Chapter1

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING –

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The present course-book is aimed at introducing students of English to the principles,

methods and procedures regulating the domain of English language teaching

methodology.Commonly designated by various acronymic names such as ELT (English

Language Teaching, TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), TESL (Teaching

English as a Second Language) or TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other

Languages), the domain is concerned with the theory and practice of teaching English to non-

native speakers. Addressing students at the stage of initial ELT teacher-training, this course

of lectures proposes to acquaint students with the current methods and procedures which

represent the stock in trade of contemporary language teaching.

Learning foreign languages is a long-standing human endeavour and has been a

cornerstone of any system of education throughout history. Starting from the early Middle-

Ages, foreign language study was mainly concerned with offering a classical education, with

an emphasis on Greek and Latin. Later on, knowledge of modern languages came to be

regarded as equally important for an accomplished education. So, in the course of time, any

new concept or system of education has recognised the importance of foreign language

learning and has contributed to the development of a time-honoured tradition in the pedagogy

of language learning and teaching. This tradition of language pedagogy has grown and often

changed with the times, according to new trends or systems of thought in the study of

linguistics, language learning psychology and pedagogy.

The major teaching approaches to language teaching and learning have always been

based on certain assumptions about language (linguistic theory) and concepts about ways of

learning a language (psycho-linguistics and pedagogy). Nowadays, the specific domain of

linguistics concerned with language learning and teaching is circumscribed to Applied

Linguistics or Second Language Acquisition (also known as SLA), which underlie most of

the contemporary teaching approaches and methodologies. The teaching approaches and

methodspresented below closely illustrate the changes and evolutions in linguistic and

pedagogical assumptions about language learning.

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1. GRAMMAR TRANSLATION

This is the oldest method used in language teaching. It was largely used for the study of both

classical and modern languages ever since the Middle-Ages. It remained popular throughout

the 19th and early 20th century, being regarded as a standard method until as late as the 1940s.

Theoretical approach: The assumption about language underlying the grammar translation

method was that language was a finite body/system of knowledge to be learnt.

Aims: The main goal informing this concept of language learning was gaining a theoretical

knowledge of a finite linguistic system, which requited a certain mental discipline and helped

develop the intellect.

Method: Teaching and learning dealt primarily with the written form of the language, with a

focus on mastering the grammatical and lexical system. Learning activities were based on

prescriptive grammar, which emphasised rote learning, i.e. the memorisation of grammar

rules and word lists, as well as the analysis of parts of speech and syntactical patterns.

Procedures: Written grammar practice consisted in translation exercises from and into the

target language. Classroom procedure was accuracy-oriented, requiring the learning and

application of rules. The teaching was of a deductive kind, based on prescribing rules to be

followed in order to produce grammatically accurate sentences or texts. The main procedure

was the study and translation of classical texts or outlandish sentences, with reading and

translation as the central linguistic skills. The target language was not used in class

interaction. As the mother tongue was the customary medium of instruction, neither the

teacher nor the students were supposed to speak the language studied. The teaching aims of

the grammar translation method concerned the ability to read literature and gain knowledge

of the culture of the target language via literary texts and to translate texts through the

accurate application of rules. Teaching materials consisted in classical literary texts.

Teacher/learner roles and interaction: The teacher hasa dominant role in the classroom as

the sole knower and source of knowledge, the model to imitate and controller of the class,

while students only relate their learning to the teacher and the text.

2. THE AUDIO-LINGUAL APPROACH/AUDIO-LINGUALISM

Regarded as an informed, modern-day alternative to the classical methods of grammar

translation, the audio-lingual approach was derived from the theoretical tenets of

behaviourism, a psychological trend which largely influenced language pedagogy starting

with the 1950s.

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Theoretical approach:Behaviourists held that linguistic behaviour was based on automatic

speech habitsacquired through a process involving three interconnected steps: Stimulus ->

Response -> Reinforcement. The formation of such linguistic automatisms was the result of

systematic exposure to this process of conditioning reflexes of correct language use. The

approach was largely influenced by the studies in behaviourist psychology of F. B. Skinner.

Aims: The approach aimed at establishing, developing and reinforcing the set of speech

habits necessary for accurate oral expression. Practice focused on spoken language for actual

use.

Method: The main assumption underlying this method is that speech habits can be

conditioned by means of sustained oral drilling consisting of conversational or structural

pattern drills. The emphasis on correct form entailed the use of recorded materials with

structural and syntactical patterns of ‘isolated’, de-contextualised form and meaning, in

which irregularities tended to be ignored.

Procedures: Teaching and learning was organised according to a strict sequence of skill

training – listening -> speaking -> reading -> writing and based on controlled drill-work.

Language lab classes consisted of listening to and repeating after recorded dialogues, used

both for structural presentation and drilling. The practice of structural patterns was graded so

as toprogressively follow a structure-based syllabus. Errors were not regarded as part of

learning, so they were to be avoided through immediate correction and through repetitive

pattern drilling, which often led to over-learning. In contrast with the grammar translation

method, there is almost exclusive emphasis on the spoken language and, obviously, on

phonetic practice for correct pronunciation. The concern for accurate structural patterning

also precluded a preoccupation with vocabulary building, which tended to remain limited.

Inductiveteaching involved learning by doing, based on the use of the target language. The

teaching materials are simple dialogue drills on written support or on tape recordings.

Teacher/learner roles and interaction: Despite the limitation of teacher talking time (TTT)

via intensive learner drilling, the teacher still occupies a centre-stage position in his/her role

as knower and fountain of all knowledge. Studentsworked exclusively with the

teacher,therefore they dependon the teacher to organise their learning, in which their role

remains limited. The approach, though highly popular for a while, declined in popularity

toward the end of the 60s, when its validity began to be questions by such linguists as Noam

Chomsky.

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3. THE COGNITIVE CODE APPROACH

The cognitive approach developed round Chomsky’s theory of ‘language universals’ and

their role in first language acquisition. Chomsky contradicts the tenets of behaviourism that

linguistic abilities are no more than learnt habits, arguing that people often produce language

strings they have never heard before.

Theoretical approach: His theory upholds the idea that our production of language is rule-

governed and creative at the same time, being based on our application of a grammatical code

(deep structure) to generate an infinite number of sentences (surface structure). This rule-

based creativity is rooted in the knowledge of a limited system of rules, a kind of linguistic

matrix or language universals which, once understood, enable us to produce original

sentences.

Aims: Learning means the conscious acquisition of language as a coherent and meaningful

system. The students should be aware of these aims and work actively towards an

understanding and control of the structure of the language.

Method: Language learning is seen as a cognitive process, the emphasis is on studying the

rules governing the creation of meaning. On the basis or their innate ability to learn

languages, learners should be engaged in exploring language and forming hypotheses about

its functioning. The cognition of the system constitutes a learner’s linguistic competence. In

their performance or productive application of the rules, students are likely to make errors,

which are regarded as fundamental to their adjustments of their internalisation of the rule

system.

Procedure: Classroom practice is centred on comprehension activities and the study of

structural meaning. Grammar is taught both deductively and inductively, with an emphasis on

guided discovery techniques, which engage students in the formulation and statement of

rules. Errors are regarded as inevitable and instrumental in the development of an internal

grammar which students can rely on for generating meaning through structure. Practice

activities presuppose a much wider use of a variety of materials, meant to keep students

mentally engaged in working with the target language.

Teacher/learner roles and interaction: While the teacher still holds a prominent role as a

guide to knowledge, students are taught to be responsible for their own learning and to

monitor their cognitive process. Given the more liberal attitude towards learner errors, the

teacher encourages peer correction and interaction during language activities.

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4. THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

The communicative approach or communicative language teaching (CLT) gained prominence

in the 70s and early 80s, as language theorists started questioning the validity of Chomsky’s

model of linguistic competence and focus on structure study and practice.

Theoretical approach: Applied linguists such as Henry Widdowson drew attention to the

limitations of structure-focused syllabi and de-contextualised structure practice, advocating

the need for adapting language teaching to communicational situations and for developing

communicative abilities and skills. The American linguist Del Hymesdeveloped the concept

of communicative competence as the main aim of language teaching. Language learning is

supposed to mean not only the mastery of the grammatical, lexical and phonological system,

but also the learning of social rules governing contextualised communication. In other words,

language should be appropriate to the social context. The rules of appropriacy are also

conjoined with rules of social interaction. The approach focuses on activities concerned with

language as discourse, language in action rather thanas isolated specimens.

Aims: The rationale behind communicative language teaching is modifying classroom

procedures so as to promote realistic and socially contextualised communication rather than

artificial language practice. Developing communicative competence is bound up with

creating realistic communicative contexts and developing strategies of communication

through student-student interaction.

Method: The methodological framework CLT relates to the theory of second language

acquisition advanced by Stephen Krashen, who argues that students acquire language when

they focus on meaning rather than on form. What distinguishes acquisition from learning is

the notion that learners can always encounter and absorb new language in real

communicative contexts. The underlying principle is the balance between the study of

language areas (grammar and vocabulary) and skills development, as well as the practice of

language functions.

Procedures: As the focus is on communicative functions in real life-interaction, learning is

organised on the basis of notional/functional syllabusrather than structure-based programmes.

Lessons are sequenced not in terms of grammatical content but rather on topic based areas of

communication and self-expression. The teaching has a wider scope, which envisages the

students’ needs, regarded as all-important. Language learning is part of the wider framework

of language education, meant to train students in learning strategies and thus encourage

learner autonomy and independence.

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Language and skills practice is based on the use of authentic materials (samples of

real discourse and different reading/listening text types)and authentic tasks (replicating real

communication situations). In communicative teaching, there is a greater emphasis on

fluency-building activities and skills practice relevant to the students’ needs and concern.

During fluency-oriented activities, errors are regarded as less important, since the focus is on

communicative efficiency. Errors are used to gauge the need for remedial work or re-

teaching. The use of interactive communicative activities is aimed at creating and developing

a clear sense of context and communicative purpose, which leads to informed choices about

relevant content and appropriate language (structure and lexis). The key distinctive principles

and features of communicative teaching are the following:

Task-based learning: The simulation of communicative contexts is realised by

means of tasks which require students to exchange information or opinions and

interact in a realistic way. In order to complete their task with the information they

need, the students have to ask and answer questions, to speak and listen to each other.

In other words, the task provides them with a purpose for communication.

Communicative tasks: So as to promote meaningful communication, the tasks have

to replicate real-life contexts of purposeful communication, with a focus on language

functions: enquiring, inviting, refusing, giving directions, asking for and giving

personal information, etc. These contexts can be simulated through such interactive

activities as information gap (students have to exchange information so as to carry

out a common task), role-play,interviews,problem-solving, priority ranking,

discussion and debates, surveys, games.

Task inter-dependency: The underlying principle of communicative activities such

as info-gap is that students will be unable to complete the task without sharing

information between themselves, which means they depend on each other and have to

cooperate on the task.

Pair-work and group-work: Organising communicative tasks requires a different

kind of class organisation, layout and seating arrangements. Most communicative

tasks require students to work in pairs or small groups of three or four, which creates

the proper conditions for working together on a task.

Collaborative learning: Task-based learning creates the premises for cooperation

among students, who have to work together to achieve a certain outcome. This allows

for working and learning collaboratively, which helps promote a positive, purposeful

and productive class atmosphere and the proper conditions for learning to take place.

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Communicative learning has also inspired the affective-humanistic approach, which

attaches great importance to a motivating and friendly class atmosphere and to

building a good rapport between teacher and students.

Teacher/learner roles and interaction: Incontrast with theapproacheswhich preceded it,

communicative language teachingradically redefines and changes the roles of both teacher

and students. To begin with the traditional teacher-centredclassroom is replaced by a learner-

centred classroom, with the students occupying the centre-stage of classroom activity and

acting not as passive recipients, but as active agents fully engaged in their own learning. In

this context, the teacher relinquishes the age-old dominant position as sole source of language

and class controller, assuming more flexible and motivational roles as class

organiser/instigator of language activity/motivator/informant to the learners/provider

of resources/guide for the students’ own learning. As for the students, they are encouraged

to take responsibility for their own learning, to study independently and act as autonomous

learners, less dependent on the teacher in organising their learning.

***

The present course-book in ELT methodology is draws largely upon the communicative

approach, being focused on illustrating the principles and general methodology underlying

communicative teaching and language learning practice. Of course, as the methodologist

Phillip Prowse contends, one of the most widespread myths in the field of language teaching

and learning is the myth of the ideal methodology. He warns that no methodology should be

adopted uncritically, as the teacher should constantly test and refine his/her methods in terms

of what works best in a particular educational culture, teaching situation and kind of learners

or learner needs. However, since communicative teaching comes closest to training the kind

of communicative competence and skills necessary in the contemporary context of

globalisation, this approach imposes itself as an informed choice. In an increasingly

globalised world of education and work, training our students for efficient, meaningful

communication and cross-cultural understandingconstitutes a goal worth pursuing.

Chapter 2

7

TEACHING GRAMMAR

INTRODUCTION

The importance of grammar in foreign language teaching and learning need hardly be argued

for. To begin with, grammar provides the only systematic framework for organizing the

teaching and learning of the language, since a knowledge of grammatical structures and rules

provides useful generalisations which enable learners to formulate and generate correct

sentences. It also represents the basis for syllabus and course design, as it helps teachers and

course-book writers to organize content and plan what structures to present at the various

stages of language learning. The ruling organizing principle should be that of structural

complexity, that is we should proceed from simple to more complex structures, progressing

according to the learners’ age and language level. As far as learners are concerned, grammar

rules are reliable milestones guiding their learning and providing them with a sense of

security.

Of course, in a balanced teaching approach, aimed at both linguistic competence and

proficiency – such as the communicative approach – grammar teaching only represents a

means to an end, that is an indispensable starting point, a foundation or groundwork to build

for language acquisition and skills practice, rather than an end in itself. That is why, while

granting grammar its proper place in our teaching, we should not overemphasize the

importance of grammar work and grammatical accuracy. Exclusive focus on accuracy has its

downside, too, as it may inhibit the students’ progress towards communicative fluency.

Overcorrection may affect the learners’ confidence in their performance and ability

for free communication and self-expression. In this case, the teacher runs the risk of ignoring

the student’s preferred style of learning. We should not forget that, in our mother tongue, we

learn to communicate effectively even if our grammar is not entirely accurate.

At the same time, devoting too much time to accuracy-based grammar exercises

entails an artificial limitation of the exposure to the language, which can only be monotonous

and thus de-motivating, as it deprives the learner of valuable stimulus to use the language in a

variety of contexts. If we overemphasise the primacy of rules, our students will be

psychologically ill-prepared to accommodate the inevitable exceptions to grammatical rules.

1. PRINCIPLES IN GRAMMAR TEACHING

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a) Planning and organization

In devising a grammar syllabus, the teacher or materials writer should order the structural

items to be taught in terms of the following principles and criteria:

Complexity of form

This criterion has already been enounced above and is based on the commonsensical idea that

with young learners or at beginner level, structural items are ordered according to their

degree of complexity. For instance, Simple Tenses are taught before Continuous/Progressive

Tense forms, or the Past Simple is presented before the Present Perfect, because they are

more complex in form.

Teachability

The question of teachability derives from the complexity of form criterion mentioned above,

but also refers to the complexity of meaning. Again, the problem in question relates to

adapting structural content to the learners’ age and level. Needless to say, simpler forms,

expressing basic or everyday meanings and functions are more easily understood – and thus

more teachable – than more complex structure, such as the Subjunctive.

Communicative usefulness

An important question related to the ordering structural items for teaching and learning

purposes should be: ‘Is the structure useful/necessary/indispensible for everyday

communication?’ The answer to this will tell us which structures should be given priority in

our grammar course planning.

Linear or cyclical framework

This criterion is related to the teaching of a structure in all its aspects (range of meanings or

functions), or to the teaching of structural synonymy, i.e. presenting all the structures with a

similar meaning. For example, there are several structures whose meaning and

communicative function is ‘making a suggestion’: Let’s + infinitive, Shall we + infinitive?,

How/What about + ing-form?, Why don’t we + infinitive? We could + verb. In a linear

framework, all these structures will be presented at the same time. Or, if we think of

structures with multiple meanings, such as various tenses, all the meanings will be given from

the beginning. A cyclical approach would mean that a particular structure or function is

revised cyclically and taught gradually, focusing on one meaning, form or function at a time.

Our approach is likely to depend on the learning context, age and level of students. However,

for the sake of clarity and effectiveness, the golden rule would be to teach one thing at a time.

b) Metalanguage

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Metalanguage is the specialised grammatical terminology used to define/describe language

structures. How much or how little metalanguage we use in the classroom depends on the

learners’ age and previous experience of grammar in L 1 or foreign language learning. It goes

without saying that with (very) young learners, using metalanguage is irrelevant and

counterproductive, while with mature, advanced students, metalanguage can be used as an aid

to organizing learning, to clarifying and distinguishing between grammatical categories,

meanings and functions. Even in the latter case, it should be used with moderation, as

overusing metalanguage and rules can distract attention from the meaningful practice of

language in use.

c) Staging

The main stages of a grammar lesson or sequence are: PRESENTATION – PRACTICE –

PRODUCTION. The PRESENTATION stage comprises activities aimed at

introducing/presenting the new structure. The PRACTICE stage includes accuracy-oriented,

teacher-controlled exercises, focused on the students’ correct usage of the new structure. The

PRODUCTION or FREE PRACTICE stage contains fluency-oriented, communicative

activities, such as pair-work or group-work tasks, in which students use the new structure for

free communication so as to accomplish the task or express their own ideas and opinions on a

given topic.

Reflection task:

At each stage consider

the Teacher’s role

the student’s role

control over language

error correction

the aims of each stage

d) Teaching strategy

Grammar teaching strategies relate to our approach to presenting/introducing a new structural

item or rule. According to how directly or indirectly we present the new grammar structure or

rule, presentations can be overt/explicit/deductive or covert/implicit/inductive.

e) Grammatical structure and communicative function

Grammatical structures are linguistic forms conveying a certain meaning, used to fulfil a

communicative function. A grammar syllabus can be based either on the teaching of

structural items proper or on communicative functions such as Suggesting, Inviting, Refusing,

etc. The aspects to be considered when teaching a structure are listed and defined below:

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Form: the actual words (written) or sounds (spoken) used to express something in language,

as opposed to meaning or use. Form is often synonymous with structure.

Meaning: The conventional or literal meaning of a particular form: for example, that past

tense form means past time. The purpose of traditional grammar books is to explain form and

meaning.

Usage: Refers to examples of the generally accepted way of using the language in context,

especially in order to show the differences between quasi-synonymous structures, which are

related in terms of meaning but are used in different ways and contexts.

Use: The way in which a speaker uses a particular language form to communicate on a

particular occasion. The use of a form may be described in terms of its function or

communicative purpose.

Function: The function of a structure is the communicative purpose of that structure on a

particular occasion – what the speaker is trying to do through language. For example, ‘Have

you read this book?’ is present perfect interrogative in form but the speaker may be using it to

make a suggestion, to suggest that the listener read the book – suggesting is the function of

the structure here. The use of a form can often be expressed in terms of functions.

Reflection task: Grammatical structure or function? What are the differences? Provide

examples. Should we teach both? Why?

f) Attitude to errors

Considering what we know about how language learning takes place, we should treat errors

as steps to learning or partial learning rather than frustrating indications of non-learning. In

this light, errors provide information about the learners’ progress and our teaching priorities,

as they signal areas that need re-teaching or remedial teaching. Students should be made

aware of the areas of difficulty in English grammar and frequently provided with

opportunities of self-correction, peer-correction and error correction exercises in general.

2. PRESENTATION STAGE

A good grammar presentation is supposed to introduce the new structure in a context which

clearly illustrates its meaning (and communicative function). Here is a checklist for effective,

memorable presentations:

Presentations

need to contextualize the new language in a situation

need to have visuals for maximum impact (blackboard drawings, realia (i.e. real

objects), pictures, actions/mime

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need to use language which is appropriate for the students’ age and level

need to make sure there is no new vocabulary, which can be distracting – if

necessary, we can pre-teach any new lexical items

need to be generative, i.e. able to generate many examples of the structure

need to be short – no longer than 5 minutes

As already stated above, grammar presentations can be overt/explicit/deductive or

covert/implicit/inductive. Other terms used for these two approaches are giving and

guiding. Giving describes the process whereby the meaning of a structure is ‘transmitted’ to

the students in an overt way, and they are relatively passive recipients of new content.

Guiding describes the process whereby students are involved in working out the meaning for

themselves or in deriving a rule from contextualised instances of the use of a particular

language item.

Deductive presentations first formulate the rule and then give the example. The

presentation starts from the form to the meaning and use of the structure. Such a presentation

would go as follows: the Present Perfect Continuous (have/has been + Present Participle) is

used to express an activity/state which starts in the past and last up to/beyond the moment of

speaking. E.g.: She has been baking cakes for two hours.

Inductive presentations introduce the structure in a context or situation which

clearly illustrates its meaning and function. The teacher uses guiding questions, prompting

students to comment on the meaning of the new structure and infer the rule by themselves.

