Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (25 page)

Along the way

Get your students to underline new words as they read but without necessarily stopping to check the meaning. They need to read with relative fluency and get an overview of the text. Apart from providing definitions yourself, see if students can help each other. Pooling knowledge is great for keeping everyone involved and interested.

Don’t encourage explanations in the students’ mother tongue (unless you’re totally fluent). They may be barking up the wrong tree.

If possible, make dictionaries available after the initial reading so that students can manage their own learning. Most schools have class sets of learners’ dictionaries (English to English ones, which have the key word and definition in English so that students don’t use their mother tongue during the lesson) but you can get the students to bring their own.

If students use a dictionary to translate, it’s still important that you check their understanding. Ask open questions using
what, why, how, when
so that they can express their opinions and prove that they understand.

Try another route

Context is the biggest indicator of meaning. You can start the investigation by asking students which part of speech the unknown word is – for example, is it a noun, a verb or an adjective?

Then again, perhaps the new word looks familiar somehow. Maybe it’s part of a family of words (love, lovable, unloving, lover, for example). Or is it similar to a word in the students’ own language?

English words are mainly derived from Latin and German so a large number of students whose native tongues derive from those languages are prepared to take a stab at the meaning.

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And of course, loads of foreign words have been pasted into English and vice versa, so it never hurts for the students to have a go.

Working on Skills Associated with

Reading

Reading is rather a broad area. Does the fact that students are reading automatically mean that they’re improving? Not always. You can adopt various sub-skills as aims of reading lessons to focus the minds of your students and yourself more keenly and mark the difference between efficient and inefficient readers.

Including reading-related skills

Those students who haven’t mastered the following sub-skills from reading in their mother tongue benefit a great deal by developing in these areas:

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Working out the meaning of new words from the context.

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Recognising high frequency words.

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Working out what the purpose of the text is (to entertain, inform and so on).

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Skimming (see ‘Getting the gist’ earlier in the chapter).

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Scanning (see ‘Getting down to the nitty-gritty’ earlier in the chapter).

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Summarising and taking notes.

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Learning how texts are organised.

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Identifying grammar in context.

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Reading between the lines.

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Identifying key and minor points.

Doing more than reading

Reading aloud is just one way to use a text. Other ways are for students to answer comprehension questions, extend the dialogue themselves or fill in deliberately placed gaps, even at beginner level.

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Ideas for reading lessons

Some authentic pieces of writing you can use in

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Tourist information:
Collect or download

the classroom include:

leaflets on various tourist attractions in an

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English-speaking country. Find out what

Classified ads:
Students can discuss things

students already know about these places

they’d like to sell or buy – a bike or a piece of

or whether they’ve visited them. Ask stu-

furniture, for example. First, talk about ways

dents to write questions they’d like to ask

of buying and selling unwanted items. Then,

a tour guide and then have them read the

use a page full of classified ads to practise

leaflets to see whether their questions

scanning for particular purchases. Give the

have been answered. They can read differ-

students a budget and certain specifica-

ent leaflets and pool their answers. They

tions to match the ads with. Finally, as a

can write their own tourist information to

follow on, students can write their ads and

follow up.

make a notice board in class. Lonely hearts

columns are great fun.

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Film blurbs:
Examine the
blurb
(the informa-

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tion on the back cover) of a DVD. Skim by

Problem pages:
Tell students about a prob-

looking at the length of the film, the actors

lem you have and ask for some advice. Find

and director but scan by reading about the

out if they know what an agony aunt is and

plot. Find out whether students would be

if they’re common in their own country.

likely to watch the film and ask why. A fol-

Following that, read letters from a problem

low-up listening lesson can involve watch-

page and predict what the advice will be.

ing a clip or two.

Read the professional advice on the page

and get students’ opinions on it. Role-play

Notice that in each reading source, you can do

talking about various problems and giving

a follow-up activity that involves a different skill

advice.

(not reading).

Before long, students can start performing short dialogues from a script using the phrases from a recent lesson. The following is an extract from a beginners’

text. Ask the class to tell you what people say when they meet and put their ideas on the board. Students can then compare their suggestions with the text.

En: Hello! I’m a new student and my name’s En. What’s your name?

Alejandro: I’m Alejandro and I’m from Venezuela. Pleased to meet you En!

Are you from Malaysia?

En: No, I’m not from Malaysia. I’m Chinese.

Alejandro: Oh, you’re Chinese! Sorry!

Fabio:

En:

Alejandro:

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The text is incomplete so that the students can extend the dialogue themselves.

Comprehension questions for this text may include:

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Where does Alejandro think En is from? Is he right?

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Do En and Alejandro speak the same language?

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Is En a teacher?

Notice that good comprehension questions prove that students have got the sense of the text.

Students can now work in pairs to extend the dialogue by completing Fabio’s words and the response given by the En and Alejandro. The class then compares its results.

If you intend the students to read aloud and role-play, it’s best if you and a strong student perform the dialogue in front of the class first so that everyone can hear it. Lower-level students will enjoy practising short dialogues in pairs or small groups, swapping roles each time.

