UNIVERSITY OF EL SALVADOR.

SCHOOL OF SCIENCES AND ARTS

FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT

PROFESORADO EN IDIOMA INGLES PARA TERCER CICLO Y EDUCACION MEDIA.

DIDATIC ENGLISH II(CICLO II-2008)

“BOOKLET ON THE LANGUAGE SKILLS”

FACILITATOR: ANA MARIA GLOBER DE ALVARADO

STUDENT:SANTIAGO MARGARITO QUINTEROS

MAIN CAMPUS, SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2008

INTRODUCTION.

Motivating students to use acquired target language skills to listen, speak, read, and

write is key to foreign language instruction.  With these goals in mind, it is helpful to

apply everyday activities within the classroom setting to inspire and instruct students. 

Utilizing the tools of creativity, humor, friendly competition, and tie-in to familiar

knowledge of everyday items (i.e. songs, school supplies, body parts, etc.), teachers can

create an energized atmosphere conducive to language acquisition and retention..  These

activities can be easily adapted to fit a wide array of academic settings from elementary

students through adult language learners.

The following research has been developed taking into account the four macro skills,

The listening, spesking, reading and writing skill, which are presented with a brief

defintion about each of them. Also in each of them it can find the most important

features, as well as its use and activities in order to improve each of them. In each of

them, there are around of five activities, which can be develop in lesson or a specific

class for promoting the achieve of the four main macro skills before mentioned, these

activities can help the students to enjoy a lesson at the same time that they learning to

develop language skills. Each activity is detailed, designed and oriented to develop

linguistic skills in the students. The research is focus in ludic activities related with the

learnig the second language taking into account students of diferent levels of learnig as

for instance, students of basic and high school education, who recently are facing

serious problems of learning a secong language, in our society the english language.

Therefore these ludic activities can help to change the way of teach and learning into a

new manner of learn in a funny way

At the end of the booklet it presented the diferent resources which have been essentials

for achieving this work.

Listening Skills

DEFINITION: Listening comprehension is the receptive skill in the oral mode. When

we speak of listening what we really mean is listening and understanding what we hear.

In our first language, we have all the skills and background knowledge we need to

understand what we hear, so we probably aren't even aware of how complex a process it

is. Here we will briefly describe some of what is involved in learning to understand

what we hear in a second language.

Listening Situations

There are two kinds of listening situations in which we find ourselves:

• interactive, and

• non-interactive.

Interactive listening situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in

which we are alternately listening and speaking, and in which we have a chance to ask

for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from our conversation partner. Some non-

interactive listening situations are listening to the radio, TV, films, lectures, or sermons.

In such situations we usually don't have the opportunity to ask for clarification, slower

speech or repetition.

Micro-skills

Richards (1983, cited in Omaggio, 1986, p. 126) proposes that the following are the

micro-skills involved in understanding what someone says to us. The listener has to:

• retain chunks of language in short-term memory

• discriminate among the distinctive sounds in the new language

• recognize stress and rhythm patterns, tone patterns, intonational contours.

• recognize reduced forms of words

• distinguish word boundaries

• recognize typical word-order patterns

• recognize vocabulary

• detect key words, such as those identifying topics and ideas

• guess meaning from context

• recognize grammatical word classes

• recognize basic syntactic patterns

• recognize cohesive devices

• detect sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, object, prepositions, and the

like

WHAT IS ACTIVE LISTENING?

Listening and hearing are not the same. Hearing is the first stage of listening. Hearing

occurs when your ears pick up sound waves which are then transported to your brain.

This stage is your sense of hearing.

Listening is a communication process and, to be successful, is an active process. In

other words, you must be an active participant in this communication process. In active

listening, meaning and evaluation of a message must take place before a listener can

respond to a speaker. Therefore, the listener is actively working while the speaker is

talking.