Demonstration: picture of a boy waiting at the bus stop

Situation: This is Tom. Where is he? What is he doing? When did he arrive at the bus stop?

He arrived at the bus stop at 10.00. What time is it now? It’s 11.00.

At this point, the students are likely to have inferred the meaning of the structure (i.e. an

activity or state which starts in the past and lasts till the moment of speech). The form of the

target structure (i.e. the structure to be taught) is then presented by the teacher in both

spoken and written form in an example sentence, called MARKER SENTENCE (MS),

which normally comes at the end of the presentation.

MS: Tom has been waiting at the bus stop for an hour.

The MARKER SENTENCE is also used after the presentation, for the repetition practice

meant to reinforce the form of the structure in terms of pronunciation/word

order/contractions.

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Guided discovery presentations combine elements of the deductive and inductive

strategies. Students are elicited to formulate the meaning of a structure or a grammatical rule,

which they are helped to reach by means of relevant guiding questions.

E.g.:

Teacher: ‘In the dialogue on the board, both the verbs underlined refer to the future.

However, there is a difference in meaning between the two future forms. Think of the

moment when the decision was made’:

A: Why do you want the corkscrew?

B: I’m going to open that bottle of wine I bought yesterday.

A: We drank it last night.

B: Oh. Then I’ll open a beer.

Reflection task:

Deductive or inductive? Which is better? Why?

Can we use both of them?

What are the advantages/disadvantages in either case?

To sum up, the presentation of a new language structure has to cover the following aspects:

PRESENTATION = MEANING, FORM(S), PRONUNCIATION, FUNCTION (SOCIAL

CONTEXT COMMUNICATION). For example, the meaning of the Present Perfect Simple

in the question ‘Have you read this book?’ is asking if an action has been performed at any

time up to the moment of speaking, while its function can be to suggest that the subject read

the respective book.

2. 1. PRESENTATION TECHNIQUES

a) Situations

This has already been illustrated above. The situation and context chosen should be relevant

to everyday life, and, as already stated, appropriate for the students’ age, level, interests and

life experience. First and foremost, it should provide a meaningful context that will make the

meaning (and function) of the structure clear and easily understandable to the students.

Task:

What situation can you think of to introduce the following language items?

going to; used to; 1st – 3rd Conditionals; counts &uncounts; offers & acceptances; invitations

& refusals

b) Compare and contrast

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This technique was illustrated above in the guided discovery presentation based on

comparing and contrasting the meaning of two future forms – the going to + Infinitive vs. the

Future Simple. It is very useful in teaching tenses with the same time reference, but with

certain differences in meaning and use – past time forms, future time forms; aspect – simple

and continuous/progressive forms, conditionals, unreal past forms, subjunctives, etc. It lends

itself to guided discovery presentations, in which the students are involved in the compare

and contrast exercise. Here are some examples of structures whose meaning can be

illustrated by comparison and contrast:

I remembered locking the door. / I remembered to lock the door.

She lived in London for 10 years. / She has lived in London for 10 years.

She didn’t need to cook the meet. / She needn’t have cooked the meat.

They have been picking apples for several hours. They have picked ten basketfuls.

c) Stories

Even a briefly outlined situationmay be a story in itself, but sometimes we can make up a

very short story to introduce a structure. Here is a story introducing the 3rd Conditional:

Yesterday afternoon, Mary went to the library to borrow books for an essay she had to

write for her history class. She consulted the catalogue and found a very good book on

the subject, but when she asked for it, the librarian told her that someone else had lend

the book half an hour before. Mary thought:

MS: If I had come a little earlier, I would have got the book.

Stories add an element of fun and make memorable presentations, especially if they are

accompanied by visuals: flashcards, drawings, pictures, cartoon strips, etc.

d) Examples – giving a model sentence or model dialogue

Of course, these are an essential part of any presentation. The model sentence/dialogue can

come to the end, as Marker Sentences, but they may also be given at the beginning, as

support for an inductive/guided discovery presentation.

e) Time-lines

Time-lines represent a very effective way of illustrating meaning visually in the case of

tense, aspect,the sequence of tense. E.g.:

She left I arrived

Past____x________x____________Now____________Future

10.30 10.45

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She had left when I arrived.

Past____^^^^ ^^^^^^_X_________Now______________Future

I was reading when the lights went out.

he gave up

Past_xxxxxxxxx[]______________Now_____________Future

He used to smoke.

f) Concept questions

Conceptquestions are meant to clarify the meaning of a structure. They are a useful tool for

checking the students’ understanding of the meaning and use of the structure. To create

concept questions, we reduce the conceptual description of the target structure to 2-3 simple

statements which essentially describe its meaning. We then turn these statements into

Yes/No/Wh-questions for the students to answer.

E.g.: I have lived here for three years. (Present Perfect)

This means:

I started living here three years ago.

I still live here.

The concept questions are:

T: When did you start living here?

SS: 3 years ago

T: Do you still live here?

SS: Yes, I do.

I have had my overcoat cleaned . (Causative Passive form)

This means:

Someone (the cleaner’s) has cleaned my overcoat.

I haven’t.

The concept questions are:

T: Have you cleaned it yourself?

SS: No.

T: Has someone cleaned it for you?

SS: Yes.

This suitcase is too heavy to carry. (too + adj. + infinitive – implied passive meaning)

Concept questions:

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o

T: Is it heavy?

SS: Yes.

T: Can you carry it? / Can it be carried?

SS: No.

T: Why not?

SS: Because it is heavy.

g) Pictures/flashcards/blackboard drawings/stick figures/cartoon strips/picture-

story

These techniques involve the use of visual teaching aids, which help make presentations

memorable, generative and entertaining at the same time. They are particularly suitable for

young learners and not only. They also provide visual cues or prompts for substitution drills

at the practice stage.

She can play football.

He can ride a bicycle.

He works at the Tower of London.

Bob is a postman.He delivers the mail at 9.00 every morning.

h) Tables/charts on the blackboard

How much bread sugar milk butter do we

need?want?have?

How many eggs tomatoes oranges bread loavescartons of cereal

have to buy?

i) Realia (real objects)

The term realia refers to real objects we can use in presenting new structures, i.e. classroom

objects, the students’ belongings, stationary, toys, etc.

E.g.:

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This red pencil is longer than the black pencil. The green one is the longest of all.

Tom’s satchel is heavier than Bob’s. This flower pot is the largest and this one is the

smallest.

j) Mime and demonstration

This technique lends itself to easily demonstrable classroom actions. It can be used to present

such structures as the Present Continuous, the Present Perfect + just, Manner Adverbs, etc.

k) Grammatical rules and statements

This is a rather deductive technique, though quite useful with somewhat more complex

grammar points like verbs followed by the Gerund or the Infinitive. Giving students the rules

governing Verb Complementation would make a more effective and time-saving

presentation.

l) Grammar explanations

This is a deductive technique which can save time when time is at a premium. So it is up to

the teacher to decide when and how to use it. The explanation has to be clear and concise,

giving the necessary information about the meaning, form and function of the structure.

Task: Explain the grammar of ‘used to’

m) Translation

There are situations in which the recourse to the mother tongue in presenting structures can

be illuminating, especially in contexts where L1 interference (differences from structures in

the mother tongue which can create confusions). Translation, usually also involving a

compare and contrast approach between the two languages, is useful in highlighting and

disambiguating such areas. Romanian learners, for example, should be warned that the

Present the Present Perfect and the Present Continuous, when used with for and since,

correspond to the present tense in their mother tongue. The Romanian “imperfect” can be

rendered in English through both the Past Simple (when we refer to habitual actions in the

past) and the Past Continuous (for activity in progress at a time in the past).

Finally, here is a list of criteria and questions teachers should consider in gauging the

effectiveness of grammar presentations, to be asked both before and after the presentation:

Checklist for grammar presentations:

The target structure. To be presented in both speech and writing, both form and

meaning.

Examples. Enough examples of the structure in a meaningful context.

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Checking understanding: concept questions, clarification of the meaning.

Terminology. Use the grammar-book name of the structure/or other grammatical

terminology? Which would be/was more useful? Why?

Language. Explain the structure in the target language/the students’ mother tongue/in

a combination of the two? Which would be/was more effective?

Explanation. Information given at the right level: concise, accurate not too detailed.

Any comparisons with the students’ mother tongue? Would this be/was this useful?

Rules. Give explicit rule? Why/Why not? Explained by the teacher or elicited from

the students? Which would be/was the best way to do it?

Delivery. Speak and write clearly at an appropriate speed

2. 2. PRACTICE STAGE

The aims of this stage are to allow the students to practice the new language. The practice

exercises are graded from very controlled, accuracy-oriented drills to less and less controlled

activities, which gradually increase the students’ control over the language to the level at

which they can use the target structure freely and independently so as to engage in fluency-

oriented communication activities. According to the control over language allowed students

at each sub-stage of the practice, which serves the aims of gradual progression from accuracy

to fluency in using new language items, the practice stage is comprised of three main

sections: controlled, semi-controlled and free-practice/production.

2. 2. 1. Controlled practice

The first sub-stage aims for practice under controlled conditions, in which the students are

asked to repeat examples of the structure correctly via a variety of oral drills. The teacher,

who has full control over the language practised, focuses on accuracy and uses immediate

correction. The predominant type of interaction is Teacher –> Students. The typical drill

activities are:

a) Repetition drills

The aim of repetition is to reinforce the structure in terms of pronunciation and word-order.

The drills should replay the MS (Marker Sentence) from the presentation, e.g.: He’s been

living in the mountains for two months. The marker sentence is repeated first with the

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whole class – choral repetition – then by individual students – individual repetition. One

useful repetition technique is back-chaining, in which the students are helped with difficult

areas by repeating one item at a time, starting from the end of the sentence, and adding a new

item each time until the whole sentence is reconstructed. Repetition drills should be done at a

fast pace – speed is important since drills are inherently boring. To maintain interest, the

teacher should also be unpredictable in selecting individual speakers.

An interesting and entertaining alternative to classical repetition drills are Jazz Chants, a

concept developed by Carolyn Graham, a musician, teacher and teacher trainer who adapted

structural drill practice to short, repetitive, structure/function-bound poems to be chanted on

jazz rhythms (see Graham: 1978, 1979, 1986, 1993, 2000, 2006). These poem-like, jazz-beat

chants make for a highly enjoyable way of practising structures and functions which

alleviates the inherent boring effect of repetition drills. Alternatively, these chants can also be

used as examples for the presentation stage.

b) Substitution drills

Substitution drills consist of graded variations on the marker sentence. The students are asked

to generate new sentences with the target structure by substituting various items in the marker

sentence. Substitution drills can be done chorally or individually. There are several types:

i. Simple substitution (vary 1 item in the MS):

She’s

They’ve

Tom’s

My sister’s

My friends

Mary and Bob

have

I’ve

We’ve

been

living in the mountains

camping in the forest

drinking fresh water

watching the bears

sleeping in a tent

looking at the stars

climbing the mountain

cooking on an open fire

fishing trout

washing in the river

for

two months

ten weeks

almost a month

a fortnight

several days

nearly a year

ii. Progressive substitution (gradually generating a new sentence by varying 1 item

each time):

MS: He’s been living in the mountains for two months

T: They

SS:They’ve been living in the mountains for two months

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T: Sleeping in a tent

SS: They’ve been sleeping in a tent for two months

T: Almost half a year

SS: They’ve been sleeping in a tent for almost half a year

iii. Restatement substitution

E.g.: Let’s + verb

T: You want to play football.

SS: Let’s play football.

The substitution of one item for another is based on cues or prompts offered by the teacher.

We can use verbal prompts (word/phrase spoken by the teacher or written on the blackboard

or prompt cards) or visual prompts (drawing, picture, mime and gesture, words on).

Further examples

Single-word prompts

E.g.: Let’s + verb

T: Cinema

SS: Let’s go to the cinema.

T: Pizza

SS: Let’s eat a pizza.

Picture prompts

E.g.: Can + verb

T: SS: He can ride a bike.

Prompts/tables/charts on the blackboard

How many are there? [desks/rows/children/chairs/windows/books/pictures/flowerpots]

swim speak

French

skate

Anna v v V

Maria X v X

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Mike V X v

Lucy V v X

You ? ? ?

E.g.: Maria can speak French, but she can’t swim or skate.

iv. Free substitution

Here students make up their own sentences, e.g.: Let’s go fishing.

c) Question – Answer drills + Substitutions (based on the Presentation)

This Q/A drill is based on the situation used in the Presentation. E.g.:

A: What’s he been doing for the last two months?

B: He’s been [living in the mountains].

The substitutions are those used in the initial simple substitution drill. They can be introduced

by picture/word prompts: camping in the forest/drinking fresh water/watching the

bears/sleeping in a tent/gazing at the stars/climbing the mountain/cooking on an open

fire/fishing trout/washing in the river, etc. The teacher should model the interaction and then

put the students into pairs to practise with the substitutions. The use of pair work changes the

pattern of interaction to S->S.

d) Question and Answer drill (based on picture/word prompts)

The drill is done in pairs. The teacher provides picture/word prompts of activities + a time

period:

picking apples/several hours doing chores/three hours

cleaning windows/about half an hour writing an essay/two days

waiting for the bus/ten minutes studying French/two semesters

A: How long has he been waiting for the bus?

B: He’s been waiting for the bus for ten minutes.

e) Find someone who

This activity is a more challenging kind of question and answer drill. Students are given a list

of actions/activities related to routines, habits, past experience, etc. They have to go about the

class asking their peers Yes/No-questions based on the prompts on the list and involving the

target structure, e.g. Do you (ever)...? Have you (ever)....? The aim of the game is to get the

most positive answers. If they get a positive answer, they ask for the person’s signature next

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to the respective question. The winner of the game is the one who gets the most positive

answers in the shortest time. E.g. Find someone who:

- goes to bed earlier than 10 pm

- has a full breakfast on weekdays

- goes jogging every morning

- reads English books

f) Model dialogue

Dialogues provide more meaningful practice as they replicate more closely the real-life

conversational patterns used in everyday communication. Here is one model for the Present

Perfect Continuous:

Ann: Hi Mary. How’s it going?

Lucy: Not too bad. What have you been doing lately?

Ann: Well, not much, really. I’ve been cramming for exams. What about you?

Marry: Oh, I’ve been reading War and Peace.

Substitution cues: working as a waitress/going to the gym/teaching myself French/writing a

play, etc. Alternatively, students can provide their own examples.

g) Dialogue chain/Skeleton dialogues

This is slightly more complex, as students create their dialogues by following a ‘dialogue

map’ or ‘script instructions’ for the interlocutors to flesh out.

A B

Greet B Reply. Ask about recent activities

Answer. Ask B about recent activities Reply. Suggest meeting for a drink this evening

Agree. Suggest a time and place agree with place but suggest another time. Give

a reason

Agree. Say goodbye Reply

h) Creative grammar practice – model poems

This is a concept developed by Günter Gerngross and Herbert Puchta, in which grammar

practice activities based on substitution provide a springboard for verbal creativity and

activating ‘the right side of the brain’ (Gerngross and Puchta, 1993). The students are shown

a model poem focused on a particular recurrent grammar structure. Sometimes they have to

work on the model itself – putting jumbled words in order, for example, but usually they have

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to reflect on the poem’s topic and ideas, and how these are relate to themselves. Using the

skeleton of the original, structure -based poem, they create their own, personalised version,

by substituting the words or phrases in the model with their own. Here’s the frame of a

Sensorial Poem for practising the 2nd Conditional, by referring to a person they like/love:

If he/she were a colour, he/she would be ........

If he/she were a sight, he/she would be a/the........

If he/she were a sound, he/she would be a/the........

If he/she were a smell, he/she would be a/the........

If he/she were a taste, he/she would be a/the........

If he/she were music, he/she would be a/the........

If he/she were food, he/she would be a/the........

The value of the above exercise resides in what Adrian Doff calls meaningful practice, i.e.

practice which requires personalization and adds some personal meaning to the activity (Doff

1988).

Below is a list of other types of drills used at the controlled practice stage, mainly

variations on Substitution or Question and Answer drills, which also involve such operations

as transformation, replacement, restatement, completion, expansion, contraction of items, etc.

i) Transformation DrillLanguage learners are required to change sentences from negative to positive, from positive to interrogative, or from simple present tense to simple past tense, depending on the instructions from the teacher. E.g.: T: The book is new. SS: Is the book new?

j) Replacement DrillLanguage learners replace a noun with a pronoun. It is the same drill as substitution drill but it involves with a replacement.E.g.: T: I like the bookStudent: I like it

k) Response DrillLanguage learners respond to somebody’s sentence. In this drill this answers are patterned after the questions. This drill may involve “wh-” questions or “yes/no” questions.E.g.: T: Alice is at school.T: Where is Alice?SS: At school.

l) Cued Response Drill

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In this drill language learners are provided with a cue before or after the questions.E.g.:T: What did the man buy? (A book)SS: The man bought a book.

m) Rejoinder DrillIt is similar to the cued response drill, but in this drill language learners are given instructions of how to respond in terms of style/register.E.g.:T: come to my house (be polite)SS: Would you like to come to my house?

n) Restatement drillLanguage learners rephrase an utterance and address it to somebody else, according to the content of the utterance.E.g.:T: Ask your friend what he has for breakfastSS: What do you have for breakfast?

o) Completion DrillLanguage learners are told to supply a missing word in a sentence or statement.E.g:T: I bring my cakes and you bring….SS: I bring my cakes and you bring your cakes.

p) Expansion DrillLanguage learners build up a statement by adding a word or phrase.E.g.:T: MathematicsSS: We study mathematicsT: everydaySS: We study mathematics every day.

q) Contraction DrillLanguage learners replace a phrase or clause with a single word or shorter expressions.E.g.: T: I didn’t mean to hurt the dogSS: I didn’t mean it.

r) Integration DrillLanguage learners combine two separate statements.E.g.:T: I know that lady. She is wearing a blue shirtSS: I know the lady wearing a blue shirt.

s) Parallel writing

This exercise offers controlled writing practice based on a model text. Students have to

rewrite the text by making certain structural changes, e.g. change the subject from Itohe/she

so as to use the Present Simple form for the 3rd person singular (hurries, goes, tries), put

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Present Tense verbs into the Past Simple or simply personalise the text content by writing

about themselves.

2. 2. 2. Semi-controlled practiceThis stage consists in structural practice based on a wide range of exercises, commonly found

in most grammar books. These exercises are less teacher-controlled, but do not offer

complete student control over language, as students have to use the structure correctly in a

given sentence or text, without actually producing language themselves. They have the

advantage of also being suitable for individual independent study, in class or at home, orally

or in writing, for reinforcement or consolidation purposes. The most common semi-controlled

exercises are:

a) Bracketed verbs/adjectives This is one of the most frequently used exercise type, extremely useful for tense practice,

adjective comparison forms, etc. Students operate with such categories as Tense, Aspect,

Voice, Infinitive/Gerund complementation, Subjunctives, having to choose between two

alternative forms – Simple/Progressive tense forms, Gerunds/Infinitives, etc, which always

involves a compare and contrast approach.

b) Dual/Multiple choiceThis exercise offers two or four items to choose from: verb forms, prepositions,

singular/plural nouns, modal verbs, time adverbs, etc.

c) Gap-fill These consist in sentences or texts containing gap or blank spaces to be filled in. It is used for

practice with verbs, prepositions, determiners, adverbial modifiers, etc.

d) Cloze passages A cloze is a text from which every 5 th or 7th word has been removed so that the students will

fill in the blanks. A grammar cloze devised in this way is a good way of testing general

grammar (and vocabulary) knowledge. Alternatively, teachers can tailor a cloze for practice

in a specific structure, by removing only the items related to the target structure

(infinives/gerunds, prepositions).

e) True/False statements These can be organized as pairs of statements or sentences (a, b) to choose from, referring to

the meaning or use of a structure (tenses, modal verbs).

f) Matching items

The items to be matched are arranged in two columns, in random order. They can be verb

tenses + adverbs, main + subordinate clauses, verbs + gerund/infinitive complements, etc.

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g) Error correction

Students are required to discriminate between correct and incorrect forms, and make

corrections where necessary. These exercises have an important formative value, as thinking

of and evaluating structural accuracy helps in developing the students’ ability for self-

correction.

Below are illustrated two game-like activities based on error correction, which, by

adding an element of fun and even excitement, can render dull correction exercises more

enjoyable.

h) Grammar auction

The students work in pairs or groups. They are told they are going to participate in a sentence

auction, for which each pair/group have £1,000. Some of the sentences are correct, while

others will contain grammar mistakes. Of course, the students are supposed to bid for correct

sentences. The winning pair/group has the largest number of correct sentences at the end of

the activity.

i) Grammar gamble

This is a variation on the game above, but instead of buying correct sentences, the students

will bet on their own correction of sentences containing mistakes. Each group (3 or 4

students) is given 1,000 and a list of incorrect sentences with mistakes in grammar, word

order, etc. These can be taken from the students’ mistakes in their written work. According to

the degree of difficulty, each sentence will be assigned different odds. In their groups,

students discuss the corrections they think necessary. The teacher calls out one sentence at a

time and asks students to place their bets on their corrected versions. On the board, the

teacher draws two columns headed Bet and Total, writing each group’s stakes and earnings.