Reading Case Study

I prepared this lesson to help a class with their reading skills. It’s very easy to update and personalise, so do try it.

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Class Profile:
10 adult Italian students in Italy. 90-minute evening class.

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Level:
Intermediate.

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Materials:
TV schedule for one evening in English. Extra board pens.

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Problems:
Pronunciation errors (pronouncing each letter). Drilling needed as students are daunted by the idea of reading long texts in English; focus on scanning.

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Lesson aims:
To practise scanning in a reading text; to revise and increase vocabulary connected with TV programmes.

The sections of the lesson proceed as follows:

1. Warm-up (6 minutes)
: Show pictures of characters from famous TV

shows, made in English-speaking countries, shown around the world (The Simpsons, Friends, and so on). When students recognise one or two, divide the class into teams and hold a quiz to find out how many characters they can identify.

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2. Pre-reading task (15 minutes)
: Ask each student to find ten words associated with TV shows from their notes or general knowledge and then ask them to write the vocabulary on the board, trying not to duplicate any of the words.

Have extra board markers ready for this.

Have the whole class examine the board and identify any words they’re unfamiliar with. As the words came from the students themselves, if any problems arise they can ask each other for explanations.

Get suggestions from the class on how to organise the words into categories. Make sure that the students are able to pronounce the words by drilling them thoroughly. You can also indicate which part of speech (noun, verb, preposition and so on) each word is.

Add any necessary words that haven’t come up but that you want to pre-teach.

Figure 10-1 shows one category on the board.

TV Vocabulary

TV People

e

actor/ækt /, (n)

cast/ka:st/, (collective noun for actors) ‘a star-studded cast of actors’

e

e

presenter/pr ‘zent /(n), ‘John smith is the presenter of that political programme and he is good at explaining the election’

a

e

contestant/k n'test nt/(n), a person who takes part in a quiz/game show and
Figure 10-1:
tries to win

Sample

e

e

vocabulary host/h

st/(male) (n+v), hostess/h

'stes/(female) (n) a person who presents

words. a show where other people are guests. ‘Jonathan Ross is the host of the chat show and his guest is Clint Eastwood’.

When the students have built up the vocabulary and copied it into their notebooks, give each one a copy of the TV schedule.

3. Skim (8 minutes)
: Ask the students to look at the text quickly on their own and answer three questions. Make sure that the students are aware of the time limit though (2 minutes perhaps), so they don’t get sidetracked.

• How many TV channels are there?

• Does each channel broadcast 24 hours a day? If not, when are they off air?

• Does each channel broadcast the news? How often?

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Put the students in pairs to compare their answers and then have a short feedback session with the class.

4. Scan (30 minutes)
: Now have the class to look at the text in more detail.

Have them find programmes that match the interests and routines of particular classmates: ‘Is there any football on TV after 9 p.m. for Giovanna?’
This is a nice way to personalise the activity and it also encourages the class to make up their own questions.

If the students attach no comment to a particular programme, small groups can discuss what kind of show it may be, based on the title and time of broadcast: ‘Property ladder is on once a week at 7 p.m. and lasts for 50 minutes. The name of the presenter is Sarah Beeny. What kind of programme do you think it is? Why?’

Other scan questions you can use may be:

• When can I watch a modern film that’s suitable for children?

• Which channel is best for music lovers?

• Are the soap operas shown at the same? Which ones do you think are the most popular? Explain.

• Name someone who is:

A chat show host

A

newsreader

A cartoon character

ATV

chef

Comparing answers in pairs or small groups is useful for students.

Have a class feedback session afterwards to check the answers and correct any vocabulary and grammar errors you’ve noted.

5. Follow-up (15 minutes)
: Some of the programmes on the TV schedule are also shown in Italy. Have a class discussion on how culture affects the way programmes are made and presented in Italy.

Ask whether there should be more or fewer foreign programmes on local television. Have students form two lines, each person facing a partner.

The purpose is to role-play one side of an argument. So, in this case the students in line A argue the case for more foreign TV shows, and the students in line B argue for fewer.

After two or three minutes the students in line B can all move along to form new partnerships in the line. Then they can argue again with new points to consider.

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6. Homework (5 minutes)
: Students can write an essay in four paragraphs on the same argument. Show students how to organise the text – introduction, the argument for more foreign shows, the argument for fewer and a conclusion.

7. Cooler (6 minutes more or less):
Have the students play hangman using the names of international celebrities. Make sure that they pronounce all the letters correctly or they lose points.

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Chapter 11

Write or Wrong? Teaching

Writing Lessons

In This Chapter

▶ Getting started

▶ Presenting a lesson

▶ Going formal or informal

▶ Offering a writing lesson

It is rather daunting to produce written work in a foreign language, but with some guidance your students can go from good sentences, to paragraphs, to texts with due attention to style and formality.

You never know just when your students may have to fall back on written communication so try to incorporate writing into your course, even if it’s just a little.In this chapter, I show you how to focus a lesson on writing skills.