How can this happen? It is simple. Our thought speed is much faster than our speech

speed. But be careful! Don't allow the thought speed to race into daydreaming. This

habit will defeat your attempt to become an active listener.

Why You Need Good Listening Skills

Good listening skills make workers more productive. The ability to listen carefully will

allow you to:

• better understand assignments and what is expected of you;

• build rapport with co-workers, bosses, and clients;

• show support;

• work better in a team-based environment;

• resolve problems with customers, co-workers, and bosses;

• answer questions; and

• find underlying meanings in what others say.

How to Listen Well

The following tips will help you listen well. Doing these things will also demonstrate to

the speaker that you are paying attention. While you may in fact be able to listen while

looking down at the floor, doing so may imply that you are not.

• maintain eye contact;

• don't interrupt the speaker;

• sit still;

• nod your head;

• lean toward the speaker;

• repeat instructions and ask appropriate questions when the speaker has finished.

A good listener knows that being attentive to what the speaker doesn't say is as

important as being attentive to what he does say. Look for non-verbal cues such as

facial expressions and posture to get the full gist of what the speaker is telling you.

Barriers to Listening

Beware of the following things that may get in the way of listening.

• bias or prejudice;

• language differences or accents;

• noise;

• worry, fear, or anger; and

• lack of attention span.

Listening Starts Early

If you have children you know what it's like to feel like you're talking to a wall. Kids

have an uncanny ability to appear to be listening to you while actually paying no

attention at all. While this is something that may pass with age it is important to help

children develop good listening skills early. They will do better in school and you will

keep your sanity. As the SCANS report points out, good listening skills will prepare

children to eventually succeed in the workforce.

• When you tell your child to do something, ask him to repeat your instructions;

• Teach your child to maintain eye contact when talking to or listening to

someone;

• Read out loud to your child and then engage her in a conversation about what

you have read; and

• Engage your child in age-appropriate activities that promote good listening

skills.

•

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Activities

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• All rights reserved.

Speaking skill

DEFINITION: Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. It, like the other skills,

is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing

words.

Listening Situations

There are three kinds of speaking situations in which we find ourselves:

• interactive,

• partially interactive, and

• non-interactive.

Interactive speaking situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in

which we are alternately listening and speaking, and in which we have a chance to ask

for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from our conversation partner. Some

speaking situations are partially interactive, such as when giving a speech to a live

audience, where the convention is that the audience does not interrupt the speech. The

speaker nevertheless can see the audience and judge from the expressions on their faces

and body language whether or not he or she is being understood.

Some few speaking situations may be totally non-interactive, such as when recording a

speech for a radio broadcast .

Micro-skills

Here are some of the micro-skills involved in speaking. The speaker has to:

• pronounce the distinctive sounds of a language clearly enough so that people can

distinguish them. This includes making tonal distinctions.

• use stress and rhythmic patterns, and intonation patterns of the language clearly

enough so that people can understand what is said.

• use the correct forms of words. This may mean, for example, changes in the

tense, case, or gender.

• put words together in correct word order.

• use vocabulary appropriately.

• use the register or language variety that is appropriate to the situation and the

relationship to the conversation partner.

• make clear to the listener the main sentence constituents, such as subject, verb,

object, by whatever means the language uses.

• make the main ideas stand out from supporting ideas or information.

• make the discourse hang together so that people can follow what you are saying.

Information Gap Activities

• Filling the gaps in a schedule or timetable: Partner A holds an airline timetable

with some of the arrival and departure times missing. Partner B has the same timetable

but with different blank spaces. The two partners are not permitted to see each other's

timetables and must fill in the blanks by asking each other appropriate questions. The

features of language that are practiced would include questions beginning with "when"

or "at what time." Answers would be limited mostly to time expressions like "at 8:15"

or "at ten in the evening."

