your own words, without notes, in the
most spell-binding way you can; later, you get students to do the same with other bits
Students reading to each other in small groups or pairs, stopping, changing, discussing and helping each other
whenever they want to
Students reading silently, then, without discussion, acting out / improvising a scene based on what happened
Students silently speed-reading a chapter (say in two minutes) then reporting back, discussing, comparing etc.
before silently reading it more carefully

Writing

Real-world writing tasks

Write real letters / e-mails
Publish your own newsletter, magazine, handout, etc.
Advertise (ideas, school events, products, etc.)
Send comments, replies to discussions, reviews, etc. to
web sites
Write questionnaires and then used them out in the
street
Long-term projects
Apply for things, fill in forms, register for things, etc.
Think of real people to whom students can write, e.g. to
Members of Parliament, to prisoners, to manufacturing
companies, to fan clubs, to local newspapers, to other
schools, etc. Send them. Get replies. Write back.
Class magazine, school magazine, fan newsletter, local
news, campaigning on environmental or political issues,
etc.
Advertise around the school, around the town; send in
your ads to local papers, etc.
There are now a wide number of discussions, message
boards and newsgroups specifically for students or for
social interest groups. Many shop and consumer sites
invite reader reviews of books, products, events, etc.
These can be written in English or in the learners own
language. Write up the results. Publish them!
These are a good way of integrating writing with other
work. The aim could be a file or book at the end.
This can be done directly online if students have
Internet access or printed out on paper.

Examples of specific tasks:

1. Write a guide book entry about your part of town.

2. Write feedback and evaluation of a new product.
3. Fill in a car-hire booking form.
4. Write a review of a new game on a computer forum message board.
5. Write a postcard to a manufacturer requesting an information leaflet about their work.
6. Write (and design) computer presentation slides.
 7. Write an academic essay summarising arguments for and against a viewpoint.
8. Write your personal profile for inclusion in a class souvenir booklet.
9. Write a poem about your strongest childhood memory.
10. Write a letter in reply to a job application to arrange an interview.

Language analysis

Some ideas for integrating functional work into a course:

1. Focusing on a functional area and studying a number of exponents

2. Role-plays: considering what to say in particular relationships
3. Listening: working out relationships between speakers
4. Deciding how different situations make one sentence mean different things
5. Building dialogues and picture-story conversations
6. Acting out play scripts
7. Writing letters to different people
8. Altering written conversations to change the relationship

Lexis

Here are some common pre-teaching tasks of the kind you frequently find in course books:

Match the words with the pictures

Check the meaning of these words in a dictionary
Match the words with the definitions
Brainstorm words on a set topic (i.e. collect as many as you can)
Divide these words into two groups (e.g. food words and hobby words)
Label the items in a picture with the right names
Complete gapped sentences with words from a list
Discuss a topic (that will feature in the text)
Say which words (from a list) you expect to be in a text about

Using short anecdotes for pre-teaching:

Tell it, miming or showing flash cards or board drawings, etc. to illustrate meaning as you go
Tell it, explaining or translating meaning as you go
Tell it, asking comprehension questions and concept questions as words come up in the story
Tell it, asking comprehension questions and concept questions afterwards
Tell it, pretending to forget the words as you tell the story. Elicit the words from the students
Tell the whole story once with the lexis included, then retell it and forget items (as above)

During listening or reading work

Dealing with an item when a student specifically asks about it

Give brief, to-the-point explanations or translations, rather than detailed presentations
Offer help quietly to the one or two students who ask, rather than to the whole class
Sometimes refuse help and tell students to do their best without knowing some items

After the first phase of listening or reading work

Can you guess the meaning of this word from the meaning of the text around it?
Find some words in the text that mean
Find some words in the text connected with the subject of
In line X, what does mean?
Find words and sort them into three separate groups under these headings:
Why does the writer use the word here?
Find words in the text that match this list of synonyms
What words come before / after the word? What other words collocate with this word?
 Can you remember any other phrases you know with this word in them?
Can you find any multiword items (i.e. groups of words that go together /chunks)?
Whats the opposite of this word?
How many different words does the author use to describe the?

Presenting lexis

Words connected with the same location or event (e.g. shop words, wedding words)
Words that have the same grammar and similar use (e.g. adjectives to describe people, movement verbs)
Words that can be used to achieve success in a specific task (e.g. persuading a foreign friend to visit your
town)

There are many published exercises on lexis. These include:

Matching pictures to lexical items

Matching parts of lexical items to other parts, e.g. beginnings and endings
Matching lexical items to others, e.g. collocations, synonyms, opposites, sets of related words etc.
Using prefixes and suffixes to build new lexical items from given words
Classifying items into lists
Using given lexical items to complete a specific task
Filling in crosswords, grids or diagrams
Filling in gaps in sentences
Memory games

Alternative ways of recording lexis

o Grouping words so that a set is learned together

o Build a word web (or memory map or mind map) the learning of new words and the recording of them are
part of the same activity
o Record lexical items in useful ways
o Revisit lexical item pages
o Collect lexical items
o Sort and classify items
o Chunk and collocation spotting
o Redesign your pages
o When an error comes up, review the range of collocations
o Record real language
o Challenge students to upgrade language
o Give collocations rather than definition

Grammar

Factors that can vary a drill

Who speaks?