The winning team will have the largest sum at the end of the activity (see Gates, 1994).

j) Jumbled words ordering

These exercises are particularly focused on word order, but they can also raise awareness of

such issues as cohesion, linking words, emphasis/fronting, inversion.

k) Rewrite/Rephrase sentences

Beside target structure practice, these exercises also raise awareness about meanings,

functions, polysemous structural or syntactic forms, as they require reformulating a sentence

in such a way that its meaning remains unchanged. In order to rephrase a given sentence,

students are provided with cues which can be either a different beginning or a word to be

included in the new sentence.

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l) Dictogloss/Grammar dictation

The teacher reads a short text at a reasonable, normal speech speed and students listen first, to

get a general idea of the content and grammar of the text. For the second reading, the students

are required to take as many and as detailed notes as they can of what they hear – sentence

chunks, key phrases/words. In groups of three or four, the students are required to put their

notes together and try to reconstruct the original text as accurately as possible. It can also be

done as a competition, in which the winning team ends up with a text which is the closest to

the original and the most grammatically accurate.

3. PRODUCTION/FREE PRACTICE STAGE

With free practice or production activities, the focus shifts from accuracy to fluency. These

activities are aimed at allowing students to practise the new language in meaningful

communicative contexts, which replicate real life communication. At this stage, control over

language is transferred to the students, since they work with or produce language as they

engage in communicative tasks requiring S->S interaction and are provided with

opportunities for free self-expression. A graphic representation of the staging in a grammar

lesson – in terms of activity sequencing, teacher roles, control over language and activity

aims – could look as follows:

Staging

Presentation Controlled practice Semi-controlled practice Free practice // /

Presentation Practice Production

Teacher roles

T as presenter T giving T organising activities so that of new language SS chance to practise language SS can use language meaningfully

Teacher-centred Learner-centred

Control over language

T ->S S-> ST. control over language >SS control over language Immediate correction Delayed correction

Aims

ACCURACY FLUENCY /T ssssssss s T s

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ssss sssssss ss

Of course, communicative activities for free oral practice commonly presuppose pair

work and group work.In order to motivate students to work together in pairs/groups, the

activities have to be task-based – if students know what they have to achieve, they will have

a purpose to work towards, i.e. solving the task. Of course, communicative grammar

activities must have a grammar focus – a structure/function they have learnt/revised

recently. Of course, task-based communicative activities require careful preparation on the

part of the teacher, who has to plan the activity well in advance, to organise the class and

provide the students with the necessary materials, such as handouts or visuals. Basically, the

most common communicative activities are of two types – Information Gap and Role Play

– but the range is in fact much wider. The most productive communicative grammar activities

for free oral practice are described below.

3. 1. INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES (Info-gap)

Usually suitable for pair work, but also in group work, these activities are based on an

information gap, i.e. the students have different information which they have to share in order

to fulfil the given task. In other words, the need to exchange information provides the need to

communicate, usually by means of question and answer patterns of interaction. In an

information gap activity, each student working in a pair (A and B) is given a handout

containing information his/her partner does not have. The task varies depending on the

grammar focus of the activity. Most often, they have to exchange information in order to

reach a decision, an agreement, a conclusion, a certain result (filling in a chart) or to create

something (a map, a drawing, a description, an object/handicraft item). As they are not

supposed to see each other’s information, the best seating arrangement for the pair is face-to-

face. Here are a few examples of tasks:

i. Agreeing on a common plan/action.

For instance, in an activity focused on the use of the Present Continuous for Future plans they

are asked to agree on a time to meet,based on handouts containing different diary pages with

scheduled activities, or, in a freer variation, based on their own plans for the next day/the

weekend/the holidays, etc.

ii. Achieving a result:

Pictures with differences

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The students are given quite similar pictures containing a number of differences

(number/colour of objects, different people/animals/furniture/street/position in space). They

are told there are 10 differences, for example. To fulfil the task, they take turns to ask and

answer questions, paying attention to and recording the differences they identify. It is useful

for practising questions such as: Is/Are there...?/Where is/are? + prepositions of place; What

is the girl doing?/Is the boy sitting? – No, he is standing.

Chart completion

The students are given charts with different missing information. To complete them, they

have to ask their partners, who have the information they need.

Map completion

The students are given handouts with the map of a street, village, town, zoo, store, etc. Each

student has elements the other has not, so they have to ask and answer questions in order to

complete their maps with the missing items put in the right place. The activity is useful for

prepositions of place, giving instructions. Another task can be giving their partners’

directions to their home.

Drawing instructions

The students are given handouts with different shapes/objects/places/people/animals. The

task requires that each of them draws the picture on their partner’s handout, listening to each

other’s descriptions and instructions. Without handouts, the task can be that each of them

describes his/her room so that their partner can draw a plan of the room. The grammar focus

is again prepositions of place, spatial directions.

There are also other types of communicative activities and games roughly based on

the information gap principle:

a) Guessing games: 20 Qs

This is a popular game. It can be played either in pairs or with the whole class. In a pair, the

partners take turns as ‘knower’ and ‘guesser’. Each thinks of an activity, person, job, animal,

country, continent, place, etc. They try to guess what the other is thinking of by asking

relevant Yes/No questions (up to 20) focused on structures and topics fit to the context. With

the whole class, one student is the knower, answering the questions asked by his peers.

b) Mime/Charades

This is another type of entertaining guessing game, also used for amusement at social get-

togethers. The knower has to mime the concept he/she has in mind, nodding or shaking his

head in response to the others’ questions.

c) Questionnaires/Surveys

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Students are asked to collect data about their classmates by devising a questionnaire on

various topics: hobbies, pastimes, sports, holidays, eating/reading habits, likes/dislikes, etc.

They have to go around the class asking questions and recording answers on their report

sheet. At the end the students process the data collected and present their findings, under the

form of pie-charts, stack columns, graphs or diagrams.

d) Interviews

The students interview each other on a given topic: future plans/career/holidays, past

experiences, family, relationships, friends, study or pastime preferences, etc. At the end each

student produces an oral or written account of the interview. It can be used for practising

tenses and reported speech. The interviewers/interviewees can act as themselves or play the

role of other people (family members, friends – an exercise in empathy!), of celebrities or

even animals! This really appeals to their empathic imagination.

e) Quizzes

It can be organized in pairs or groups. Each student or group devises a quiz based on a

structure and topic studied in class (wildlife, geographical/historical/cultural

facts/films/books/music, etc. It can be conducted orally or in writing. It is more challenging if

organised as a competition between two/three teams, in which the winning team has the most

correct answers.

3. 2. ROLE PLAY

The principles of role play activities are by and large the same as those for Info-gap activities.

The task involves achieving a social and transactional goal, as indicated in the Role Cards

allocated to students working in pairs or groups, which provide the information gap required

for a meaningful exchange of information. However, there is a stronger focus on functions:

persuasion, invitations, refusals, agreeing, disagreeing, etc. In designing a role play, we

should think of a context or situation presenting a potential conflict of interest, opinions or

ideas. At the same time role plays should reflect clear social role: teacher, parent, policeman,

driver, ecologist, salesperson, customer, public figure, artist, etc.

Role cards are essential in defining profile and goal of the person the student has to

impersonate while interacting with the others.

Example: Four roommates are discussing ideas for an evening out. They have to agree on

something to do together, even if they have rather different interests and tastes.

Role card 1: You are Sam. You like eating out and prefer fast-food restaurants. For a change,

however, you would try something more exotic. You like musicals.

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Role card 2: You are Annie. You like Chinese food, and would like to take the £5 eat-as-

much-as you-want offer at Mr Wu. You also like going to the theatre and prefer comedies.

Role card 3: You are Lucy. You like Italian food and would like to have some lasagne at

Mama Mia. You like going to the cinema and prefer romantic comedies.

Role card 4: You are Johnny. You’re fond of cooking curry and would prefer to cook a meal

for the others. You like dancing, especially Latino dances.

a) Agony columns/Agony aunts/uncles

This popular magazine column in which the columnist – called an agony aunt/uncle – offers

advice to readers requesting advice on a problem can be adapted for role play focused on the

function of asking for and giving advice. It works better in pairs rather than groups. Each

student receives a role card containing a problem (relationships, school, work, career, health,

etc). Every student complains about his problem and receives advice from his partner.

Alternatively, both the problem and the advice can be expressed in writing, with each student

receiving a problem card to respond to in writing. For this version, the role play can be

dropped in favour of a self-expression exercise, where the students can write their own

problems on unsigned pieces of paper, which the teacher distributes around the class, asking

students to offer advice on the problem in question. As students may be sensitive about this

self-revealing context, anonymity is obligatory. All the pieces of paper will be gathered on

the teacher’s desk, so the students can collect their ‘advice letter’ at the end of the lesson.

b) Letter-writing

Role plays can also consist of writing activities. Students can be asked to write various types

of letters (invitation, request, advice, complaint, application, etc.) from the perspective of a

certain role. Of course, the writing activity will be based on a given context, specifying the

writer’s purpose, audience and the appropriate style (formal/informal). The task will also

include cues about content, such as issues to complain about in a letter of complaint. More

imaginative activities can include writing letters or diary entries from the perspective of a

character in a story, a person they know well or a famous person.

3. 3. FREE DISCUSSION/DEBATE ACTIVITIES

a) Problem solving

This activity can be done either as a role play, with students in the group assuming a given

role in a given context, or, for a more realistic context, the students can discuss issues from

their own perspective, acting as themselves. The activity consists in asking the students to

discuss and agree on possible solutions to a certain problem. A real or imaginary problem is

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presented by the teacher, orally or on a fact-file handout. This can be in connection with a

real problem – solutions for cleaning a polluted area/reducing pollution in their

area/publicising an event or product/repairing a malfunctioning machine or

vehicle/converting or finding a use for an old building in town/refurbishing the school

building/raising funds for a cause/protecting an endangered species/community/area, etc.

Alternatively, the problems can be brain-teasers or puzzles to work out, or more imaginative

problems like being on a space mission and having to deal with a technical problem.

The example below is quite a popular riddle aimed at testing strategic and logical thinking,

called ‘Who owns the zebra?’

The students are given the following cues, and asked to work out the answers for two

questions: 1) Who drinks water? and 2) Who owns the zebra? The activity can be used for

practising modal verbs (may/might/could/must/can’t/couldn’t + infinitive) and such

functions as expressing possibility, positive or negative deduction/certainty, prepositions

of place, etc.

1. There are five houses in a row, each of a different colour and inhabited by people of

different nationalities, with different pets, drinks, and flowers.

2. The English person lives in the red house.

3. The Spaniard owns the dog.

4. Coffee is drunk in the green house.

5. The Ukrainian drinks tea.

6. The green house is immediately to the right (your right) of the ivory house.

7. The geranium grower owns snails.

8. Roses are in front of the yellow house.

9. Milk is drunk in the middle house.

10. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.

11. The person who grows marigolds lives in the house next to the person with the fox.

12. Roses are grown at the house next to the house where the horse is kept.

13. The person who grows lilies drinks orange juice.

14. The Japanese person grows gardenias.

15. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

b) Choosing candidates

The students are given a list of candidates for a competition, job, manager, as well as relevant

information about them. The candidates’ profiles should include details about their

background, qualities, abilities and skills, experience, interests, commitment or leadership

32

potential. The group has to discuss their suitability and reach a decision about the most

suitable candidate. The functions practiced can be agreeing, disagreeing, suggesting,

persuading, arguing one’s opinion, expressing ability, possibility, positive/negative deduction

(using modal verbs).

c) Debates

The students are introduced to a controversial issue in the real world, relevant for their age,

level and interests. They have to discuss the respective issue, from various perspectives,

arguing their standpoints, giving arguments and examples. A debate can be organised in

groups or with the whole class. Possible topics can be:

Are books losing ground in the era of digital revolutions?

Will teachers be replaced by computers?

Who should take care of the elderly?

3. 4. PERSONALISATION ACTIVITIES (oral/written)

All methodologists agree on the fact that the personalisation of the content learnt promotes

better retention – a truism in language learning and learning in general (see Ur 1988). As this

makes more sense on a personal and real-life plane, such activities acquire a deeper meaning

for the learner, promoting what Adrian Doff calls ‘meaningful practice’ (Doff 1988, 28).

Irrespective of the organisation of free practice activities – individually, pairs, groups, whole

class – opportunities for self-expression will promote better learning and aid retention. By

having students share their personal experience, feelings, tastes and interests with their peers,

we enhance a good rapport between students and a cooperative atmosphere.

a) Free oral communication – exchanging personal information/opinions

Students share information about issues relevant to their everyday life: their plans for the

weekend/holidays; travel experiences; childhood memories; favourite

pastimes/food/books/film/music stars; opinions on topics of general human interest, etc. They

can extend the discussion to their family and friends. They can do this in pairs, groups or in a

whole class discussion.

b) Sentence building/completion

Even if this only consists in structure practice at sentence rather than discourse level, writing

sentences to say true things about oneself involve personalisation and provide useful

preparation for more complex opportunities for self-expression. Students can make sentences

orally or in writing. One variation would be to continue incomplete sentences with a given

beginning, e.g. If I had only six months to live, I would...To make the task more challenging

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and likely to trigger further discussion, the teacher can ask the students to complete the

sentences from their partner’s point of view.

c) Compositions, argumentative and reflective essays

These are quite complex activities for free grammar practice, whose scope extends beyond

the use of a particular grammar structure. Yet, the teacher may try to adapt the task for a

specific grammar area – talking about habitual actions in the past, speculating about

hypothetical situations, etc. Giving students opportunities to express their ideas in writing

helps them practise the language learnt in a meaningful context promoting personalisation

and self-expression, which furthers consolidation, retention and a sense of personal

achievement.

Overall, we should try to make grammar practice more meaningful and realistic by

offering ample opportunities for practice at discourse rather than at discrete (sentence) level,

and by providing students with contexts encouraging real communication and self-

expression. One should always bear in mind that grammar teaching and learning is not an end

in itself, but a means to an end, which is communicative fluency.

Chapter 3

TEACHING VOCABULARY

1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND TO VOCABULARY ACQUISITION

As in the case of our mother tongue, in foreign language learning we recognize and

understand more words than we actually use, which means that our passive/receptive

vocabulary will always exceed our active/productive vocabulary.

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However, expanding our active vocabulary in a foreign language requires more

controlled exposure to and work on new vocabulary than is the case in our mother tongue, to

which we are exposed in everyday life. This is because learning and using new words

requires time and repeated opportunity for use. Actual use is preceded by an incubation

period, during which the learner hears or sees the word in different contexts before beginning

to use it in free expression and communication.

At beginner level we should quickly provide students with a ‘basic vocabulary kit’ – a

limited active vocabulary from which students can build their vocabulary at a natural,

unforced speed. In order to enrich their vocabulary, students should be encouraged to read

widely outside the classroom, an enjoyable activity which helps them pick up new words in a

natural and meaningful way.

Moreover, they will be well-advised to invest in a good monolingual dictionary,

which provides collocation patterns and full-sentence examples of the word in various

contexts. Finally, they should be accustomed to store/keep record of new vocabulary by

means of various types of data-bases – word cards, vocabulary notebook, semantic field files,

topic-based word-sets/word-webs, idioms, collocations or phrasal verbs portfolios.

Prioritising/planning vocabulary teaching – practical criteria

Selecting new or essential vocabulary to teach for active production should be based on the

following criteria:

Frequency

Deciding what new words or lexical area to teach depends on how often the word or lexical

area is used in everyday communication.

Range

Words with a wide range of meanings, i.e. which are used in a number of different contexts,

will be taught sooner.

Usefulness

The selection of vocabulary to teach is often dictated by the students’

study/professional/social communication needs in their everyday life and activities – as in the

case of Academic English or ESP teaching (English for Specific Purposes).

Familiarity (of the concept/referent)

This refers to cases when, although a word may not occur so frequently in everyday

communication, it refers to a familiar object frequently used in everyday life, such as a

toothbrush or comb. Thus, familiarity with the object can be a reason to teach the word.

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2. PRACTICAL LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS

Any lexical item is defined by a number of characteristics which should be taken into

consideration in teaching vocabulary.

a) Meaning and context

Meaning and context are inseparable lexical categories, insofar as, more often than not, the

meaning of a word is given by the context it occurs in, and even if every word has a core or

main meaning, it can acquire other meanings if used in different contexts. In connection with

meaning and context of a lexical item, the features we should consider highlighting are the

following:

Diversity of meanings/multiple meanings (polysemy, homonymy)

In the case of words with multiple meanings, it is generally advisable that we should teach

one meaning at a time, according to the context at hand. However, with more advanced

levels, we can introduce the various meanings of a word from the outset. For example, we

can give examples illustrating the meanings of the word crane:

1. a bird; 2. a type of construction equipment; 3. to strain/stick out one’s neck.

Range of meanings

This refers to the number of different contexts in which the word is used. For example, the

verbs make, do, go or get appear in a wide range of contexts, in which their meaning may

vary according to the collocations (word combinations) they take.

Derivatives/roots

The derivatives of a word (root) are the new words which have undergone derivation by

means of pre-fixation or suffixation, thus forming a word-family, e.g. work: worker,

working, workable, overwork, overworked.

Collocation

The collocations of a lexical item are the various word combinations or associated forms it

occurs in. There are different types of collocations: Verb + Noun/Preposition, Verb +

Infinive/Gerund, Adjective + Noun/Preposition, Verb + Adverb. Phrasal verbs or idioms are

fixed collocations in which words lose their literal meaning, acquiring a

figurative/metaphoric meaning, such as in do someone in or live from hand to mouth.

Connotation

Apart from their denotative meaning (strictly literal), many words also have a connotative

meaning (implying emotion, attitude, judgement). The connotation of a word can be positive

36

or negative. Thus, the denotative word for an underweight person can be thin, but scrawny

and skinny have a negative connotation, while slim, slender, slight or svelte have a positive

connotation.

L1 interference

This refers to disambiguating the meaning of words resembling words in our mother tongue

which mean something else – words commonly known as ‘false cognates/friends’. For

example, speakers of Romanian or French tend to use library instead of bookshop, licence

instead of university degree, etc. Ambiguities may also arise with L1 homonyms which are

expressed in English by different words, e.g. canal and channel for the Romanian canal.

b) Sense relations

There are words with interrelated meanings – similarities/differences in meaning. According

to the kind of sense relations shared with other words, lexical items can be:

Synonyms: cheerful = joyful

Antonyms (opposites): beautiful ≠ ugly

Items of a lexical set (group of words with the same topic, function or form, e.g. words

on the topic kitchen/holidays/crime)

Hyponyms, i.e. items of a semantic field (a set of words with close meaning, referring to

a certain notion or class such as colours, animals, parts of the body, furniture).

Items on a cline, i.e. a graded sequence of words arranged within a slope to show degrees

of intensity, whose meanings go across a continuum meaning:

E.g.: blue ecstaticlow elated depressed delightedmiserable cheerful sorrowful ≠ glad

c) Word grammar

This concerns the grammatical features of the word, such as:

Part of speech

Irregularities of form (irregular verbs or noun plurals)

Prefixes and suffixes used for word-derivation

What it is followed by (prepositions, Gerund/Infinitive

Countable/Uncountable nouns

Derivatives, compounds

d) Form

Pronunciation

37

Sounds (short/long vowels, diphthongs)

Stress (stressed/weak syllables)

Shifting stress: for such pairs as increase (verb) and increase (noun)

Spelling

Sound vs. spelling, e.g. the different sound of ea in break and speak

Abbreviations, e.g. advertisement, advert, ad

e) Dialects

There are many words specific to British or American English, to other varieties of English

(Scottish, Irish) or even to British or American regional dialects. Dialectal use should be

tacked in the presentation and by vocabulary exercises focused on dialectal differences.

f) Register

This refers to the specialised use of a word within a specific field of activity (commercial,

medical, political). There are specialised professional areas even called journalese, legalese,

etc.

g) Style

Style refers to the specific social or professional contexts in which a word occurs. Thus, we

distinguish between everyday or familiar style – colloquial/informal/spoken – and formal or

written style. For instance, the verb buy (neutral style) is rendered by get in informal style and

by purchase in formal/written style. According to the emotional or moral stance involved, we

can also have pejorative or derogatory, as opposed to a neutral style, e.g. the wordsversifieror

poetaster, used for a lesser poet.

3. PRESENTING VOCABULARY

Context is essential in presenting and practising vocabulary, as it is the context that defines

and clarifies semantic meaning. Accordingly, a lexical item will always be presented in

context, at sentence or text level. At all levels, it is essential that the new words should be

clearly spoken and written on the board, then repeated in chorus.

a) Visuals

With young learners, visual materials are extremely useful, as associating the concept with an

image aids understanding and retention. These can be pictures, book illustrations, cut-outs,

flashcards, board drawings, stick figures, stickers, emoticons, etc.

b) Realia

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Realia can be used to teach words such as classroom furniture, school things, stationary, toys,

clothes, etc.

c) Mime

Mime is effective with words describing everyday actions/activities, body posture and

movement, ways of walking/laughing.

d) Model sentences

These are the most common presentation technique. A good model provides a clear

illustration of the meaning of the new word, e.g. I have to go to the butcher’s, as I need some

pork meat for Sunday lunch.

e) Dialogues

Dialogues are effective in illustrating word meaning through conversational exchange.