• Completing the picture: The two partners have similar pictures, each with

different missing details, and they cooperate to find all the missing details. In another

variation, no items are missing, but similar items differ in appearance. For example, in

one picture, a man walking along the street may be wearing an overcoat, while in the

other the man is wearing a jacket. The features of grammar and vocabulary that are

practiced are determined by the content of the pictures and the items that are missing or

different. Differences in the activities depicted lead to practice of different verbs.

Differences in number, size, and shape lead to adjective practice. Differing locations

would probably be described with prepositional phrases.

These activities may be set up so that the partners must practice more than just

grammatical and lexical features. For example, the timetable activity gains a social

dimension when one partner assumes the role of a student trying to make an

appointment with a partner who takes the role of a professor. Each partner has pages

from an appointment book in which certain dates and times are already filled in and

other times are still available for an appointment. Of course, the open times don't match

exactly, so there must be some polite negotiation to arrive at a mutually convenient time

for a meeting or a conference.

Reading skill.

Reading skill

DEFINITION:

Reading is the receptive skill in the written mode. But for many years, three basic

definitions of reading have driven literacy programs in the United States (Foertsch,

1998). According to the first definition, learning to read means learning to pronounce

words. According to the second definition, learning to read means learning to identify

words and get their meaning. According to the third definition, learning to read means

learning to bring meaning to a text in order to get meaning from it.

Although these definitions reflect long-standing views of reading, current literacy

research supports a more comprehensive definition of reading. This new definition

includes all of the above definitions and places learning skills in the context of authentic

reading and writing activities. It recognizes the importance of skill instruction as one

piece of the reading process (Allington & Cunningham, 1996; International Reading

Association & National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1998;

Maryland State Department of Education, n.d.; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). It also

supports balanced reading instruction for all students (Allington & Cunningham, 1996;

Au, 1993; Foertsch, 1998; International Reading Association & National Association

for the Education of Young Children, 1998; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).

Copyright © North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. All rights reserved.

Disclaimer and copyright information.

Skills required for proficient reading

According to the National Reading Panel, the ability to read requires proficiency in a

number of language domains: phonemic awareness, phonics (sound-symbol

correspondence), fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension.[2]

• Phonemic awareness: The ability to distinguish and manipulate the individual

sounds of language. The broader term, phonological awareness, also includes rhymes,

syllables, and onsets and rimes.

• Phonics: Method that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound correspondences

and their use in reading and spelling. This helps beginning readers understand how

letters are linked to sounds (phonemes), patterns of letter-sound correspondences and

spelling in English, and how to apply this knowledge when they read.

• Fluency: The ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and vocal expression.

The ability to read fluently is one of several critical factors necessary for reading

comprehension. If a reader is not fluent, it may be difficult to remember what has been

read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to his or her background knowledge.

This accuracy and automaticity of reading serves as a bridge between decoding and

comprehension.[3]

• Vocabulary: A critical aspect of reading comprehension is vocabulary

development. When a reader encounters an unfamiliar word in print and decodes it to

derive its spoken pronunciation, the reader understands the word if it is in the reader's

spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must derive the meaning of the word using

another strategy, such as context.

• Reading Comprehension :The NRP describes comprehension as a complex

cognitive process in which a reader intentionally and interactively engages with the text.

Reading comprehension is heavily dependent on skilled word recognition and decoding,

oral reading fluency, a well-developed vocabulary and active engagement with the text.

[edit] Chall's Stages of Reading Development

Jeanne Chall's model of the stages of reading acquisition is well known.(Resnick, pg 38)

In Chall's model, each stage builds on skills mastered in earlier stages; lack of mastery

at any level can halt the progress beyond that level.

• Stage 0. Prereading: The learner gains familiarity with the language and its

sounds. A person in this stage becomes aware of sound similarities between words,

learns to predict the next part in a familiar story, and may start to recognize a few

familiar written words. Chall's Stage 0 is considered comparable to what is often called

"reading readiness." Typically developing readers achieve this stage about the age of 6.