Whole-group speaking (choral) / Individual students practise

Round the class / Random selection of individuals
Male / Female
This half / That half of the room
As / Bs
Pairs: alternate words
Students lead drill (rather than teacher)

How do they speak?

Normal volume / whispered / loud / shout / sing / mouth silently

 Normal speed / fast / slow
Normal intonation / flat intonation / exaggerated intonation
Change the stress
With an American / Australian / Liverpool accent

Substitution drills

Transformation drills

True sentences

Variations on a drill

1. Repeat the grammar item on its own

2. Repeat the grammar item in a phrase / sentence
3. Repeat the intonation pattern (as hummed music, no words)
4. Repeat the grammar item with exaggerated attention to the intonation
5. Repeat only the stressed syllables in a sentence (get the rhythm), then later put back the missing syllables
6. Repeat a sentence, building it up bit by bit, starting with the first word(s) / syllable(s)
7. Repeat by backchaining (i.e. build up the sentence bit by bit, starting at the end rather than the beginning)
8. You give opening of sentence, students complete it
9. You give part of a sentence, students complete it
10. You introduce sentence by repetition, then say new word that must be substituted within it
11. You introduce sentence by repetition. Students must respond with a follow-on reply
12. You introduce sentence by repetition, then give an instruction for transformation of sentence (e.g. Change to
the past perfect)
13. You say sentence with errors (e.g. words in wrong order), students put it right
14. You say / show cues (e.g. some key words, pictures) and students construct a complete sentence
15. You ask real questions about the students lives. Students respond with true sentences, all using the same
grammatical item.
16. You invent or read a short text (one or two sentences), then ask questions about it, all using the same
grammatical item

Variations on the variations

All the above can be further varied by doing them

1. As a whole class (choral)

2. As a half / quarter of a class
3. As an individual in front of the whole class
4. As individuals around the class (passing the baton)
5. As an open pair (everyone else can hear) next to each other
6. As an open pair across the room
7. As two halves of the class speaking to each other as if they were a pair (e.g. male / female, this side / that side)
8. As closed groups
9. As closed pairs (i.e. privately, simultaneously)
10. Loudly
11. Quietly
12. Whispering
13. Shouting
14. Singing
15. Slowly
16. Fast
17. With exaggerated intonation
18. With flat intonation
19. With a specific accent
 20. With exaggerated rhythm
21. With intonation for specific moods
22. Walking around (separately)
23. Mingling
24. Changing places
25. Taking on the teachers role (once any individual drill is established)

A few possible feedback strategies:

1. Tell students the correction (reformulation)

2. Hold the error
3. Indicate / Ask for self-correction
4. Indicate / Ask for peer correction
5. The chain
6. Facial expression
7. Movement
8. Echo: intonation indicates error
9. Echo: up to the error
10. Finger correction
11. Ask a question
12. Write / say clue or hint

Finally

1. Keep the atmosphere humorous; keep the language focus serious

2. Personalise some elements
3. Jazz it up with mime, pictures, board cues, silly postures, etc.
4. Dont worry too much about whether it is a meaningful or communicative drill
5. Do worry about whether what youre drilling is a realist piece of real-world language
6. Dont drill possible but improbable English
7. Keep the challenge high
8. Make sure students get the practice, not you!

Grammar practice activities and games

Split sentences

Grammar quiz

Memory test

Picture dictation

Miming an action

Growing stories

Questionnaires

Board games

1. Self-directed discovery
2. Explanation
3. Guided discovery
a) Select appropriate tasks
b) Offer appropriate instructions, help, feedback, explanations, etc.
c) Manage and structure the lesson so that all learners are involved and engaged, and draw the most possible
from the activity
 The key technique is to ask good questions, ones that encourage the learners to notice language and think about
it. These questions may be oral or they might on a worksheet that leads learners in a structured way to make
conclusions. This kind of guidance is sometimes referred to as Socratic questioning, i.e. leading people to discover
things that they didnt know they knew via a process of structured questions.