E.g.:

A: What’s your father’s job?

B: Well, he lost his job last month. He was made redundant and now he’s still unemployed.

f) Explanation

An explanation of the meaning in L2 can be offered to clarify the meaning of a word, e.g. If a

person is unemployed, it means he/she is out of work/does not have a job.

g) Story

A very short story outline can be used to present new lexical items. E.g.: Last year he was

unemployed, so he started to look at the job vacancies in the paper and apply for jobs.

h) Questions

After introducing the word market, the teacher can ask students questions using the new

word. E.g.: A market is a place where you can buy fresh food. What do they sell there? Does

your mother go to the market? What does she mother buy there? What else do they sell there?

So you ever go to the market yourself? Do you live near the market?

i) Synonyms, antonyms

Sometimes the handiest and quickest way to illustrate the meaning of a word is by providing

a synonym or antonym. E.g.: ludicrous = ridiculous; ugly ≠ beautiful

j) Clines

Clines (illustrated above) are an effective way of graphically illustrating the place of a word

on a slope showing degrees of intensity related to a particular meaning, e.g. the place of huge

on the scale of bigness.

k) Translation

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Although translation has been somehow demoted in favour of techniques based on the use of

the target language in illustrating lexical meaning, it can be, beside contextualised

explanations in L2, a quite effective way of clarifying meaning, especially in the case of

idiomatic expressions, when it would be interesting to make correlations with idioms with the

same meaning in the mother tongue.

l) Text – guessing meaning from context

When working with texts based on thematic vocabulary, we can either pre-teach or post-teach

new words. If the new words would get in the way of the students’ understanding of the text

or may cause difficulty in solving reading comprehension or ensuing communicative tasks,

the teacher should pre-teach more difficult words. However, it is worth training students to

guess meaning from context, without being daunted by unknown words – an essential ability

of a fluent reader. Thus, after a reading activity we can post-teach vocabulary as a follow-up,

by means of inductive techniques and exercises such as:

Comprehension questions focused on meaning of vocabulary, e.g.: 1.What does set

about in line 10 mean? 2. Find a synonym for apparition in paragraph 2.

Multiple-choice items e.g.: The word preposterous in paragraph 3 means: a)

ridiculous; b) sophisticated; c) absurd.

Matching words and definitions. The words are listed in a column and their

definitions/explanations are given in an opposite column, in jumbled order. The

students are asked to match the words with their corresponding definitions.

Synonyms/antonyms search. The students are given a number of words they already

know, for which they have to find synonyms/antonyms in the text, e.g.: In paragraph

3, find words meaning curious, stimulus, ambitious; find opposites for boring, very

little, meanness.

m) Dictionary work

Students should be trained as early as possible to look up words in the dictionary, as this

encourages learner independence and develops good study skills. That is why we should

organize dictionary work sessions in class, preferably after reading a text – in the absence of

class dictionaries we can provide handouts of a page with the entries in question. The tasks

can be to look up the meaning of a word in the text; make a list of do/make + noun

combinations; ask each other for the definitions of words highlighted in the text, if they have

different dictionary pages (info-gap pair-work exercise).

4. VOCABULARY PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

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The principles in organising vocabulary practice are quite similar to the ones underlying

grammar practice. After the presentation, the students practise the new vocabulary through

various types of semi-controlled, accuracy-oriented exercises. There should also be a free

practice stage, at which students are involved in communicative, fluency-oriented activities

involving the new words.

4.1. SEMI-CONTROLLED EXERCISES

a) True/false definitions of words/idioms These consist in pairs of definitions (a, b) for a word/idiom, in which one is false. Students

may be encouraged to write their own definitions for their peers to choose from – one will be

the dictionary definition, the other will be created by the students. A game with true and false

idiom definitions, played in teams/groups is called “Call my bluff”

b) Matching words and definitions

The words and their jumbled definitions are listed under two opposite columns. The students

have to match the words with the correct definitions. Another variant would be to distribute

word and definition cards among the students, who have to mill around and read aloud the

items on their cards until they find their ‘partner’ i.e. their corresponding word/definition.

c) Word-guessing games

One student stands with his back to the board. The teacher writes a word only the class can

see. They have to help their classmate guess the word on the board by offering definitions

and explanations of its meaning. It can also be played as a competition between two teams,

with the winning team guessing the most words – also known as a team defining game.

d) Dual/Multiple choice

This exercise offers two/three/four lexical items to choose from.

e) Gap-fill Gap-filling exercises are commonly used to check learning after presentation, and also very

useful as a testing device. The words to be used can be given in a separate list, in random

order.

f) Vocabulary cloze A vocabulary cloze is an effective way of practising/testing vocabulary, collocations and

appropriacy at text/discourse level.

g) Error correction

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Students are required to discriminate between correct and incorrect word use or collocations

and make corrections where necessary. Such exercises are useful in that they get the students

thinking about contextual appropriacy, collocation and synonymy.

h) Rewrite/Rephrase sentences

These exercises raise awareness about words/phrases with similar meaning or function. They

usually involve rewriting the sentence by including a word given in the margin – also called

key word transformations.

i) Word formation

This is a word derivation exercise, consisting of a text with numbered blank spaces. On the

left hand margin, next to each line containing a blank, a cue root-word is given, which

requires a prefix or/and a suffix so as to fit the given context.

j) Lexical set/Word-maps/Word field completion

A lexical set can be made more visually effective by means of a word-map/mind-map/word-

web based on a lexical set. This is not only an excellent way of systematising, revising and

storing known vocabulary, but also a way of involving students in exploring new vocabulary

with the help of the dictionary. Word maps also encourage students to learn words associated

by topic. Here is a map for students to complete, by adding new clusters such as appliances,

utensils, activities, etc.

42

forksspoonssaucersbowls

crockery forks

plates

Kitchen

Food mixer utensils

Appliancesfreezer cooker

Knives

fridge

cupssscutlery

Kitchen

k) Scales and clines

Students are given cards with gradable items to be stuck on a cline drawn on the board. After

arranging the items and discussing issues of meaning, connotation or style, they may use the

words or phrases in a freer speaking activity, telling each other of experiences or situations

related to the respective vocabulary area.

4.2. FREEPRACTICE ACTIVITIES

The communicative activities aimed at practising vocabulary are similar to the ones used for

free grammar practice. Oral practice activities may consist in:

a) Sentence building

Students create sentences of their own using the new vocabulary. An important principle in

consolidating vocabulary use is personalisation, i.e. students should be encouraged to use

the words in statements about themselves. Personalisation does not only promote self-

expression and real communication, but it also aids retention.

b) Dialogues/interviews/exchanging information

The activity involves students working in pairs, asking each other questions and exchanging

personal information on a given vocabulary topic, e.g. travel and holidays, food, clothes,

music, etc. This can be a one-off activity or part of a class survey including topic vocabulary.

c) Information gap

The tasks based on information gap should involve the target vocabulary. Students have to

ask and answer questions in order to complete their task, e.g. finding a certain number of

differences in two pictures of the same room, the map of a place at two different points in

time, etc.

d) Crossword puzzles

Crosswords can be used as a support for an info-gap activity. One group of students are given

handouts with a half-completed crossword (A), and the other group get the other completed

half (B). Student A also has a list of the missing words in B, and B students have the missing

words in A. The principle is that students help each other complete their puzzle, by offering

the definition of the word needed. Before students are put into pairs AB, all the A/B students

are put together to discuss the possible definitions and explanations of the words they have to

help their partners with. Providing a dictionary for students to look up words or check

43

definitions would be a good idea. They should also be instructed to asks such questions as

‘What’s 5 across/down?’

e) Role-play

Students are assigned roles and provided with role-cards. For instance, for practising

vocabulary related to clothes and fashion, the role-play can be about buying clothes in a shop,

with students playing a customer and a shop assistant.

f) Problem solving

The students are asked to discuss solutions to a given problem, e.g. cleaning a certain

polluted area, finding a use for a disaffected building in town, etc.

g) Group or class discussions or debates

Especially for higher levels, free discussions can be organized around a certain theme: jobs,

pollution or unemployment.

h) Mime stories

Miming can be used to illustrate a series of actions or activities. The students watch the

teacher or each other perform a mime and then describe, orally or in writing, the scenes and

actions they have watched. Short mimes such as having a bath or tidying a room can be very

productive for multi-word verbs/phrasal verbs: turn on/off, hang up, tidy up, take out,put

away (Gairns and Redman, 154).

i) Picture card narrative

Students are given a set of cards with drawings/pictures of vocabulary items they have learnt

(one set per group). In their groups, students have to construct a narrative including all the

items on their cards. A student will read out the story composed by his/her group and the

other groups might be asked to guess what key items each group has got.

j) Picture story composition

The students are given a picture story, i.e. a series of pictures representing a sequence of

events and actions, on the basis of which the students will flesh out a story. The narrative

composition activity proper will be preceded by a lead-in session, during which the teacher

can introduce the topic and pre-teach or revise certain items or ask the students to discuss,

suggest and pool together relevant vocabulary. The vocabulary discussion may include

activities involving the prediction, selection, distribution, choice, rephrasing or brainstorming

of vocabulary, according to the degree of challenge the teacher wants to create.

k) Picture dictation

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This is an information gap exercise in which one of the students is given a relatively simple

drawing or picture representing a street map, a room layout, a person’s face, an object, etc.

One student describes the picture while the other tries to draw a close version of the picture

described. The activity may be used with vocabulary relating to places and buildings,

furniture, colours, physical appearance, clothes, animals, etc.

l) Quiz

This may consist of questions eliciting either standard or personalised answers, or a

combination of both) on various everyday topics such as food, health, education, politics,

public events, sports, entertainment. The questions (and answers) will be based on the

relevant vocabulary area.

m) Writing tasks

Writing tasks are particularly useful for consolidation purposes, since writing is an aid to

memory. Students can practice vocabulary through a range of written tasks and text types,

such as letters with different functions and topics (invitations, refusals, advice, complaint, job

applications, letters to the editor, etc.) or topic-based/word-prompt-based compositions

(narrative, descriptive), articles, essays (argumentative, reflective), focused on a particular

vocabulary area.

The main principle in organizing free practice activities is creating a balance between

oral and written communication.

5. COLLOCATION PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

Our students’ ability to speak and write English both accurately and fluently is related to a

large extent to their mastery of vocabulary, especially of collocation. Most language mistakes

arise from the wrong association between words, i.e. collocation, which is one of the most

difficult areas of language learning at all levels.

While native speakers collocate naturally and automatically, non-native speakers have

to learn and practice word association systematically before they are able to sense what

sounds right and what does not. What they need is awareness-raising exercises, which set

them thinking about correct collocations when they do reading or listening activities or when

they look up words in the dictionary, intensive classroom practice and extensive reading

(outside the classroom). In other words, they need sustained exposure to collocation.

Errors of collocation are sometimes caused by interference from their own language

(L2 interference), when students collocate according to the rules of their mother tongue, e.g.

make a photo, give an exam, put a question. Knowing a word in a foreign language means

45

knowing how and when to use it and which words it associates with. That is why collocation

exposure and practice are at a premium, and the teacher should give students plenty of

opportunities for practice. Some useful strategies and activities are suggested below.

a) Using dictionaries for learning, recording and checking collocations

Good monolingual dictionaries always provide examples of word collocations. Student

should be warned to pay attention to word combination, and never record words in isolations.

They can be asked to look up and take notes of Verb + Noun collocations with frequently

used verbs such as do, make, get, take, etc. It is useful to point out to our students that the

lists of ‘synonyms’ often given in a bilingual dictionary or language thesaurus should not be

taken at face value, since, apart from the inherent differences in meaning, these synonyms

also appear in different contexts and collocate with particular words. Keeping record of the

vocabulary they learn is useful so long as it focuses on collocations rather than on isolated

items. Thus students should be trained to pay attention to the most frequent collocation

patterns:

Subject noun + verb: The earth revolves round the sun.

Verb + object noun: take a photo, light a fire, strike a match

Adjective + noun: light sleeper, heavy smoker, heavy traffic, utter disappointment

Adjective/pastparticiple + preposition: fond of, keen on, interested in, delighted at,

concerned about

Adverb + past participle (used attributively): smartly/badly/fashionably dressed, fully

understood, hard-earned, deeply hurt

Adverb + verb: sincerely hope, honestly believe, fully understand, absolutely love

Verb + adverb: enjoy thoroughly, cry bitterly, eat heartily, work hard

Verb + preposition: insist on, object to, approve of, sympathise with

b) Reading for collocation

As reading represents the main form of exposure to collocation, texts used in classroom

reading activities can also be exploited for collocation learning or reinforcement, as a follow-

up exercise. Students will be asked to scan the text and take out any new collocations

corresponding to the patterns presented above. Thus, reading specifically for collocation can

be an extremely productive vocabulary development technique. In addition, students should

also be encouraged to pay attention to collocations and even pause to write them down when

reading outside the classroom.

c) Matching items

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The two halves of different collocation patterns are put in two separate columns, in jumbled

order. Students have to match the corresponding items. E.g.:

1. broaden a. a screw

2. soften b. your hair

3. straighten c. your mind

4. tighten d. the blow

A variation can be used particularly for collocations with DO and MAKE. The students are

given a list of noun phrases to be put under the right heading. The exercise can be also done

as a dictation, with students writing the nouns they hear under the DO or MAKE headings.

d) Odd man out

This exercise, involving crossing out the wrong items of a number of given choices, is

suggested by Gairns and Redman (1992, 39).

e) Collocation gap-fill

The exercise consists of a set of gapped sentences focused on different collocation patterns.

E.g.: She ............ a thick layer of jam on her toast. / I think we are all ....... agreement.

f) Collocation error correction

Students have to correct collocation errors in sentences where the key element requiring a

different collocation is underlined:

E.g.: The crime was done last night. / The result was an extreme disappointment.

g) Sentence building (from given outline and key word)

The students are required to build a sentence round a given word, most commonly a noun, by

supplying subject, verb, adjective, preposition and object where applicable. The key words

used as cues can be nouns which are part of verb phrase collocation model cases.

E.g.:

SUBJECT VERB ADJECTIV

E

NOUN PREPOSITIO

N

OBJECT

INVESTIGATION

47

A DISHheavy mildstrong lightweak

1

2

3

4

RESEARCH

INQUIRY

h) Matching idioms and definitions

Idioms represent fixed collocation patterns formed round a key verb or noun. Teaching and

learning idioms can be organised round topic based vocabulary – clothes idioms, parts of the

body idioms, etc. The students are given a set of sentences containing idioms and a list of

definitions to be matched.

E.g.: You’re going to fail the exam if you don’t pull your socks up. (make an effort)

i) Matching pairs

The exercise is focused on symmetrical collocations of the type: noun AND noun, adjective

AND adjective, past participle AND past participle. The students are given the elements to be

paired up in separate lists of jumbled items. E.g.: sick, head, bits, body, dead, bed, odds AND

breakfast, tired, soul, buried, pieces, ends, shoulders

j) Collocation grids

This is basically another matching exercise configured as a table containing a column of

items with roughly similar meanings but different collocations and a row of items they can

collocate with. The students have to decide on the associative possibilities of each item by

marking the intersection point between items as a positive collocation match (Rudskaet al., in

Gairns and Redman 1992, 38).

woman man chil

d

dog bir

d

flower weathe

r

view village

beautiful + + + + + + + +

lovely + + + + + +

pretty + + + + + +

charming + + + +

attractive + + +

good-

looking

+ + +

handsome + +

k) Find someone who

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The activity begins with a matching exercise, with two separate lists of items to be matched

so as to obtain adjective + noun collocations, e.g. light sleeper, heavy smoker, close friend.

After checking the correct combinations, the students move round the class to find someone

who: is a light sleeper, have a heavy smoker in their family, has a close friend of a different

nationality, has had a serious illness, etc.

l) Questionnaires (make vs. do)

The questionnaire should consist of an answer sheet with questions on problematic

collocations, such as make or do combinations. The main question is ‘In your house,

whodoes/makes things? The question prompts in the survey chart will include items such as

the shopping/the beds/the cooking/most of the decisions/the ironing/the most money/a mess

and the answer prompts can be a man/a woman/either/you/your

mother/father/brother/sister/wife. Similar questionnaires can be devised in order to revise

relevant vocabulary and collocations on such topics as personality traits, holidays and travel,

leisure activities (Gairns and Redman, 168).

6. VOCABULARY STORING STRATEGIES

Students should be encouraged to keep a record of the vocabulary they learn, a kind of lexical

database for future reference. Organising the vocabulary they have learnt is a valuable aid to

retention, as they are more likely to remember the lexical items by simply handling them in

some kind of written format.

a) Alphabetical ordering

The records can take the form of alphabetical organisers – a special vocabulary notebook,

ring-binder file or envelopes with word-cards for words beginning with the same letter. This

may be combined with grammatical categorising, where the section for each letter can

contain sub-categories for verbs, nouns, adjective, adverbs, prepositions.

b) Topic areas/Semantic field ordering

Alternatively, the organisation principle can be topic-based so students can build word banks

around a certain topic in a vocabulary notebook/folder or in topic envelopes with index-cards

(one card per lexical item and its derivatives) or lexical sets. Learners should be encouraged

to write an example sentence to contextualise each word, to add derivatives, even translation

if they need to, to associate words with pictures, and, most importantly, to try to personalise

vocabulary by writing true sentences about themselves and their world.

c) Visual formats

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Storing words by means of visual formats has the advantage of aiding retention through more

logical and easily memorable displays: lexical sets/word-webs, subject or topic

hierarchies/word-trees/pyramids, grids/tables on a semantic field or notion, process

chains/cycles/relationship diagrams.

d) Collocation files

One valuable filing system may be based on the collocations types discussed above: verb +

noun, verb + preposition, preposition + noun, etc. It is a very productive storing system as it

helps students with the crucial problem of word combinations and range of contexts. This

filing system can also be combined with alphabetical organisation.

e) Semantic/grammatical area categorising

Another storage system may be based on such semantic areas as idiomsor phrasal verbs. Of

course, idioms may be further subcategorised by topic/field subgroups (food/parts of the

body/sports/idioms) or by grammatical subgroups (verb/noun/adjective/adverbial idioms).

It is the teacher’s task to present these storing systems and alternatives to the students,

and, why not, to let them choose their own categorising system, as long as they keep it up.

Irrespective of the filing method used, students should be made aware that learning new

words is a process which requires working with words, as words will stick to those who take

good care of them.

Chapter 4

DEVELOPING LISTENING SKILLS

1. EVERYDAY LISTENING: PURPOSE AND TEXT TYPES

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Listening is the first receptive skill developed by language learners in both their first and

second language. In the latter case, the level of listening comprehension normally increases in

parallel with the students’ linguistic competence, but this does not mean that the listening

skill can develop naturally or by itself.

To develop listening proficiency, learners still need intensive and extensive exposure

to authentic listening material, as well as relevant classroom training. Using authentic

materials provide exposure to a wide range of more or less culture-bound contexts and topics,

as well as to varieties of English (British, American, Australian) or particular regional

accents. This is not only more challenging than listening to the teacher’s voice, but also

helpful in teaching elements of culture and developing cross-cultural competencies regarding

the English speaking world.

That is why anybalanced language programme should include a wide range of

listening activities on a variety of topics. The materials should be relevant for the students’

age, level and interests. Classroom listening is essential in developing effective listening

strategies and skills, even if students can also train these skills independently, through

extensive exposure outside the classroom, by listening to music, watching films,

documentaries, etc.

In any language, listening is an essential part of everyday social or professional

interaction. Alongside reading, listening is the main channel through which we get

information and learn about the world. Whatever the medium involved – face to face

interaction or the mass media – we listen to a wide variety of context-bound discourses and

for different purposes, which determine the listening strategies we use. According to their

context and implicit purpose, the kinds of text types we listen to can be categorised as

follows:

a) Social/Personal

This refers to small talk and social chat, personal conversations, anecdotes, jokes or stories.

b) Transactional/informational

This concerns the area of social and professional transactions and interaction involved in:

service encounters (shop, bank, healthcare); transactional conversations in the workplace, in

school or in society (instructions, explanations, directions descriptions); phone conversations

and messages; public or professional meetings.

c) Mass media and entertainment

If the previous categories involve listening for social and professional communication, this

type of listening is intended for information, pleasure and entertainment. It includes TV or

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radio programmes such as news, weather forecasts, interviews, reports, reviews,

documentaries, commentaries, talk-shows, phone-ins, quizzes, games or artistic productions

such as films, plays, sketches, stories, songs, poems.

d) Educational/Professional/Specialised

The listening contexts in this area may consist of lessons, lectures and seminars, speeches,

discussions and debates.

