skills

These notes are based on a presentation given by Theresa Doğuelli University. The presentation was after sales service from Oxford University Press on the Lecture Ready series of academic English text books.

The aim of the book is strategy training and this was where Teresa began her presentation. The differences between a strategy, skill, plan and tactic were explored. One of the ideas that came out of the discussion was that a strategy is more flexible than a plan - leaving the learner the chioce of how to tackle the task rather than a less flexible and less adaptable plan. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you teach speaking with few or no materials? Here are some speaking activities that you can try with your classes. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some more activities, some of which you can use with little or no prepararion. These are activities that I have found by dredging my computer directories. I there fore do not know the sources fo these activities. I would be happy to give any credit where it is due.

Lying: an icebreaker

air off students. It’s a good idea to pair off the students off oneself, as they might be a bit bashful in pairing off with a partner they don’t know. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is intended to give the most cursory idea about what exactly task based learning is. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a selection of links for learners to use for their own language learning purposes. There are links to resources under the following categories:

• language links
• topics: Texts to read and listen to, pronunciation practice, spelling practice, …
• listening: over 400 activities.
• native speaker: VOA Special English - limited to 1500 lexical items.
• on line dictionary: each word in the definition has clickable links.
• ask your questions: a learner forum.
• toefl links: these are pre iBIT TOEFL.
• toefl reading
• toefl listening
• toefl writing
• toefl grammar
• grammar: common errors, verbs as well as noun phrase grammar.
• vocabulary: includes some quizzes.

Should any of these links not work, please let me know.

If anyone would like their own link to be included, please let me know.

Why not ask your learners to write reviews and post them here?

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Following are a number of statements extracted from What Research Has To Say About Reading Instruction Read the rest of this entry »

automatic

• largely or wholly involuntary, especially as with a reflex
• acting or done spontaneously or unconsciously

automatize

• to make automatic [noun derivations: automatization the process of making automatic; automaticity the state or condition of being automatic]

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This is an activity that requires no setting up and can be done at the drop of a hat just the kind of activity that I love to have in my toolbox! Essentially, the idea is to promote automatization through quick responses, under moderately stressful conditions.

Aim: learners will recycle vocabulary and/or create short sentences under moderately stressful conditions.

Materials: none - don’t you just love it … Read the rest of this entry »

1. Manipulating the script of the language: handwriting, spelling and punctuation.

2. Expressing grammatical [syntactic and morphological] relationships at the sentence level.

3. Expressing relationships between parts of a written text through cohesive devices [especially through grammatical devices such as noun-pronoun reference]. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Deducing meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items through understanding word formation and contextual clues in utterances and spoken text

2. Recognising and understanding phonological features of speech [especially those forms associated with supra-segmental features] Read the rest of this entry »

1. Basic reference and information-finding skills [e.g. title, using contents page, index. footnotes, bibliography, chapter headings and sub-headings, chapter summaries]

2. Deducing meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items through understanding word formation and contextual clues Read the rest of this entry »

• Reading narrative texts
• Reading factual texts [such as descriptions, announcements, memoranda, advertisements, notices, reports, menus, and agendas]

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• Approaching writing as a process accomplished in stages
• Scrutinizing work more critically
• Revising work to make it intelligible by adding, removing, substituting, and/or recombining material
• Keeping a portfolio of work to chart progress
• Raising awareness of different types of written texts with different purposes

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• Filling out typical forms
• Writing short factual texts explaining reasons for an action and [or] making simple recommendations
• Writing statements using principles of coordination and subordination

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• Listening to types of speech in different authentic contexts
• Listening to everyday speech and interactions
• Listening to and identifying single or multiple speakers
• Listening to both planned and unplanned speech

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• Developing ability to describe objects and processes
• Responding to various forms of questions and sustained questioning in appropriate contexts
• Interacting in real world speaking activities
• Performing one way and two-way information tasks
• Raising awareness of conversational structure [opening, turn-taking, sustaining a turn, negotiating meaning, nominating a topic, repairing a mistake, linking ideas, adjusting the message by rephrasing, or using circumlocutions, changing topics, & closing a conversation]

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Anderson J R [1982] Acquisition of Cognitive Skill [Psychological Review 89.4]

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In this post the classroom ideas are marked with a:

Whatever type of approach you intend to use for a particular activity in the classroom, making the differentiation between fluency and accuracy is a very important one.

However, here are some things to think about. From Brumfit…

• Just because we are talking about fluency, it does not mean that accuracy cannot be present. Accuracy is a focus on issues of appropriacy and other formal factors.
• Overuse of accuracy monitoring can cripple language development, making the students lose confidence through the teacher’s over correction.
• Any language activity that involves the learners not working like native speakers cannot be called a fluency activity.
  • The “quality” of the language is irrelevant.
  • Because:
    • work that focuses on language alone = accuracy work
    • and work that focuses on the language of the native speaker = fluency work.

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