• Stage 1. Initial reading stage, or decoding stage: The learner becomes aware of

the relationship between sounds and letters and begins applying the knowledge to text.

This demonstrates the reader has achieved understanding of the critical concept of the

alphabetic principle and is learning sound-symbol correspondences, the alphabetic code.

[4] Typically developing readers usually reach this stage by the age of 6 or 7.

• Stage 2. Confirmation: This stage involves confirming the knowledge acquired

in the previous two stages and gaining fluency in those skills. Decoding skills continue

to improve, and they begin to develop speed in addition to accuracy in word

recognition. At this point, the reader should be able to give attention both to meaning

and to the print, using them interactively to build their skills and fluency. This stage is

critical for the beginning reader. If the developing reader stops making progress during

this stage, the individual remains, in Chall's words, "glued to the print." Typically

developing readers usually reach this stage around the age of 8.

• Stage 3. Reading to learn: At this stage, the motivation for reading changes. The

reader has enough reading skill to begin to read text in order to gain information.

Readers' vocabulary development accelerates at this point resulting from increased

exposure to the written word. Typically developing children usually achieve this stage

in 4th grade, around the age of 9.

• Stage 4. Multiple viewpoints: The reader at this stage begins to be able to

analyze what they read, understand different points of view, and react critically to what

they read. Typical readers are developing this skill set during the high school years,

around ages 14 to 19.

• Stage 5. Construction and judgement: At this stage, readers have learned to read

selectively and form their own opinions about what they read; they construct their

knowledge from that of others. This highest level of reading development is not usually

reached until college age, or later, and may in fact be achieved only by those who have

an intellectual inclination.

Activities.

<http://www.extensivereading.net/>

3- Penguins (beginners)

Penguins are unusual birds. They can't fly. They have flippers. They swim under water.

Here are some of the things we can see penguins do:

• playing on the beach

• jumping in and out of the water.

• chasing other penguins,

• sliding across the ice on their stomachs.

• Swimming very fast (they are great swimmers!)

• 'flying' though the water. They travel very fast.

Penguin Families

Penguins live together in groups. All the adult penguins help look after the all baby

penguins.

Penguins live in cold places. They have thick layers of fat and feathers. This helps to

keep their bodies warm.

Penguins love cold weather. In summer they get very hot. They keep cool by holding

their wings away from their bodies.

1.

Which of these is not true about penguins?

Penguins have flippers

Penguins can fly

Penguins can swim under water

Penguins live in cold places.

2. Which of these sentences is not true ?

Penguins live in Australia

Penguins live in New Zealand

Penguins live in Canada

Penguins live in South America

3. Which of the following is not true?

Penguins live together in groups

Penguins have flippers

Young penguins stay with their parents

Penguins swim under water

4. Which of these is not a type of penguin?

Spaghetti

Macaroni

Adelie

Emperor

5. Which is the biggest penguin?

Peruvian

Macaroni

Adelie

Emperor

6. Which is the smallest Antarctic penguin?

Peruvian

Adelie

King

Yellow-eyed

<http://www.eslreading.org>

Writing skill

DEFINITION

Writing is the productive skill in the written mode. It, too, is more complicated than it

seems at first, and often seems to be the hardest of the skills, even for native speakers of

a language, since it involves not just a graphic representation of speech, but the

development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way.

Micro-skills

Here are some of the micro-skills involved in writing. The writer needs to:

• use the orthography correctly, including the script, and spelling and punctuation

conventions.

• use the correct forms of words. This may mean using forms that express the right

tense, or case or gender.

• put words together in correct word order.

• use vocabulary correctly.

• use the style appropriate to the genre and audience.

• make the main sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, and object, clear to

the reader.

• make the main ideas distinct from supporting ideas or information.

• make the text coherent, so that other people can follow the development of the

ideas.

• judge how much background knowledge the audience has on the subject and

make clear what it is assumed they don't know.

Activities