By and large, the categories above refer to the kind of listening we do in real life and

in our mother tongue. The listening text types that students of English are most likely to be

exposed to in their real life are those in the area of media and entertainment, which provides

them with good, meaningful opportunities for independent listening practice. However, any

balanced general English course should contain text types from different categories, aimed at

training them to develop various listening strategies likely to benefit potential future needs in

real life. Moreover, classroom listening is more actively engaging and productive, as it

always entails a communicative response which leads to the integration of skills through

speaking, reading or writing activities.

Effective listening comprehension in the foreign language involves a number of

important sub-skills that are at work in decoding oral communication

2. LISTENING SUBSKILLS

a) Hearing

This sub-skill refers to our recognition of the phonological aspect of language. It involves the

following abilities:

Identifying words and phrases in the stream of speech, by making sense of sound and

stress patterns despite speech phonological phenomena such as reduced vowel sounds,

elision, or assimilation

Interpreting the use of stress and intonation to identify sense groups and words carrying

key information and the use of intonation in discourse management (turn-taking,

changing topic)

Interpreting the attitudinal or emotional significance of paralinguistic features (loudness,

speed, tone of voice)

b) Understanding

Understanding processing the meaning and information received in terms of:

Using knowledge of grammar and vocabulary to interpret spoken sentences

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Predicting potential meaning from syntactical clues (word order) and morphological clues

(suffixes, prefixes)

Retaining longer chunks of language in short term memory

Interpreting reference and discourse markers to relate parts of discourse

Using knowledge of the world and context to interpret what is being said

c) Responding

Listening to a message usually entails a response on the part of the listener, which can

involve:

- Following instructions;

- Completing a task (non-verbal, spoken, written);

- Participating in a conversation:

showing attention and interest (Uh-huh/I see/ I’m sure she is/Really? Echo questions:

Does she?/Have you? );

asking for clarification (Sorry?/Who did you say?/What was that again?/Sorry, I

didn’t quite catch that.);

checking one’s understanding (Does that mean...?/So what You’re saying is.../So am I

right in saying...?

- Reproducing the text in speaking (repeating, retelling, summarising) or writing (notes,

dictation, summarising)

- Reacting to what has been said

d) Abilities of the proficient user

A proficient listener adapts his strategies to the context and text type, but also to his personal

purpose and interests. Apart from this, a native speaker or proficient user of a language has

the capacity to use the above sub-skills in operating a number of important distinctions

regarding context and content. In real life, a proficient listener will be able to:

Identify the type of discourse (story, interview, etc.)

Identify the topic of the discourse

Distinguish between the main points and supporting details or irrelevancies

Identify or infer the roles of speakers and the relationships between them

Infer unspoken meaning

Infer attitudes, intentions, emotions

These are also the abilities which a listening programme should be aimed at developing. In

order to achieve these aims, the teacher should employ materials and tasks which can train

the students to replicate the listening strategies used in real life listening.

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3. PRINCIPLES AND STRATEGIES IN TEACHING LISTENING

In organising a listening activity based on recorded materials, the teacher will bear in mind

the following principles, which underlie the strategies and abilities involved in real life

listening:

a) Activating the students’ general knowledge of the topic

A proficient listener naturally uses his knowledge of the world and context to interpret what

is being said, as well as his previous knowledge of the topic in question, making associations

between known and new information. That is why we should start by a lead-in activity,

which means introducing the topic and getting students to thing and talk about it before the

actual listening.

b) Activating relevant topic vocabulary

In order to warm the students up to the listening activity, we should also pool together the

vocabulary they already know on the respective topic. The activities aimed at re-familiarising

the students with topic and vocabulary aid comprehension by alleviating the impact of any

new situation involving totally unknown information.

c) Encouraging students to predict likely content and vocabulary

Proficient listeners have the natural ability to predict what they are going to hear by

exploiting their previous knowledge of the context, topic, text type or speakers involved. We

should try to replicate this by having students to predict ideas or words likely to come up in

the material.

d) Setting tasks which give students a sense of reason and purpose

In real life listening, we always have a reason and a purpose to listen – we need the

information to do or learn something or to interact with others. In the classroom, the purpose

can only be replicated by setting a task to be done while listening. Even if we can generate

sufficient interest in and curiosity about topic and content, the task gives them a clear

purpose.

e) Providing guidelines and focus for listening

It is important to direct the students’ attention while listening so they may have an idea of

what to listen for. Setting guiding questions and tasks will help them focus on particular

items. To this effect, we should also encourage students to exploit the redundancy of spoken

English and to guess meaning from context.

f) Integration of skills

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Listening activities do not usually appear as separate from other linguistic skills. They are

normally integrated with speaking, reading or writing activities, so classroom listening should

replicate the integration of skills characteristic of real life interaction.

4. STAGING IN LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Organising a classroom listening activity based on recorded materials should comprise three

important stages: pre-listening, while listening and post-listening. The tasks at each stage

are meant to train the particular sub-skills engaged in effective listening comprehension.

4.1. PRE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

In real life, we hardly ever engage in listening to something without having any idea of what

we are going to hear. In other words, we never really engage in listening to something from a

completely ‘cold state’. We are able to make some predictions about content, topics or ideas,

based on our previous knowledge of the context, text (discourse) type, topic or speakers’

background. The pre-listening stage is meant to replicate these conditions by warming the

listeners up to the topic, activating their relevant general knowledge and encouraging them to

make predictions about what they will hear. Prediction tasks will also arouse interest and

curiosity, as the students will be eager to check if their predictions were true.

a) Introducing the topic

The lead-in phase will consist in introducing the topic to the students. It can be introduced by

means of a key word written on the board or visual materials – pictures, magazine

illustrations, etc. The teacher asks questions to get the students talking about the topic, about

any previous experience, knowledge, attitudes or preferences related to it.

b) Brainstorming ideas about the topic

The students can work in pairs or groups to brainstorm ideas related to the topic, which they

can share with other pairs and groups until a complete list is put on the board. The students

may be asked to predict which ideas or issues are most likely to come up in the listening text.

c) Brainstorming vocabulary

The students are asked to say any words related to the topic and a class list is written on the

board. The students are asked to make predictions about which words are likely to occur in

the text.

d) Raising questions

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Each student writes down what he already knows about the topic, what he does not know and

what he would like to know (in question form). The issues and questions will be written

under three headings: [I know] [I don’t know] [I’d like to know]. The activity is meant to

activate the students’ previous knowledge, to get them to connect old and new information

and formulate expectations about learning what interests them. It increases motivation as it

gets students to think of their own reasons for listening – to have their questions answered.

4.2. WHILE-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

These are tasks to be resolved while the students are listening to the material.To help students

listen effectively, the teacher will devise a listening task-sheet/worksheet for students to work

on. In constructing a good task-sheet, the teacher will make sure that:

- the reading or writing included in the tasks is kept to a minimum;

- the questions are should be short and clear, as, unless there is a second listening, the

students have no time to go over the text again, as in reading;

- the students are not required to write too much;

- the questions are answerable by ticking items or by one or two written words;

- there is a gradation of question difficulty – the first questions should check the

understanding of the main idea (gist) rather than specific information (details);

- the tasks include a variety of question types

- there is a grid (chart) completion task, which is good for practising note-taking skills

- the tasks practise the main listening strategies used in real life listening: listening for

gist (main idea or global understanding) or listening for specific (detailed)

information.

a) Checking predictions

If the students are encouraged to make predictions about the topic, ideas or vocabulary they

will hear, or to ask questions they want answers for, then the first activity while listening will

be directed on confirming predictions or expectations formulated. Students will simply tick

the items they hear.

b) Identifying topic/context/text type

If the topic, context or text type has not already been introduced at the pre-listening stage, the

first listening activity, requiring listening for gist, can be to identify one of the above items of

information. The exercise can involve a simple multiple choice exercise.

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c) Multiple choice: topic/main ideas/details

The news item concerns:

sport politics books natural disaster

Jenny is in favour of:

holistic medicine homeopathy acupuncture classical medicine

What time did the accident take place?

12:00 12:15; 11:45; 12:30

d) True/False/Don’t know statements

T F DK

1. _________________

2. _________________

3. _________________

4. _________________

e) Ordering/numbering items: topic sections, ideas, sentences,key words or phrases

This activity can consist of two phases: the students will first number the above items in the

order they think is the most logical, then listen to the text to check their answers. The exercise

may be focused on either global or detailed comprehension.

f) Multiple matching/Matching items: sentence to topic/subtopic, sentence to

picture, halves of sentences, topic/statement/idea to speaker

The activity can also be organised in two steps: the students do the matching exercise before

they listen to the text and then check answers. It can be used both for both listening strategies.

g) Grid completion/Information transfer

Completing a grid with different headings is a useful exercise in note-taking and

systematising information. Its scope goes beyond training listening skills since it also helps in

developing study skills. As it may require more writing, the students will need to listen to the

text more than once.

Name Ag

e

Job Interests

Nick taxi

driver

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Tom 22

Ann Dancing, swimming

h) Open-ended questions with one/two-word answers

Open-ended questions requiring short or key-word answers can also be used to check detailed

comprehension. E.g. What time did the accident happen?/Where was the film shot?

i) Gap-fill

Gap-filling is the most difficult exercise for students to do, as it requires an accurate

understanding of individual words. That is why this can be done only after the students have

listened to the text at least once and become quite familiar with it. E.g.: Mir’s mission was to

provide Russian cosmonauts with a ________.

4.3. POST-LISTENING ACTIVITIES

Post-listening activities are meant as a follow-up to the listening tasks. They naturally lead to

the use of other skills, which constitutes a good opportunity for integrating skills. The

activities elicit student response, evaluation and personalisation regarding the issues and

information in the text. They are usually speaking activities in the form of pair, group or

whole class discussions or debates on the topic of the listening material.

Written activities such as various letter types, reports, proposals or opinion essays can

also constitute a follow-up to the listening text. Written tasks may involve role playing, i.e.

writing a letter to the editor or an article from the point of view of an ecologically-minded

person, a proposal for saving an endangered natural area, a leaflet popularising a public

interest event, etc.

The general principle underlying the organisation and staging of a listening activity is

that the listening material should function as a springboard for integrated-skills

communicative activities.

5. TEACHER DESIGNED ACTIVITIES (USING THE TEACHER’S VOICE)

The teacher’s spoken English provides the first listening material students experience and get

accustomed to listening to on an everyday basis. Listening to the teacher’s voice can be less

threatening than listening to a recorded material, as it is a familiar voice and accent, usually

offering comprehensible input at a reasonable speed, which makes the students feel more at

ease and more confident in their ability to understand what is being said. Besides, the teacher

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can always help students to comprehend new information by talking more slowly or using

facial expression and gestures.

That is why, especially with lower levels, the teacher should design and use regular,

motivating, comprehensible and low-stress listening activities, aimed at training the students’

listening skills in a more comfortable, interactive and mutually rewarding atmosphere. This is

more learner-friendly than a recording, since it ensures greater comprehensibility due to the

constant interaction with and monitoring from the teacher, through eye-contact and gesture.

These activities also promote whole class participation and involvement as they require

physical or written responses from all students. This may also help in boosting the students’

self-confidence, even for weaker students.

a) Command drills for Total Physical Response (whole class TPR)

The activity can be played as the traditional game ‘Simon says’, which consists of commands

eliciting physical action/ response. The commands can be adapted to the practice of certain

vocabulary, parts of speech or structures:

- Verbs/phrasal verbs: touch, point to, show, go to, open/close, pick up/put down, put

into/take out, get out/put away, turn over, turn to

- Prepositions of place: (put objects) in/on/under/above/between

- Nouns: parts of the body, clothes, classroom objects, students’ things (look at, point

to, show)

- Adjectives indicating shapes, colours, material, physical appearance

- Structures: Point to the biggest object in the room/someone who/someone + present

participle; When I...do (action); If you..., then...If not, ...

b) Spelling dictation

It is a very useful activity for practising both the English alphabet and word-spelling. The

teacher spells out words which the students write down.

c) Number dictation

This activity gives students practice with numerals, which is always a problematic area with

many students. It may consist in:

- Reading out numbers which the students write in numerals.

- Mental arithmetic prompts. Students write down in numerals and calculate sums,

subtractions, multiplications or divisions based on the teacher’s prompts.

- Finding pages/paragraphs/lines in the textbook. The task may include writing down

the first/last word in the respective section.

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- True/False statements containing numbers or geographical/historical facts involving

numbers. The teacher reads one statement at a time and the students mark it as T/F.

d) Dictation of times/dates/phone numbers/quantities

- Times: the teacher reads out the time in traditional form, the students write it in digital

form. The students change the format from 24-hour clock or vice versa. Another

activity can involve marking as T/F statements involving times or timetables.

- Dates: the students transcribe in numerical form the dates the teacher says in

traditional form. The students mark as T/F statements involving dates – birthday,

holidays, events, etc.

- Quantities: the students write in numbers the quantities they hear the teacher say.

e) Structure-focused True/False statements

The activity is intended or the receptive practice of specific language items. The teacher reads

out sentences containing a particular structure, relating to a classroom situation/text/

picture/general knowledge facts. The students listen and write T/F.

f) Filling charts/tables

The activity is intended to practise a particular structural or lexical area. The charts can

contain facts about countries (location/population/product); people (names,

likes/dislikes/daily routines/sports/hobbies); animals (area/habitat/food). The reads out

sentences and the students enter the information in the chart by ticking a box/item or entering

a key-word or number.

g) Family-tree dictation

Students are given a family tree with blank name boxes. The teacher uses a completed family

tree to make sentences describing the family relationships. The students listen and enter the

names in the blanks.

h) Picture transfer

The teacher can describe a simple drawing to the class while students draw what they hear.

As a feedback to the students’ drawings, the instructions are repeated, while two or three

students draw on the board. The activity can be used for physical appearance, street maps,

room layout, for practice with various adjectives, prepositions of place, etc.

i) Picture guessing

The teacher describes a picture or item among three or more similar pictures and items:

people, buildings, rooms, landscapes, places, animals or objects. The students have to identify

the picture or item described. As a variation without pictures, the teacher describes a student

in the class, a place in town, a famous place or person, or a person everyone knows.

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j) Picture-focused True/False statements

The students are looking at a picture. The teacher describes the picture, including false

statements. It can be done as a TPR exercise – for instance, the students are instructed to raise

a hand whenever they hear a false statement.

k) Map transfer

The activity can be based on a wall map or a map in the textbook. The teacher describes the

geographical location/shape/neighbours of a country. The students have to identify the

country and write its name. Similarly, the students can be asked to identify cities, from the

descriptions of their positions.

l) Following directions on a street plan

The teacher can use a pre-drawn wall-chart or a street plan in the textbook. The teacher sets a

starting point on the plan, gives a series of directions and ends by asking the students ‘Where

are you?’ The students write down the answer. The teacher repeats the instructions before

checking answers.

m) Story-telling

Listening to stories works extremely well with younglearners, so stories are likely to provide

an excellent context for a purposeful listening activity. It can be integrated with speaking

activities if the teacher pauses to get students anticipate what follows next or how the story

will end.

n) Riddles

Riddles are popular with young learners (and not only) as they imply a kind of competitive

guessing. They make for an engaging listening activity with a focus on mental reasoning and

interpretation of metaphorical word meaning.

o) General knowledge quizzes

The students are given quiz on a particular subject: countries, capital cities, people, places,

objects, historical events, sports people, cinema, music, writers or books. The students write

one-word answers. A variation may be done with T/F statements on a general knowledge

topic: food, health, good manners, shops and goods, jobs and workplaces, products and

materials/fabrication processes, national or international bodies and their activities

Chapter 5

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DEVELOPING READING SKILLS

Reading is a receptive skill which, like listening, presupposes language comprehension rather

than production. Understanding the content of a written text means interpreting each of its

constitutive components: information (integrating the old with the new), structure

(comprehending sentence/text grammar), lexis (recognising letters/words, guessing meaning)

text organisation (interpreting the use of paragraphing and linking devices for text cohesion

and coherence) and context (assigning the text to a text type).

These are the implicit reader operations/tasks underlying text comprehension, which

means that a fluent reader interacts with the text at several levels, contributing meaning to the

text on the basis of previous experience. Therefore classroom procedures and tasks should

reflect the purposeful, task-based, interactive nature of real life reading and exercise types

should, as far as possible, approximate to cognitive reality. This refers to the cognitive

experience which the reader inherently brings to a text. The aspects of previous experience

involved in efficient reading are the following:

a) Knowledge of the language

For classroom reading, this pre-requisite is provided by the suitability of the text to the

students’ level of language. Both very easy and very difficult texts can raise problems, as the

challenge will be too low or two high. A text should provide a fair amount of challenge

without being forbidding. That is why the reading programme should closely parallel the

students’ linguistic competence, since growth in language ability is an essential part of the

development of the reading skill.

b) Interest and/or motivation

We normally read for two main reasons (or a combination of both) – information and

pleasure. Whatever the reason, we read because we are interested in a certain topic or have a

certain motivation, related to study/professional/personal purposes – passing an exam, writing

an essay/study/thesis, gaining personal or professional knowledge, pursuing a hobby or a

pleasant pastime. In the classroom, this can be realised by selecting interesting texts, relevant

for the students’ age, language level and interests, as well as by devising inciting pre-reading

activities, aimed at arousing interest and curiosity.

c) Knowledge of the world

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We never approach a text without referring it to our previous experience of the domain, topic,

author, culture or context. Thus any new information is integrated with our previous

knowledge of the world, by which we contribute meaning to the text. In class, the pre-reading

stage should exploit and activate the students’ relevant knowledge.

d) Knowledge of culture

In our first language, comprehension is aided by our knowledge of our culture and everyday

reality. With authentic texts, which are inherently culture-bound, the cultural gap may impede

the comprehension of certain issues, details, references, names, jokes, anecdotes. It is the

teacher’s task to provide the necessary background information so as to alleviate cultural

incomprehension.

e) Knowledge of text types

Our knowledge of the world and culture also help us assign a text to a category/text type –

newspaper/magazine article, letter, diary, essay, short-story, novel, scientific book. A

classroom reading programme should acquaint students with a variety or text types in the

foreign language.

STAGING IN INTENSIVE READING ACTIVITIES

As opposed to real life or extensive reading, classroom reading in a foreign language, also

called intensive reading, involves tasks aimed at developing the students’ comprehension

skills and reading strategies. Even if the tasks are designed to simulate or replicate the

principles and strategies underlying real reading, they will still retain their didactic character

of teaching/learning techniques, inherently intensive in terms of procedure and conditions. A

classroom reading activity sequence should comprise three important stages: pre-reading,

while-reading and post-reading. The tasks at each stage are meant to reflect the interactive

aspects and operations at work in everyday reading and to train the particular sub-skills

engaged in effective reading comprehension.

1. PRE-READING ACTIVITIES

In real life, we hardly ever engage with a reading text with an empty mind – we always have

some idea of what we are going to read about. We are able to make some predictions about

content, topics or ideas, based on our previous knowledge of the context, text (discourse)

type, topic, background (temporal/spatial setting). The pre-reading stage is meant to replicate

these conditions by warming the students up to the topic, activating their relevant general

knowledge and encouraging them to make predictions about what they will read/learn about.

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Prediction tasks will also arouse interest and curiosity, as the students will be eager to check

if their predictions were true.

a) Predicting/anticipating topic/content from para-textual features (title, picture,

illustrations, front cover)

The lead-in phase will consist in involving the students in making predictions about what

they are going to read, on the basis of the para-textual features which a fluent reader uses to

anticipate content – titles, headline, headings, pictures, illustrations, front-page or cover. The

teacher asks the students to use one or several of the above features to speculate about the

likely content of the text. The students are encouraged to talk about the anticipated topic or

ideas and about any relevant previous experience, knowledge, attitudes or preferences. E.g.:

What information would you expect to find in the following reading text?

A newspaper article with the headline Plane Crashes in the Andes

A chapter in a popular science book called Comets

A romantic story called I’m Lost which begins: I know I haven’t spoken for a

while, but I was thinking about you and it kind of made me smile. So many

things to say, and I’ll put them in a letter...

As shown above, predictions can be made from a first sentence/paragraph. Alternatively, the

students can be asked to make predictions from a number of words taken out from the text.

b) Brainstorming/predicting ideas on the topic

The students will answer such questions as: ‘What would you like to know about the

text?/What do you already know about the subject of the text?’ They can work in pairs or

groups to brainstorm ideas based on their previous knowledge of the topic, which they can

share with other pairs and groups until a complete list is put on the board. The students may

be asked to predict which ideas or issues are most likely to come up in the text.

c) Raising questions/expectations

This is an interest-raising task, meant to increase the students’ motivation to read the text.

The underlying principle is that we normally read because there is something we want to find

out, some information we want to check or clarify or some opinion we want to match against

our own. If in the above brainstorming activity the students are asked to write down what

they already know about the topic, this time they are required to think about what they would

like to know and to write down any questions which they would like answered. The questions

may be based on a given title, a suggestive picture illustration, a first sentence or paragraph, a

set of key words. The activity is meant to activate the students’ previous knowledge, to get

them to connect old and new information and formulate expectations about learning what

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interests them. It increases motivation as it gets students to personalise their reasons for

reading – to have their own questions answered.

d) Anticipating topic vocabulary – vocabulary pre-teaching/post-teaching

considerations

A reader usually uses his previous knowledge of the topic to anticipate lexical content.