You can:

Ask questions that focus on the meaning (concept questions)

Ask questions that focus on the context (context questions)
Ask questions that focus on the form
Offer appropriate examples for analysis and discussion
Ask the learners to analyse sentences from texts
Ask the learners to reflect on language they have used
Ask learners to analyse errors
Ask learners to hypothesise rules
Ask learners to undertake research
Set problems and puzzles concerning the language item
Offer tools to help clarify meaning, e.g. timelines, substitution tables (but perhaps encouraging the
students to use them to solve the problems)
Encourage thorough working out of difficulties
Guide their process of discovery so that it stays on fruitful lines
Encourage different students to add their ideas
Help them to stay focused if they get side-tracked
Raise their awareness as to what they have learned

Situational presentation language is introduced via a context that the teacher has created

1. Select the grammar items you wish to teach

2. Decide how the language is typically used:
List situations, contexts
List functions
List typical exchanges
3. Select one realistic natural target sentence with potential for pattern generalisation
4. Do a language analysis of:
The form (including substitution table)
The meaning with concept questions
The pronunciation
Typical student problems
5. Write a main language-learning aim for the lesson (What items do you want learners to take away and be
better able to use after the lesson?)
6. Choose a realistic, natural, generative context that you could use to teach the item
7. Decide what previously studied lexis / grammar is needed to elicit / tell this context
8. Write out exactly the story / dialogue of your situation
9. Decide how you will get precisely to the point where the target meaning want arises
10. Decide when / how you will focus on the target meaning with concept questions
11. Decide when / how you will elicit / model the form
12. Write out other sentences generated from the context and initial target sentence
13. Plan how learners will get oral practice within the presentation stage
14. Decide how students will see the written form
15. Decide how students will get restricted oral practice in a follow-on stage
16. Write out prompts for drills
17. Decide how students will get more communicative oral practice
18. Decide how students will get written practice
19. Write out the procedure as a series of logical steps / stages
 20. Go for it!

Phonology: the sound of English

Model new words in context

Modelling intonation

Recognise the feeling

Use dialogues

Chants

Shadow reading

Voice settings

Phoneme bingo
Anagrams
Category words

And here are some general ideas for working with phonemes:

1. Integrate phonemic work into all your teaching of grammar and lexis. Always work on helping students achieve
good pronunciation, and encourage them to make a record of the phonemic transcription as well as the
spelling of new items.
2. Observation of mechanics: let students watch how you and they make particular sounds
3. Ear-training: get students to listen to and distinguish words which have sounds that seem to them very similar
4. Tongue twisters, to work on particular sounds or to contrast sounds
5. Transliteration: get students to write out a word or sentence in phonemic script. Jokes seem to work well.
6. Train learners in using a dictionary to find pronunciation as well as spelling
7. Keep a phonemic chart on the wall of your classroom. Focus briefly on one phoneme each lesson.
8. Tap out words on the chart and ask students to say the words.
9. Use the chart for pointing out correct sounds when students pronounce something wrong
10. Try a phonemic crossword

Toolkit 2: focusing on language

Five teacher decisions have to be made when working with oral errors in class:

1. What kind of error has been made? (grammatical? pronunciation? Etc.)

2. Whether to deal with it. (is it useful to correct it?)
3. When to deal with it? (now? End of activity? Later?)
4. Who will correct? (teacher? Student self-correction? Other students?)
5. Which technique to use to indicate that an error has occurred or to enable correction?

Some ideas for indicating / correcting errors:

1. Tell students that there is an error

2. Use facial expression: surprise, frown, raised eyebrows, interest
3. Use a gesture combined with a facial expression
4. Use finger correction
5. Repeat sentence up to error
6. Echo sentence with changed intonation or stress
7. Ask a question
8. Ask a one-word question
9. Draw a timeline on the board
 10. Draw spaces or boxes on the board to show the number of words in a sentence. Indicate which word is the
problem
11. Write the problem sentence on board for discussion
12. Exploit the humour in the error
13. Use the phonemic chart to point at an incorrect phoneme

Traditional pen-and-paper tests are usually made up of two types of questions:

Discrete item tasks (i.e. testing specific individual language points)

Integrative tasks (i.e. a number of items or skills tested in the same question)

These can be marked in two ways:

Objectively (i.e. there is a clear correct answer, and every marker would give the same marks to the same
question)
Subjectively (i.e. marking depends largely on the personal decision of the marker; different markers might give
different marks for the same question)

Discrete items are likely to be marked objectively; integrative tests are more likely to be marked subjectively. Some
questions may involve elements of both. Language systems are easier to test objectively; language skills tend to be
tested subjectively.

Three criteria of a good test:

1. A good test will seem fair and appropriate to the students (and to anyone who needs to know the results, e.g.
head teacher, other teachers, employers, parents etc.)
2. It will not be too troublesome to mark
3. It will provide clear results that serve the purpose for which it was set

A criteria-based assessment scheme could perhaps measure each can do on a scale of four:

1. The candidate meets and surpasses the criteria.

2. The candidate meets all main aspects of the criteria.
3. The candidate meets the criteria in some respects, but with significant problems.
4. The candidate is unable to meet the criteria in any respect.

Some common-discrete item testing techniques

Gap-fill

Single sentence
Cloze
Multiple choice
Using given words
Using other clues
Transformation of a given word

Sentence transformation

Using given words

Following a given instruction

Sentence construction and re-construction

Rearranging words
Using given words
Finding and correcting mistakes
Situational
Two-option answers

True / False
Correct / Incorrect
Defined options

Matching (pictures, words, sentence pieces, labels etc.)

Pictures and words

Placing words in correct sets, lists
Grammatical labelling
Putting jigsaw pieces together