Students should be involved in brainstorming and activating the words they know about the

topic and compile a common list of words which they think might come up in the text. While

reading, they can be asked to check their vocabulary predictions. If the teacher thinks the text

contains words likely to hinder comprehension, he/she may choose to pre-teach them or ask

students to look them up in the dictionary. If not, it would be preferable to postpone working

with words until the post-reading stage, which will be more productive, as it gives students

the chance to deal with new words in a more natural and interactive way, that is to guess their

meaning from context.

2. WHILE-READING ACTIVITIES

At the while-reading stage of a reading lesson, the primary activity should consist in learners

reading texts silently and doing comprehension tasks set by the teacher. While the students

are reading, the teacher should keep a low profile and allow students to explore the text in

silence, without unnecessary interruptions. If the students work on reading task-sheet, the

class feedback session can be done at the end of each activity or, preferably, at the end of the

lesson.

Reading comprehension tasks should be aimed at training the two important reading

strategies and sub-skills: skimming (identifying the main idea or gist of a text) and

scanning (focussing on specific information/details in a text). During a reading lesson, it is

desirable that students should have both skimming and scanning exercises.

2.1. SKIMMING TASKS

Skimming (through) a text means reading quickly or perusing the text for the main idea/gist,

without reading word by word or sentence by sentence. It is the strategy we normally use for

global comprehension or getting a general idea of a text or book. It involves speed-reading,

i.e. browsing/leafing through pages or looking over a text to get the main idea in the shortest

time possible. That is why skimming activities should always be done within a set time-limit,

with the teacher specifying the allocated time from the beginning and timing the students’

reading. The time limit should be carefully thought out – it should be short to encourage

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speed, but realistic in terms of task complexity, as too short a time frame may frustrate

students who haven’t been able to finish the task. Matching a title to an article can take two

minutes, while ordering jumbled paragraphs may take 10 minutes.

a) Matching titles/headlines/headings/topic sentences to text/paragraphs

These activities can be done with several texts/excerpts or on a single text. With several texts,

the students can be asked to match 3-4 headlines/summaries with the corresponding news

items, or some titles/summaries with texts of different types. On a single text, the students

can do a multiple matching exercise based on a number of headings or summary statements

to be matched with the corresponding sections or paragraphs in the text. A variation can be

offering a text in which the topic sentences of the paragraphs have been erased, and the

jumbled topic sentences which the students have to match to the corresponding paragraph.

b) Identifying the topic (of a text or paragraph)

This is a variation of the above activity, requiring the skimming of a text or paragraph to

identify the topic. The students will state the topic themselves or can answer a multiple

choice question. They should also be taught to exploit the role of the topic sentence in a

paragraph.

c) Summarising the gist of a text/paragraph (by a title/heading/sentence)

Students are required to skim a text or paragraph and suggest a title, heading or sentence

which best summarises its main idea.

d) Ordering jumbled paragraphs

The students are given cut-outs containing the paragraphs of a text. In pairs or groups,

students have to put them in the right order within a relatively short time limit. The students

will have to take into account the logical sequence/coherence of the paragraphs, as well as the

linking words or topic sentences which can provide clues as to what may come before or after

each paragraph. The groups report their results and explain the ordering clues they have used.

e) Jigsaw reading

A variation on the above activity can take the form of a jigsaw reading, where each student

in a group is given a different paragraph. The one who thinks is the first will tell the others a

summary of his/her paragraph, and each of them will do the same when they consider they

come next. At the end they put their paragraphs together and check results. The activity

integrates reading with listening and speaking.

f) Comprehension/open-ended questions

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Comprehension questions can be aimed at checking general comprehension if they are

focused on important areas of meaning rather than on details. They help guide the students’

reading of the text – good questions should focus their attention on the main points and lead

them to think about the meaning of the text. E.g.: What is the writer’s main argument against

zoos? Do you agree with it?

2.2. SCANNING TASKS

Such tasks are aimed at training the students to scan the text for bits of specific information.

Scanning strategies also presuppose speed-reading, so the teacher should set time limits for

any such exercises. Scanning activities can be applied to any kind of text or to more

specialised texts. To replicate the real life contexts in which we use this reading strategy to

focus on the information we need, we should illustrate them by special purpose texts such as

transport timetables, TV guides, tourist brochures, travel information guides/leaflets, user’s

manuals, menus, directories, etc.

a) Yes/No questions/ True/false statements

This is a quite simple and common exercise, extremely useful for scanning activities, as it

focuses the students’ attention to items of specific information. It can also be organised as a

reading competition, whose winner is the first to answer the questions correctly.

b) Special/Wh-questions

Special questions provide students with both a purpose and a clear focus while reading. The

expected answers can be shorter or longer, depending on the complexity of the response

required. If used with systematised informative texts such as timetables, TV or tourist guides,

this exercise also lends itself to a competition, with the winner being the first one to find the

answers.

E.g.: What film is on Channel 4 on at 8 pm on Monday?/What time is the Docklands Museum

open at weekends? What is the entrance fee?

c) Detailed comprehension questions

Comprehension questions are, more often than not, the most commonly widespread exercise

for checking detailed comprehension and focusing the students’ attention on particular items

of information. They show the teacher and the students themselves how well they have

understood the text, and what needs to be more fully explained.

d) Inference questions

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Inference questions are meant to get the students probe into the meaning of the text at a

deeper level and infer or ‘guess at’ potential shades of meaning not explicitly expressed, but

rather suggested by the text. In other words, inference can be defined by reading between the

lines for meaning, ideas, attitudes, stances, motivations, moods or feelings which are only

obliquely or indirectly touched upon or understated. Inference questions also train the

students’ ability of identifying the writer’s purpose and tone. E.g.: Why do you think the girl

decided not to leave home after all?/Why does the story begin with a pre-view of the ending

scene? What is the role of the long enumeration in paragraph 3?

e) Information transfer (grid completion)

The students are given a grid/table with different headings referring to specific items of

information. They have to complete the table with brief notes of the relevant information

required by each heading – that is to ‘transfer information’ to a different kind of format. The

main purpose of completing the table is to help focus the students’ attention on the main

points of a text, and make it easier for them to organise the information in their minds.

Besides, by giving students’ practice in note-taking, the activity helps them to develop

efficient note-taking skills and systematise information in a concise manner – which is very

important for their study skills. For example, if working on a text concerning a personality

profile, the headings may be: Hometown, Family, Education, First job, First film/Hollywood

success/Oscar nomination/award, Home, Marriage and children, Earnings, Charity causes,

etc.

f) Reading race/competitions

Bringing an element of fun to a reading activity is a worthwhile variation, as it helps build

both motivation and confidence. Competitive activities may be concerned with either

skimming or scanning skills. Arranging jumbled paragraphs/sentences can be used for

skimming, while scanning activities, as already illustrated above, may involve finding

answers to a number of questions within a certain time limit, filling in gaps with the missing

phrases from a list. The activities can be played individually or in groups.

2.3. EXPLORING TEXT ORGANISATION

Text organisation constitutes an aid to comprehension in itself, therefore students should be

taught to exploit the logical, rhetorical and linguistic devices which hold a text together and

help clarify meaning. Apart from facilitating comprehension, exercises which draw attention

to text organisation features are essential in helping students with their own writing, as it is

commonly known that good readers usually make good writers. Consequently, such

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awareness-raising activities have a much wider scope, in that they are training reading sub-

skills and strategies which, implicitly and naturally lead into writing.

a) Examining text organisation elements

To begin with, thinking of text organisation features help consolidate the students’

knowledge of text types. Assigning the text to a type means an awareness of defining

organisational features, which we use in distinguishing between letters, articles,

argumentative essays, literary or scientific texts. Engaging students in evaluating paragraph

sequencing and the relationship between the different parts/sections of a text can be done

through any skimming exercise which requires multiple matching (main ideas and

paragraphs), identifying the topic or gist of each paragraph or ordering jumbled paragraphs.

After identifying the main topic and paragraph divisions of a text, students can be asked to

complete a diagram illustrating the format/plan/outline of the text, which they can use as a

model for their own writing assignments. For example, a text descriptive essay model for

describing people can be represented as follows.

Students can also be involved in examining paragraph construction, which also teaches them

how to write a good paragraph themselves. They can examine the way in which the main idea

and supporting details are organised within a paragraph by analysing the role/function of each

sentence – the topic sentence and supporting statements. E.g.: Decide how the other sentences

in paragraph 2 expand the information given in the topic/key sentence. Does any of them: a)

give examples? b) give a further explanation? c) give a judgement? d) do a mixture of the

above? e) do something else?

b) Text coherence

Text coherence concerns the logical connection and arrangement between ideas, paragraphs

or sentences in a text and the use of discourse markers (sentence adverbs or adverbial

phrases signalling order and sequence, additional new points, contrasting points, etc.) in

ensuring the logical flow of ideas. Activities focused on coherence can involve identifying a

paragraph or sentence which does not belong in the text, ordering jumbled sentences,

deciding the order of 3-4 expressions taken out of the text or examining the functions of the

linking phrases or discourse markers mentioned above.

c) Text cohesion

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Character/Personality

Final comments/present feelingsno

Physical appearance/Clothes Howyou met

Introduction How you met

Text cohesion concerns the syntactic and lexical mechanisms which hold the text together or

make it cohere at discrete level – how ideas and sentences are joined or related to each other.

Activities may involve identifying and analysing the use of the cohesive deviceswithin a

sentence or paragraph – linkers, conjunctions, demonstrative pronouns, articles, anaphoric

reference (backwards, to a previous element) or cataphoric reference (forwards, to a

subsequent element) references. E.g.: What does ‘it’/’this’/‘that’/‘do so’ in line 25 refer to?

3. POST-READING ACTIVITIES

Post-reading activities usually deal with the students’ reactions to the text. They encourage

students to comment on ideas, agree/disagree with issues, share opinions and impressions

about what they have read, make value judgements, assess experiences, etc. They also

promote the integration of reading with other skills (speaking, listening, writing), since, as it

happens in real life, reading is often a pre-text for talking or writing.

a) Evaluation and response

A reader usually evaluates and reacts to a text in various ways – discussing with others,

exchanging opinions, agreeing, disagreeing, arguing in favour or against points in the text,

writing/doing something in response, changing certain habits or behaviours, etc. Students can

be asked to react in a quite simple, yet telling manner:

E.g.: Read/say aloud the sentence in the text which:

- you like best- you most agree/disagree with- you will tell your parents/friends about- impressed you the most- set you thinking/gave you food for thought- changed your perspective on the matter- made you want to do/change something

b) Discussions, debates

These are more ample activities regarding the reactions mentioned about, in which students

can discuss in pairs or groups certain issues related to the text. They may be asked to

interpret/explain certain facts or ideas/comment on situations and people/find solutions to

problems presented/think or speculate on of causes and effects/plan a course of action, etc.

c) Jigsaw reading

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This is an approach to reading which involves the students in speaking and summarising

skills. It is very useful when working with short authentic texts such as newspaper

articles.Jigsaw reading is a great way to introduce speaking into a reading lesson. It provides

a real opportunity for genuine communication. In real life, we may tell people about a news

article we have read, so this is a classroom activity that is fairly authentic.Jigsaw reading can

be done in two ways:

i. Twoseparate stories

We can use two news stories which share a theme – for example two separate stories on

holidays gone wrong. The teacher prepares comprehension questions for each story andgives

one half of the class (Group A) one story, and the other half (Group B) the other. The

students read their article, answer the questions and check understanding. Students then pair

up with someone from the other group and tell them about their story, and listen to the other

one. To help students remember their story we may get them to take notes, but, in order to

keep the challenge, we should not allow them to take the article with them to refer to.

ii.One story split in two

Some stories can be clearly divided in two. We can follow the same procedure as above, but

giving each group only one half of the story. When the students are recounting their half of

the article, we should make sure that the student with the opening half goes first.The activity

integrates reading with listening and speaking.

d) Role-play

Role-play activities can be used with texts focused on people – personality profiles,

biographies, historical documents, outstanding people’s achievements, or with literary

characters. Assuming the role of certain characters in the reading, students can ask/answer

questions and speculate on the motives or reasons of their actions, the nature of their

experiences, etc.

e) Imaginary interviews

The students, acting as themselves this time, are asked to write interview questions they

would like to ask a person they have read about in a reading text. They can also be

encouraged to imagine the potential answers or can interview other students who will play the

part of the imaginary interviewee.

f) Written response activities

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Reading activities should also be used as a springboard for writing activities. Students are

asked to respond in writing to issues they have read about. For instance, they can write letters

(to the editor, complaint, enquiry), reports, proposals, leaflets, manifestoes, articles, etc. They

can write as themselves or, especially with human interest stories or literary texts, which lend

themselves to role-playing, they can assume the role of a character, writing a letter or a diary

entry from his/her perspective. Other challenging tasks may be writing a continuation to a

story ora different ending.

g) Vocabulary building tasks

Reading texts are usually a rich source of new vocabulary, therefore they should be used for

vocabulary expansion. Providing the new words do not hinder comprehension, it is usually

worthwhile postponing vocabulary matters to the post-reading stage, telling students not to

worry about the words they don’t know. This helps prepare students psychologically to deal

with unknown vocabulary and accustoms them to guessing meaning from context.

Consequently, post-reading vocabulary tasks should be based on discovery and inference

techniques: matching words/phrases with definitions; multiple choice

definitions/explanations; finding synonyms/antonyms for words given by the teacher; using

the words in sentences of their own, writing a text using the new words.

4. USING LITERARY TEXTS

Literature is an inexhaustible source of interesting, motivational and instructive texts, so

literary texts should also figure in a balanced reading programme. Of course, sources should

be well-adapted to the learner’s age, interests and language level. There is a wide variety of

children’s books the teacher can use, from classical to contemporary storybooks such as those

of Roald Dahl or J.K. Rawling, for instance. Teenage literature is also well-represented, a

good example being Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole books (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole,

Aged 13¾, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, etc.). Literary texts provide learners with

situations and characters they may identify with, or with flights of fancy which can develop

their imagination, creativity and linguistic ability. The texts can be exploited from many

different perspectives and using various strategies. They may also offer an incentive for more

ambitious projects such as dramatisations or script-writing and, why not, even short amateur

films. What is more important, however, is the potential of a well-chosen literary text to whet

the students’ appetite for reading literature outside the classroom, which would be a

tremendous gain for all those concerned.

5. ENCOURAGING EXTENSIVE READING

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Motivating students to read extensively outside the classroom should be the envisioned

corollary of any reading programme. Well-conducted intensive reading activities have their

role in increasing motivation for reading, but they should be supplemented by class activities

specially targeted at extensive reading. Some recommended strategies are presented below.

a) Using readers

The numerous graded readers available on the market, adapted for different language levels,

provide a goodsource of reading materials. There are also packages of teaching resources

specially designed for activities based on the use of readers in and out of class. The teacher

should of course have access to a reasonable number of readers which can be circulated

among the students. Setting up a class library can be a positive move, as the very visibility

of available books will help in raising reading interests, especially if all tastes are catered for,

in terms of a variety of topics and genres.

b) Let me recommend...

As in real life, the books we liked should be talked about, commented, recommended and

passed around. Therefore the teacher should organise regular sessions in which individual

students report on their writing and recommend a book to their peers. The teacher can provide

the students with a simple format for a book review, containing such headings as: Title,

Author, Plot, Characters, Why I liked it.

c) Book of the month corner

Students should be encouraged to enter the titles they liked on a list available on a wall

display/class notice-board. Any student who read the same book can write a mark (1to5) and

a short comment on a certain book card (see Harmer, 212). At the end of the school year, the

students can compile the ‘Book hit-list’ with the books ranking highest in their preferences.

Whatever strategies and activities we may devise to encourage our students to read

widely, they should highlight the value of reading as a pleasurable, rewarding and enriching

pastime which benefits them in the long run, both personally and socially.

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Chapter 6

DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILLS

Speaking and writing skills belong to the category of productive skills, as they require

learners to produce language input, oral or written. Of course, we can talk about learner

language production only with reference to free practice, communicative activities, based

entirely or at least to a large extent on student input.

Needless to say, productive skills are more difficult to develop than comprehension

skills, and require more time and effort on the part of both teacher and learners. With

speaking and writing, progress is often slow and not so readily evident or so accurately

measurable. Building fluency takes time and requires patience, sustained effort, plenty of

confidence-building activities, as well as constant encouragement and positive feedback from

the teacher.

As in the other areas of language and skills practice, speaking practice includes

controlled, semi-controlled and free practice activities, in which teacher or student control

over language depends on language proficiency level, activity focus and type

(accuracy/fluency). As various types of more or less controlled speaking activities have

already been illustrated in the previous chapters, this chapter will focus on free speaking,

interactive, fluency building activities, aimed at developing oral communication skills.

A balanced general English course should include activities illustrating the variety of

text types found in everyday communication, which can be categorised as follows:

a) Social/Personal: Small talk and social chat; Personal conversation; Anecdotes and

jokes

b) Everyday transactional/informational: Service encounters (shop, bank, healthcare);

Transactional conversations (instructions, explanations, directions, descriptions,

arrangements); Discussions (planning and problem-solving); Meetings

c) Educational/Professional/Specialised: Lessons; Lectures and seminars; Reports and

presentations; Speeches; Interviews and consultations; Discussions and debates; Plays

and sketches

A well-balanced speaking programme should include all activities from sections a, b, though

some text types in section c can very well be used for free speaking activities.

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1. MAIN PRINCIPLES IN SETTING UP FREE-SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

a) Motivation

Raising motivation is essential for the success of a speaking activity. This can be realised

through selecting interesting topics, suited for the students’ age and interests. The students

also need to be warmed-up to the topic by lead-in questions, examples and queries which

help generate interest. We should also give the activity a clear purpose, which can be created

by giving the students a task to solve, involving a clear outcome, result, solution or agreement

which they are supposed to reach at the end of the activity.

b) Class layout and seating arrangements

We should make sure that the class layout is suitable for the activity. Appropriate seating

arrangements will be made for group-work (problem solving), pair-work (face to face for

information gap/back to back for phone conversations) or whole class discussion (circle).

c) Planning

The procedure and organisation for the activity should be carefully thought out by the teacher

before class: activity sequence and timing, necessary materials (visuals, handouts, crayons,

poster sheets, etc.).

d) Preparation time

In order to help the students perform the activity in good conditions, we should allow them

enough time for preparation – brainstorming, working out ideas and opinions, thinking about

useful language. Many activities are unsuccessful because the students are not given time to

think things through. Group-work activities, in particular, require adequate preparation for

the task.

e) Useful structures and vocabulary

The teacher has to make sure that the students are equipped with the appropriate structures

and vocabulary they need to use. We should check/revise/pre-teach any useful vocabulary or

structures we think necessary.

f) Clear instructions and demonstration

We should always make sure that the students have understood our instructions and know

exactly what to do. To this effect, we can ask a student to repeat the instructions. Better still,

we should give a short demonstration of what they have to do or what language to use during

the activity.

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g) Timing

We should not let the activity go on for too long, so that students will not be left to linger

unnecessarily, lose interest or even switch off. We should also leave sufficient time for

reporting, feedback and correction.

h) Correction

During pair-work or group-work speaking activities, the teacher should try to keep a low

profile and not interrupt students or interfere with their work unless something goes wrong or

communication breaks down. The best way of dealing with errors occurring during a

speaking activity is delayed correction, i.e. after the activity – we can take notes of any

language or interaction mistakes we hear and bring them to the students’ attention at the end.

i) Integration with other skills

Speaking activities can and should always be integrated with other skills. They are often used

as part of a listening, reading or writing sequence, or as free language practice for reinforcing

grammar or vocabulary. A speaking activity should be used as a lead-in to more discussion or

to a writing/reading/listening task.

2. COMMUNICATIVE SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

Communicative activities for free oral practice commonly presuppose pair work and group

work. In order to motivate students to work together in pairs/groups, the activities have to be

task-based – if students know what they have to achieve, they will have a purpose to work

towards, i.e. solving the task. Basically, the most common communicative activities are of

four main types – Information Gap, Guessing games, Problem Solving and Role Play –

but the range is in fact much wider, with mixed kinds of tasks. The most productive speaking

activities for free oral communication are described below.

2.1. INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES (Info-gap)

Usually suitable for pair work, but also for group work, these activities are based on an

information gap, i.e. the students have different information which they have to share in order

to fulfil the given task. In other words, the need to exchange information provides the need to

communicate, usually by means of question and answer patterns of interaction. In an

information gap activity, each student working in a pair (A and B) is given a handout

containing information his/her partner does not have. The task varies depending on the

language or topic focus of the activity. Most often, they have to exchange information in

order to reach a decision, an agreement, a conclusion, a certain result (filling in a chart) or to

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create something (a map, a drawing, a description, an object/handicraft item). As they are not

supposed to see each other’s information, the best seating arrangement for the pair is face-to-

face. Possible tasks may include:

Agreeing on a common plan/action.

Students are asked to agree on a time to meet, a place to go together, a course of action to

take or choice to make, by working with handouts containing different information.

Achieving a result

The handouts may also contain incomplete texts, tables, diagrams, or pictures, so students

have to exchange information by asking and answering questions, as they depend on which

other to complete their items.

a) Pictures with differences

The students are given quite similar pictures containing a number of differences

(number/colour of objects, different people/animals/furniture/street/position in space). They

are told there are 10 differences, for example. To fulfil the task, they take turns to ask and

answer questions, paying attention to and recording the differences they identify.

b) Chart completion

The students are given charts with different missing information. To complete them, they

have to ask their partners, who have the information they need.

c) Map completion

The students are given handouts with the map of a street, village, town, zoo, store, etc. Each

student has elements the other has not, so they have to ask and answer questions in order to

complete their maps with the missing items put in the right place.

d) Drawing instructions

The students are given handouts with different shapes/objects/places/people/animals. The

task requires that each of them draws the picture on their partner’s handout by listening to

each other’s descriptions and instructions. Without handouts, the task can be that each of

them describes his/her room so that their partner can draw a plan of the room.

2.2. GUESSING GAMES

Guessing games are communicative activities roughly based on the information gap principle,

involving the interaction between a ‘knower’ and a ‘guesser’. The guessers will ask Yes/No-

questions until they guess what the knower is miming or thinking about.

a) Guessing games: 20 Qs

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This is a popular game. It can be played either in pairs or with the whole class. In a pair, the

partners take turns as ‘knower’ and ‘guesser’. Each thinks of an activity, person, job, animal,

country, continent, place, etc. They try to guess what the other is thinking of by asking

relevant Yes/No questions (up to 20) focused on structures and topics fit to the context. With

the whole class, one student is the knower, answering the questions asked by his peers.

b) Mime/Charades

This is another type of entertaining guessing game, also used for amusement at social get-

togethers. The knower has to mime the concept he/she has in mind, nodding or shaking his

head in response to the others’ questions.

c) In the manner of the adverb

This is a mime in which the focus is on guessing the manner in which a certain action is

performed. A student is secretly instructed by the teacher to do an action in a certain manner,

e.g. to make coffee angrily. The class will ask questions using adverbs of manner.

d) Hotel reception

This is another mime variation which can be played in pairs, with one student acting as a

guest at a hotel and the other as a receptionist. The guest mimes a problem with the service or

accommodation which the receptionist has to guess.

e) Names on the back

The teacher sticks ‘name cards’ on the students’ backs. The cards can bear the name of a

famous person (historical figure, politician, writer, music or film star, literary character) or,

alternatively, the name of an animal. Students will ask and answer questions so as to help

each other guess their mysterious identity.

f) Call my bluff

Either in front of the class or in pairs, students will tell their peers a story or anecdote, real or

invented. Alternatively, they can tell two stories, while the others have to decide in which the

teller speaks the truth and in which he/she is merely bluffing.

g) Find someone who

The activity begins with a matching exercise, with two separate lists of items to be matched

so as to obtain adjective + noun collocations, e.g. light sleeper, heavy smoker, close friend.

After checking the correct combinations, the students move round the class to find someone

who: is a light sleeper, have a heavy smoker in their family, has a close friend of a different

nationality, has had a serious illness, etc.

h) Information gathering: questionnaires/surveys

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Students are asked to gather information about their classmates by devising a questionnaire

on various topics: hobbies, pastimes, sports, holidays, eating/reading habits, likes/dislikes,

etc.They have to go around the class asking questions and recording answers on their report

sheet. At the end the students process the data collected and present their findings under the

form of pie-charts, stack columns, graphs or diagrams.

i) Interviews

The students interview each other on a given topic: future plans/career/holidays, past

experiences, family, relationships, friends, study or pastime preferences, etc. At the end each

student produces an oral or written account of the interview. The interviewers/interviewees

can act as themselves or play the role of other people (family members, friends – an exercise

in empathy!), of celebrities or even animals, which really appeals to their empathic

imagination.

j) Quizzes

Quizzes can be organized as pair, group or whole class activities. Each group can devise a

quiz based on topics studied in class (wildlife, geographical/historical/cultural

facts/films/books/music, etc. It can be conducted orally or in writing. It is more challenging if

organised as a competition between two/three teams, in which the winning team has the most

correct answers.

k) Story swap: urban myths

Multiple story swapping is a complex activity, involving jigsaw reading and exchanging

stories. It can be organised with four very short stories, for instance urban myths or news

articles. Students will be put in four groups A, B, C, D. Each group will read the same story

and are asked to prepare to tell the story as accurately as they can to members from other

groups. Then they are put into pairs AB, CD and tell their partners the stories they have just

read. Then they get into other pairs BC, AD and then BD, AC to tell their peers the stories

they have just heard. By telling and retelling stories they have heard from others, they

actually replicate the way in which urban myths are created and circulated.

2.3. ROLE PLAY ACTIVITIES

Role play tasks involve a social or transactional type of interaction. The purpose of the

exchange and the role particulars should be made clear on the role cards allocated to the

students working in pairs or groups, which provide the information gap required for a

meaningful exchange of information. Role playing also involves a strong focus on language

functions: persuasion, invitations, refusals, agreeing, disagreeing, etc. In designing a role

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play, we should think of a context or situation presenting a potential clash conflict of interest,

opinions or ideas. At the same time role plays should reflect clear social roles: teacher,

parent, policeman, driver, ecologist, salesperson, customer, public figure, artist, etc. Role

cards are essential in defining the profile and goal of the interlocutors students have to

impersonate while interacting with theirpartners.

a) Agony columns/Agony aunts/uncles

This popular magazine column in which the columnist – called an agony aunt/uncle – offers

advice to readers requesting advice on a problem can be adapted for role play focused on the

function of asking for and giving advice. It works better in pairs rather than groups. Each

student receives a role card containing a problem (relationships, school, work, career, health,

etc). Every student complains about his problem and receives advice from his partner.

Alternatively, both the problem and the advice can be expressed in writing, with each student

receiving a problem card to respond to in writing. For this version, the role play can be

dropped in favour of a self-expression exercise, where the students can write their own

problems on unsigned pieces of paper, which the teacher distributes around the class, asking

students to offer advice on the problem in question. As students may be sensitive about this

self-revealing context, anonymity is obligatory. All the pieces of paper will be gathered on

the teacher’s desk, so the students can collect their ‘advice letter’ at the end of the lesson.

b) Celebrity interview

The students interview each other in the role of a famous person, taking turns to play the

interviewer or interviewee. The roles can be either ascribed by the teacher or chosen by the

students themselves, according to their preferences and interests.

c) Job interviews

Students are distributed into job seekers and members of the interviewing board. Both

candidates and interviewers will be given the job description and requirements. Individual

candidates will be interviewed by the board, which will then deliberate on the most suitable

candidate for the job. While the activity can be really challenging, its competitive nature may

cause problems and upset those not selected, so things should be handled sensitively.

d) Party

Students are given cards about different party guests. They have to mingle and make

conversation with the other guests, acting out the respective part they have received. A

variation can be a party with parents, children and teachers, in which the guests discuss

problematic issues related to school or family life.

e) Criminal investigation/trial

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Students are given the particulars of a criminal case and of the people involved – accused,

plaintiff, prosecuting counsel, defence counsel, police officer, judge, jury, witnesses,

character witnesses, etc. Each student will be allocated a role to play in a class staging of a

trial.

f) Brokers/Merchandisers

Students will be divided into brokers and clients. The brokers have to promote a certain

product and convince their potential buyers of the benefits. They can broker any kind of

goods or services, or more abstract things such as luck, fortune, beauty, celebrity, love, etc.

When they have found their clients, they sit down together. During the feedback session, the

clients will tell the class why they chose a certain product and what arguments convinced

them.

2. 4. PROBLEM SOLVING/DEBATE ACTIVITIES

a) Problem solving

This activity can be done either as a role play, with students in the group assuming a given

role in a given context, or, for a more realistic context, the students can discuss issues from

their own perspective, acting as themselves. The activity consists in asking the students to

discuss and agree on possible solutions to a certain problem. A real or imaginary problem is

presented by the teacher, orally or on a fact-file handout. This can be in connection with a

real problem – solutions for cleaning a polluted area/reducing pollution in their

area/publicising an event or product/repairing a malfunctioning machine or

vehicle/converting or finding a use for an old building in town/refurbishing the school

building/raising funds for a cause/protecting an endangered species/community/area, etc.

Alternatively, the problems can be brain-teasers or puzzles to work out, or more imaginative

problems like being on a space mission and having to deal with a technical problem.

b) Choosing candidates

The students are given a list of candidates for a competition, job, manager, as well as relevant

information about them. The candidates’ profiles should include details about their

background, qualities, abilities and skills, experience, interests, commitment or leadership

potential. The group has to discuss their suitability and reach a decision about the most

suitable candidate. The functions practiced can be agreeing, disagreeing, suggesting,

persuading, arguing one’s opinion, expressing ability, possibility, positive/negative deduction

(using modal verbs).

c) Priorities rating

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This type of activity requires prioritising elements in a critical situation e.g. survival contexts/

games (fire, shipwreck, flood, earthquake, vehicle breakdown, etc. Students have to rate their

priorities according to certain criteria (usefulness, urgency). This involves thinking and

talking about what actions should come first, what objects might be useful in a given

emergency or survival scenario.

d) Balloon debates

Balloon debates are also based on a priority rating principle. We tell students that they are in

an overloaded balloon which is in danger of falling and they have to get rid of an element –

person, thing, ideas or concepts – in order to save the balloon. They have to decide which

element has to go first, which is likely to generate discussion and arguments.

e) Debates

The students are introduced to a controversial issue in the real world, relevant for their age,

level and interests. They have to discuss the respective issue, from various perspectives,

arguing their standpoints, giving arguments and examples. A debate can be organised in

groups or with the whole class.

2.5. PERSONALISATION ACTIVITIES

Irrespective of the organisation of free practice activities – individually, pairs, groups, whole

class – opportunities for self-expression will promote better learning and aid retention. By

having students share their personal experience, feelings, tastes and interests with their peers,

we enhance a good rapport between students and a cooperative atmosphere.

a) Free conversation – exchanging personal information/opinions

Students share information about issues relevant to their everyday life: their plans for the

weekend/holidays; travel experiences; childhood memories; favourite

pastimes/food/books/film/music stars; opinions on topics of general human interest, etc. They

can extend the discussion to their family and friends. They can do this in pairs, groups or in a

whole class discussion.

b) Speeches

Students may be encouraged to prepare a short speech on a certain topic and give it in front of

the class. They can choose to speak on a topic studied in class or on something that

preoccupies or interests them – a hobby, an extracurricular activity, a social, economic,

political or civic problem.

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Chapter 7

DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS

Writing is, arguably, the most difficult skill to develop, as it requires time, effort and

application on the part of the students. It is a product-oriented activity with a more tangible

outcome. The likelihood of making mistakes and being penalised for them is much higher,

therefore raising motivation for writing is harder to achieve. In contrast with speaking,

writing is a less natural activity and channel of everyday communication, where feedback is

not instant, but delayed, and bad, careless grammar is hardly acceptable, especially in formal

style text-types.

For this reason, students need constant and sustained guidance and encouragement

with their writing, so a sensitive attitude and positive feedback on the teacher’s part are

essential. Far too often, teachers may simply evaluate a piece of writing by negative marking,

that is by focusing on what the student failed to do rather than considering what the student

has achieved. That is why the students should be made aware of the nature of writing as a

process which requires careful crafting, revising and editing. Moreover, they should be

involved in self-evaluation and self-correction, activities which can lead to a sense of

achievement, thus helping increase confidence and motivation.

Motivation is at a premium in getting students to write. If we consider the learners’

long-term needs, writing may be considered by many as the least important of the four skills,

since few students are likely to have much use for writing in the foreign language.

Realistically speaking, they are more likely to listen to, read and speak English than to write

it. Besides, they might not often write in their first language. Other daunting problems for

learners may be related to spelling difficulty, complex punctuation, stylistic confusions

between spoken and written English and the stronger possibility of L1 interference.

Nevertheless, writing should not be neglected in a balanced English programme, since it

brings variety to learner and class activity and constitutes an invaluable aid to learning.

1. WRITING FOR LANGUAGE REINFORCEMENT: CONTROLLED

WRITING

He who writes reads twice (Latin proverb)

It is a truism that writing aids language learning and consolidation. For all learners, writing

will represent a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Especially at lower levels, the

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students’ need for writing is most likely only to be for language reinforcement and study

purposes and as a necessary examination skill. At this level, the main importance of writing is

that it helps students to learn, since writing will help them remember new structures and

vocabulary. As writing is done more carefully than speaking, written practice helps focus the

learners’ attention on what and how they are learning, which also requires them to

concentrate on accuracy.

For consolidation purposes, writing is frequently used to finish off the presentation

stage, for structural or lexical practice, to answer comprehension questions, to follow up oral

practice in narrative or dialogue or for homework. Being accuracy-oriented, writing for

consolidation is likely to be strictly controlled, offering learners little control over language.

The best-known and commonly used controlled-writing activities, aimed at language

consolidation with lower levels, are presented below.

a) Copying activities

The first basic form of controlled writing, copying is valuable for reinforcing spelling, lexis

and sentence structure. Though many might consider it an old-fashioned and rather pointless,

boring activity, in real life copying is used as an aid to retention or to keeping a record of

things: addresses, phone numbers, train times, useful bits of information, study notes or

reading notes (poems, quotations, aphorisms, proverbs, song lyrics). The teacher should

provide learners with meaningful copying activities, such as:

Odd man out: the students are given 4-6 words and asked to copy only those words

which belong together (to the same topic or field).

Labelling items: students receive a list of words and small cards on which they copy

each word. They have to use the cards to label classroom objects, people/objects in a

picture/plan/diagram/picture story/cartoon strip/lexical set or on a map.

Classifying items/Compiling category lists: students are given a list of jumbled

words belonging to different topics or semantic field. They have to copy and arrange

them into related categories – house furniture and objects for each room, foods and

drinks for specific meals of the day, men’s or women’s clothing, animal classes, etc.

Ordering jumbled items in the correct sequence: the learners have to copy words

from a jumbled list in their according to their correct sequence: days of the weak,

months/seasons, numerals, daily routines, manufacturing processes.

Finding word pairs/compounds: from a list of jumbled words, the students have to

copy the words which are used together in fixed combinations (bread and butter, bits

and pieces) or combine to form compound words (raincoat, toothpaste).

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Word bingo: the teacher writes a 10 or 12words on the board. Learners are told to

copy any 6 words they want in any order. The teacher will then call out words from

the board. Students who hear all their words will call out ‘Bingo!’

Filling in speech bubbles: the students are given a list of sentencesor dialogue lines

which they have to copy in the right speech bubbles in a picture story or cartoon strip.

Ordering jumbled words in a sentence: by arranging words in their right order in

the sentence, learners get useful practice in grammatical structures and word-order.

Sorting out dialogues/stories/letters from jumbled sentences: copying to sort out

jumbled texts is a meaningful problem-solving type activity which gets learners

thinking about meaning, coherence and text organisation, thus providing them with

good useful models.

Statements I like/agree/disagree with: while reading a text, learners can be asked to

copy the sentences they most like, agree or disagree with.

Exchanging favourite poems/songs/proverbs/ quotations: students should be

encouraged to share such things with their classmates by pinning them up on the class

notice-board or wall display. They will be asked to copy them by hand. Students are

asked to copy the items they like best in a special scrapbook, which will really make

for a quite purposeful copying activity.

b) Dictation activities

A traditional technique in the language classroom, dictation has somehow lost popularity,

being regarded as a rather uninvolving and unchallenging activity. In recent years it has

made a comeback due to the work of Davis and Rinvolucri, who attempted ‘to put a

useful but now undervalued area of work back on the language-teaching map’ (Davis and

Rinvolucri, 5). In doing so, they have upgraded dictation for the communicative

classroom through activities involving student interaction and allowing for increased

student control. Some suggested activities would be:

Shadow dictation. The students are arranged in two parallel rows. The students in the

front row just listen to the teacher, while those behind them have to write. The

listeners are supposed to assist the writers, so during the dictation, the teacher will

allow time for spontaneous consultation. The students in the pair correct the text

together.

Running dictation. The teacher pins up to a board several copies of the same text.

The students are put into groups, with one member acting as ‘scribe’. Group members

take turns in running to the board and then back to dictate to the scribe what they can

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remember. The first group to finish and end up with a reasonably accurate version of

the text wins the competition. The activity introduces an element of task-

interdependency, as all the members contribute to the successful completion of the

task.

Mutual dictation. This is a text reconstruction exercise, in which the two students in

a pair have different gapped versions of the same text. So as to complete their text,

they have to dictate the missing parts to each other.

Delayed transcription. This is another text reconstruction activity involving a kind of

‘self-dictation’. Each student will go to the board to read and remember chunks of a

short text then back again to write them down. Students will run back and forth until

they finish transcribing the text.

Dictogloss. Also known as ‘grammar dictation’, this activity involves the

reconstruction of a text read by the teacher. The teacher reads the text once or twice,

at normal speed, while the students take notes. In groups of three or four, the students

use their notes and work together to recreate the text, as close to the original version

as possible. The activity is quite complex and involving, as it gets students thinking

about grammar, vocabulary, and word order. It also requires them to negotiate

language and meaning, as well as to cooperate on the task.

c) Parallel writing

Parallel writing provides students with controlled writing practice based on a model text,

which they have to rewrite by introducing different information or making certain changes,

according to given cues such as word or picture prompts. Students read a short text and

perhaps study its particular features (e.g. the way the sentences are joined, the use of verb

tenses/the passive). They then write a paragraph which is similar but which involves some

changes. This may mean structure or vocabulary changes – different tense (present to past

tense)/gender (masculine to feminine)/prepositions, using antonyms or synonyms, replacing

nouns by pronouns for back reference in narratives.

More often than not, parallel writing requires learners to write a similar text by

changing the key details in a text on a certain topic. For instance, they read a paragraph about

a student’s day, then write about their own day; after reading a description of a car, they write

descriptions of other cars from a given set of notes/cues; if reading the description of a room,

they will write a description of another room in the picture; after reading a text giving

personal information, they write about other people by using forms giving personal details.

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Albeit rather controlled, parallel writing provides students with useful practice at discourse

level, with paragraph and text organisation, which helps build confidence in tackling later

free writing tasks.

d) Sentence-linking

These activities help introduce students to the use of linking devices (conjunctions, sentence

adverbs) in creating complex sentences. They also raise awareness of the more complex

syntactical structures usually required in written English and of the various functions of

sentence connectors introducing time reference, condition, cause, concession, contrast,

purpose, result, etc. The exercises usually consist of a number of simple sentences to be

combined by means of a given set of connectors. These may require joining sentences by a

certain type of connectors; pairing up jumbled sentences by using one or several connector

types; completing gapped texts by inserting given sentences in the right place;

reconstructing texts from jumbled sentences, by supplying the right connectors;

paragraph/text building on anoutline of connecting devices; rewriting dialogues in indirect

speech, with students supplying the necessary linking words.

e) Guided writing

Guided writing tasks usually provide students with a format, outline or framework for

structuring content and organising ideas. The students are allowed a greater control over

language, while relying on the support of a given structure outline, plan of ideas or an

incomplete text. Guiding activities may include: writing the opening/middle/ending

paragraphs of a given text; constructing a text by following a plan of ideas/word

prompts/character prompts (a number of specific characters)/picture prompts/picture

stories or cartoon strip; writing dialogues from dialogue frames/maps.

f) Writing with oral preparation

Introducing freer writing activities,which require students to produce a text on a given

topic(e.g. ‘write a description of your town or village’) are likely to pose problems for

students, who might be at a loss about what or how to write and find the task frustrating

To make the task easier, we might involve the students in suggesting ideas about

content and organisation so that they will end up with a plan to follow. After introducing the

topic of the writing exercise, the teacher should ask a variety of questions about it, thus

eliciting suggestions for content from the students. In groups or with the whole class, students

will work on a common outline and list of key expressions to be written on the board, which

they can use as a basis for their writing.

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The advantage of oral preparation activities is that they are flexible and can be done in

different ways, according to the students’ abilities and interests. Moreover, the ideas about

what to write come from the students themselves, which makes the activity more interesting

and involves the students more, thus helping them gain confidence about tackling written

tasks. Finally, it integrates writing with listening and speaking skills practice.

2. CREATIVE WRITING – CREATIVITY THROUGH CONTROL

2.1.POETRY WRITING

Writing poetry in the foreign language must not necessarily mean a time of frustration, of

racking one’s brains for a topic, a figure of speech or for a rhyming word. Approaches like

‘I’d like you to write a poem today’, with or without a given topic, can be utterly off-putting

and confusing. The freedom of producing a poem by relying entirely on internal resources

cannot but prove a drawback and a return to the captivity of uninspiring helplessness. The old

saying ‘ninety-nine per cent of inspiration is perspiration’ might not be worth applying in this

situation.

That is why control can be the name of the game in this area. By control we do not

mean thought or content control, but a prescribed outline of form, something like fixed-form

poetry. The use of models is an essential first step. The model need not be a mere object of

contemplation; students should be given tasks by which they can interact with the text and

thus get involved in recreating it - to rearrange jumbled words or lines, to fill-in gaps or even

reconstruct the text from initial letters. The tasks may help to set the students’ minds in tune

or to whet their appetite to produce their own version, after having got familiar with the

overall structure and organization of the poem. Once the right mood has been created,

students are ready to endow their ‘skeleton poem’ with new flesh and blood.

Of course, creation is not seen as instantaneous. It is preceded by establishing a theme

– the model outline can lend itself to any topic area - by discussion and a session of idea

generating, selection and sequencing of ideas. The procedure can make full use of

collaborative writing, carried out in groups or pairs and can easily lead to integration of skills.

Writing a poem does not have to constitute an isolated activity, it can be a follow-up

or corollary to a sequence of lessons, where a discussion, a listening or a reading task centred

on a certain theme or topic are meant to strike a chord and stir the students sensitivity before

the model text is actually introduced.

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What is more, writing poetry does not involve abandoning more pragmatic concerns

such as grammar or function practice. In fact, this kind of activity can be extremely fruitful

and, most of all, a memorable opportunity for reinforcement of grammar.

As marvellously demonstrated by Gunter Gerngross and Herbert Puchta in Creative

Grammar Practice, poetry can become a vehicle for reinforcement, revision, or recycling of

language structure. The model text exploits a certain grammatical area, and the outline to be

filled out provides a highly melodic structure where various tenses or structures become a

kind of leitmotif.

In fact, their book offers a complete grammar course in disguise and teaches us the art

of mixing nothing more than a repetition or substitution drill with loftier elements of poetic

feeling, brooding mood and alert sensitivity distilled in the magic potion called memorability.

What more memorable way of learning grammar than one’s poem, where a personally

evocative association ofemotional content, language and rhythm is transfixed through the

means of a structural pattern. As in the procedure already discussed above, the production of

the students’ own texts is usually the final stage in a whole sequence of listening, reading,

speaking or other pre-writing activities, often carried out in groups.

Of course, the issues of formal control and language practice do not imply an

emphasis on form to the expense of content or personal expression; nor can they be a

hindrance to self-expression. On the contrary, they provide guidance and a foundation on

which to use language imaginatively and construct meaning and poetical effect.

Apart from the grammar-focused outlines mentioned above, there are several well-

known models which we can use with our students. Their virtue is that they lend themselves

to different levels of attainment or age-groups, and usually result in satisfaction and further

motivation to write. They are usually fairly simple poetical forms and though they might feed

on the language of imagination, it is clear and comprehensible language expressed in a simple

form. Some of the most popular forms used to enhance creativity through control will be

examined below.

a) Name poems (Acrostichs)

For those students who cringe when the word ‘poem’ comes up in conjunction with ‘writing

assignment’, writing name poems can be a fun way to help them with this problem. If they

start working on their names, the resulting poems will be a very telling embodiment of their

perceptions and opinions about themselves or about each other and the activity will help to

enhance mutual knowledge and understanding and good class relationships. They can also

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work with names of things, concepts, etc. They will write the word vertically and use each

letter as the first letter of a line. Here are some examples of name poems:

Jumping Maybe

Out of her chair she Another woman would not

Yells ‘That’s right!’ all the time.Understand, but she is

Really

Amazing.

ClassroomsWar

Have Anger

Alot of these Regret

Interesting and useful items,

but they’re not

Recliners.

b) Haiku

The teacher will introduce the idea of a haiku as a long-standing, culture-specific form of

expression, and provide some examples. Attention should be drawn to the characteristics and

conventions which distinguish such a text - the brevity and the way the essence of the subject

is conveyed in the three line structure: short - long - short, not necessarily observing the

precise number of syllables. However, the idea of the 5-7-5 syllable-lines may prove an

additional challenge, so we can encourage the students to try their hand at it.

As a preparation, we choose an object or a word with many associations. The students

will provide as many words as they can connected with this word. Each student will then

choose the ten or twelve words they like best, which to them are most strongly associated

with the subject. The teacher will construct a haiku with the whole class, using some of the

words and ideas on the board and asking for suggestions from the students. There may be

disagreement, and alternative versions produced. The students can be encouraged to say why

they think one version or another is better, or means more to them.

At the production stage, each group is given a different topic card or is allowed to

choose its own topic. We can set a time limit and ask students to write as many haikus as they

can in the time allowed. We can ensure further involvement if we ask them to write their

haikus on separate pieces of paper, without giving a title. When the haikus are displayed on

the wall, students will walk round, reading them all and trying to guess what the topic is.

Examples of haikus:

SUMMER grasses - SPRING: Clouds now and then

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All that remains A hill without a name Giving men reliefOf soldiers’ visions.Veiled in morning mist.From moon-viewing.***The winds of autumn You say one word A flash of lightning:Blow: yet still green And lips are chilled Into the gloomThe chestnut husks. By autumn’s wind.Goes the heron’s cry.

c) Diamondpoem

Structurally more complex than the haiku, the diamond poem draws on the same principle of

free association, both emotional and conceptual and of distillation of personally meaningful

notions.The format is characterized by a fixed morphological configuration disposed in a

diamond-shaped contour. The exercise requires the students to give the essence of their ideas

and to express them concisely (after a previous word association session, as with the haiku).

For lower level students, we need not use grammar terms in the instructions; rather, ‘noun’

can be replaced by ‘person/place/thing’ and adjective by ‘descriptive word’.

(article) nounadjective and adjective

participle, participle, participlenoun, noun, noun, nounparticiple, participle, participle

adjective and adjective (article) noun

As far as the overall tone of the poem is concerned, the convention is that the top and the

bottom lines are antithetical in meaning. The top part is an exposition of a conflict in a

pessimistic tone, the middle section can be a point where opposites converge and intermingle,

while the bottom is a kind of resolution, a triumph of optimism and hope - like the silver

lining of every cloud…

Fall Fathermisty and sad stubborn and taciturnfalling, blustering, freezing doing, going, gettingcold, darkness, blizzards and thaws Parents, respect, man, womanmelting, dripping, blossoming supporting, watching, helping

misty and happy strict and reasonableSpring Mother

d) Prepositionalpoem

Similar to the diamond poem, a prepositional poem fosters self-expression along the same

lines, on the basis of a different format:

Adjective, adjective, nounVerb, verb, verbPrepositional phrase

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Prepositional phrasePrepositional phraseA noun synonym for the rest for the poem

Strict, taciturn parentsteach, lead, lovefrom whereverat wheneveron whatevera lifelong model.

Tedious, boring grammar frustrates, confuses, astonishes in the classroom in the library on dates – wonderful English.

e) Finnish poem

This differs from the formats above in that the prescribed morphological configuration is not

specified, but ‘encoded’ or translated into lexical symbols (we can pretend it is written in

Finnish or in an unknown language). The students will have to ‘translate’ it into English, with

the help of clues to the code - ‘ja’ means ‘and’; all the other words are nouns.

KadutKadutjakukatKadutjanaisetKadutKadutjakukatjanaisetJalapset

Seeds Seeds and rootsSeeds and plantsSeedsSeeds and roots and plantsAnd life.

f) Chinese poem

This explicitly introduces the idea of imitation of form or repetition of theme as a matter of

keeping up literary tradition or paying homage to the past and one’s predecessors.As with the

haiku, a suitable amount of exposure to authentic poems is required. Tricia Hedge proposes a

work card including a short presentation of the particular form accompanied by several

examples. Besides giving the students a chance to exploit these forms creatively, these

activities entail cross-cultural interferences and expanding their aesthetic and cultural

perspective.

HSU KAN WANG JUNG(A wife’s thoughts, III) (In imitation of Hsu Kan)Since you, sir, went away, SINCE you, sir, went away,My bright mirror is dim and untended. My golden burner has had no incense,My thoughts of you are like flowing water; For thinking of you I am like the bright candle,Will they ever have an end? At midnight vainly burning itself away.

g) Shape poem

This draws more on the visual effect than the diamond poem and involves a freer choice of

language and shape. That is why the outcomes may be as various as there are learners. The

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principle of presenting model texts remains an essential one. The procedure involves

brainstorming and listing of things which have a distinctive shape, such as animals, flowers,

toys, machines. Another tip could be getting ideas together for the kind of things that might

be put into the poem, in order to ensure a perfect match between content and shape. With

elementary students upwards, irrespective of age, a shape poem would provide satisfaction on

several levels: intellectual, emotional and visual.

h) Sensorial poem

This offers the possibility of perceiving and capturing tones of meaning underlying abstract

notions or situations of everyday life. It entails a process of free association, of digging up

personal connotations attributed to a certain abstract noun and a synthesis between the senses

(sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) and the associated emotions. The outcomes can be some

outstanding evidence of deep insight, sensitivity and evocative power.

(Sunday morning) is … (colour)It looks like…It smells like…It sounds like…It tastes like…And it feels like…

i) Definitionpoem

This format appeals to the same faculty of making associations and encapsulating them in

self-contained gems of meaning and expression.Students are given a topic (things, people,

concepts) and asked to write metaphorical definitions on separate strips of paper. Each

student will contribute to the pool with three strips. Groups select the definitions they like

best and incorporate them in an up to ten lines poem sequence. Each line will repeat the topic:

X is/are …

j) Poem outline – sociological profiles

Starting from a given outline, the poem aims at discovering the essential features of a certain

human group. It can refer to age, sex or professional groups or people in certain situations.

Again, the activity draws on the power of association and on emotional glimpses into the

essence of human condition and existence – akind of quintessential poem, term equally

applicable to practically all the forms listed above.A possible outline can look like this:

Old people are like…Their clothes are/they dress…They walk…They like…They don’t like…

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They talk about…They are afraid of…Their secrets are…And they dream of…

A common feature characterizing all the poetic forms discussed above is their suitability for

collaborative writing and integration of skills, alongside with guidance through the thorny

paths of creative expression backed up by a success-oriented approach.Though most of them

offer a fixed structure to be observed, they are a springboard for language exploration, with

particular focus on lexis, in such areas as synonymy, antonymy, collocation and connotation.

Playing with language is encouraged as a means towards a product with content at its

core. Using form as a springboard for content-based poetry is an easy and smooth way

towards peaks of lyricism and poetic expression. The quite simple formats described above

can pave the way for more complex and ambitious forms of poetry - why not, the sonnet, if

we are to think of English literary traditions. And if we wax too lyrical or overawed by the

depth of our own poetic feeling and by the seriousness of our writing task, we can always

turn to the more playful resources of English literature: the limerick tradition and all the

range of nonsense rhymes which make a unique literary tradition.

Of course, controlled poetry writing is not to be regarded as the only approach to

poetry. At more advanced levels or within literature lessons, writing a poem can follow as a

response to reading authentic poetry. After careful reading and personalizing the ideational

and emotional texture of a text in the light of one’s own experience and outlook, attempting

to respond through poetry, would be in the natural course of things.

Writing poems in blank verse gives students the opportunity to explore the language,

to organize their ideas with great care, to manipulate sentence structure, to select words, and

to think about appropriate collocations. It also encourages the drafting process, as students

are anxious to make their poems sound right.Of course, the need for seeing their poetic

productions ‘published’ or at least displayed remains a sine-qua-non requirement, as it

provides satisfaction and furthers motivation to write.

2.2. IMAGINATIVE WRITING IN PROSE

Creativity is not the exclusive domain of poetry writing, and a great deal of imaginative

writing can be done in prose. Writing in prose is more likely to elude control than poetry

writing, as it lends itself to a more cursory flow of thought and pen. It involves greater risks

with language, as sometimes linguistic ability will not keep up with the faster pace of

imagination. But even if tight control is excluded, close guidance and carefully chosen

activities can provide the necessary support, at least at the earlier stages.

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The cornerstone of our approach to writing, irrespective of level or age, should be

adequate exposure to various text types, backed up by a careful study of the conventions,

structure or organization displayed by a certain text. Manipulation activities meant to get the

students to interact with the text are highly appropriate for the early stages of a writing

programme. These can take various forms, such as:

arranging jumbled paragraphs, which involves identification of key text sections and

awareness-raising about the conventions of opening, developing and concluding a

text;

providing a missing section of the text: the opening, the middle or the conclusion;

paragraph assembly – from given jumbled sentences;

paragraph completion – from opening sentences;

writing a text from a given summary;

rewriting a text/story from memory, after having read or listened to it.

These are just a few examples from a whole range of sensitizing exercises or more or less

controlled writing practice. They do not exactly give students the opportunity to exert their

creativeness, but they have a definite value for awareness-raising, familiarizing them with

different written products and with the conventions or organizational rules apparent in the

simple texts.

A) STORY WRITING

Actual production of creative texts can begin with fairly short texts sequences, done mainly at

sentence level. Though rather unambitious in form, they may appeal to our students’ sense of

humour (or sense of the absurd, occasionally).

a) Writing jumbled texts

In pairs or small groups, students write a dialogue or a four-to-five-sentence story sequence,

which they then cut up into separate sentences and give to another pair or group to put

together. Easy to do at elementary levels, the activity can introduce, even if in a nutshell, the

components of a proper story: exposition (conflict), complication (climax) and resolution. It

can be easily turned into a problem-solving exercise for others, leading to interaction and

enjoyment.

b) Jumbled stories

This is a variation of the activity above, except that the students have to write two short

stories of about four to six sentences, each about the same person or a similar event. The

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stories are then cut up into separate sentences and given to another group to sort out into the

original stories.

c) Mystery stories

This is a fairly controlled exercises where the students are given a series of WH-questions

they must answer in a particular order: Who? / Where? / What was X doing? / What did X

say? / What did X do after that? The students take turns to answer each question, then folding

the paper over, so that the next student cannot see what the other students have written before

him. When all the answers have been written, the paper is unfolded to reveal often a hilarious

and incongruous story, where the surprise element makes the writing (and reading) so much

more exciting.

d) Word story

The students are given the opening sentence of a story, and three words each. The paper is

passed round the class and each student has to continue the story by including his three

words.

e) Collaborative story

A sheet of paper containing only an opening sentence is passed round the class and students

write only one sentence each in order to continue the story.

f) Sentence into story

The students are given a single sentence and are asked to build the story around it, and of

course, include it somewhere in the text. The groups can be given the same sentence and at

the end they can compare the different outcomes generated by the same sentences.A variation

of this would be to give a speech bubble instead of a sentence and ask the students to make

up a story or a situation where the exact words would sound appropriate.

B) USING READING FOR STORY WRITING

a) Incomplete stories

This involves an opportunity for integration of skills, because the students have to read a part

of a story. The most usual procedure is to give students either the opening or the ending of a

story and ask them to provide a complete version. An easier start would be to give the story

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with only the opening or the ending paragraphs missing. The incomplete version can be

produced by the students themselves, working in groups, and given to other groups to provide

the opening, the ending, or the development of events.A major requirement here is looking at

sample texts beforehand, and giving the students an insight into how a story is divided into

three main parts: orientation – complication – resolution and how these differ from one

another.

b) Rewriting a story from memory

Albeit not very likely to leave much space for the students’ creativity, the task can allow for

personal interpretation and focus, together with the varied choice of vocabulary or structure.

To make the task more challenging, we may ask the students to rewrite the story they have

read, but feel free to change whatever they want.

c) Writing a story from different points of view

After reading a story told by an omniscient narrator, the students are asked to choose a

character and rewrite the story from his/her point of view. By assuming the character’s role,

the student may interpret the story from a new angle and choose to include or leave out

information as it may seem relevant to him. A more involving alternative is to give the

students role cards with a short presentation of the characters in a story and ask them to write

a first person narrative.

C) OTHER STORY WRITING TASKS

a) Fairy-tales, folk stories, fables or legends

These are undoubtedly very appealing genres, enjoyable and stimulating for any age group,

as there is always a grave significance in them; they are expressions or illustrations of

fundamental truths deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of any culture, and any fairy

tale brings about some kind of emotional experience or a moral illumination. Such stories

tend to follow much the same pattern, in which there is a problem that is resolved, leading to

the expression of some sort of moral. The students can be encouraged to write their own tales

in several ways.

Variation 1. The students are given a certain problem to be resolved in a fairy-tale. It can be

a problem relevant to their age, world or cultural background.

Variation 2. The students are given characters to bring together in a story. The characters can

be abstract notions or a few objects without any obvious connection between them. The value

of this exercise can be brought home along different lines: by encouraging the students to be

either absurd or logical in their imagination. The latter case seems more challenging because,

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by trying to turn the incongruity of different things into a perfectly logical and natural

relationship, they may write legends which explain the nature of existing things. This could

support the remark that originality often consists in discovering connections or analogies

between two or more objects or ideas between which no link has ever been demonstrated to

exist.

Variation 3. Students are asked to illustrate a proverb by means of a fable, an age-old genre

for conveying moral precepts. The selection of characters from the animal world will make

the task extremely exciting and motivating for younger learners.

b) Mini-sagas

The activities above can naturally lead to a mini-saga, a relatively new sub-genre, brought to

life by a writing competition organized by the Daily Telegraph and quickly developed into an

EFL text type in its own right.Basically, the mini-saga is a fifty-word story, with up to

fifteen additional words for the title. As it is a self-contained text, the story must be complete,

with a beginning, development and conclusion together with characters and a setting. Thus, it

is a kind of novel in miniature. It is an economical way of helping students to get used to the

organizing conventions of any story. Because of the word limit, the writer has to make every

word count, which means that it is a good exercise for developing care in the choice of

vocabulary and economy of expression.

c) Competition texts

Other possibilities for self-contained texts which could be completed in one lesson come

from two writing competitions organized by The Independent. The activities, mentioned by

White & Arndt, in their book on the process approach, consist in writing a ghost-story of 150

words or a newspaper article of 100 words or less to accompany a given headline.

If the students’ level is not appropriate for writing a proper newspaper account of a

story, they can be asked simply to discuss and write out the related story. The important thing

is that they use their imagination, and ideas will be seen as more important then formally

correct language. If, however, the headline comes from a real newspaper, their versions can

be compared with the original.

d) Story behind a book title

Real or imaginary book titles can also be used to stimulate the students’ imagination and lead

to surprisingly original ‘mini-novels’.

e) Story behind an advertisement

The students will be given the same advertisement. In groups, they will try to write a story

about the writer of the respective advertisement.

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f) Story behind a face/Life stories

Students are given a set of photos of people’s faces or reproductions of famous painted

portraits. They choose a portrait they like best and try to make-up a (life) story inspired by the

respective face/stance/mood.

The activities described above are meant to offer a springboard for other ideas and variations.

The teacher’s imagination in devising challenging writing tasks can spark the students’ own

imagination, since they may find imaginative and creative writing as a highly rewarding

activity, irrespective of age group, level or learner needs and interests.

3. COMMUNICATIVE WRITING TASKS

Even from the early stages of language learning, we should raise the learners’ awareness of

the communicative function of writing. That is why a balanced writing programme should

introduce, as early as possible, activities illustrating everyday forms of written

communication. An important principle in training students for written communication is

exposure to plenty of model texts.

a) Short notes and messages

Students are asked to write short notes or messages to other people in the class, with the

teacher acting as the postman. Each student has to send a reply note in response to the one

they received.

b) Invitation cards/letters

At first, student study models of invitation cards or letters. They are then given cards or paper

to write invitations to their classmates to certain events: birthdays, parties, outings, holidays,

festivals. The invitees will have to answer by a note or letter of acceptance or refusal.

c) Postcards/greeting cards

After studying relevant models and discussing useful language, students write greeting cards

related to forthcoming events – birthdays, Christmas, New Year’ Eve. The same can be done

with holiday postcards. Students are asked to imagine they are in their favourite holiday place

and write a postcard to friends or to the teacher. Alternatively, the teacher can bring to class

holiday brochures/leaflets and ask students to choose a location they like and imagine they

are writing a postcard home.

d) Notices/leaflets

Students study relevant models and write notices publicising a certain school or community

event, competition, public campaign, fund-raising campaign, charity event, etc.

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e) Brochures

After examining example texts and deciding on a suitable plan or outline, students write a

tourist brochure advertising their region or town. As the task is quite complex, it can also be

done in groups, each student dealing with a different topic or section of the brochures.

f) Advertisements

The teacher brings students handouts containing newspaper advertisements. The class discuss

text conventions and specific language. Students are asked to write ads with

selling/buying/renting/hiring offers.

g) Reviews

The students work on model texts of book/film/play/festival/museum/exhibition reviews,

discussing text organisation and useful language. Each student writes a review on one of the

above topics. These activities can become part of an ongoing class project, with groups of

students being responsible with updates on a certain topic which can be posted on the class

notice-board/gazette.

h) News reports

Like everyone else, students often share information of interesting news items they have

heard or read recently. As part of the same class publication projects, students can write news

articles on issues of interest for their age group and preoccupations.

i) Letters

Letter writing may be regarded as a rather obsolete activity in the age of the Internet,

electronic mail and social media, yet teaching our students to write letters may benefit them

for exam purposes or in their professional life, especially in the case of various formal letters.

They should be offered exposure to a variety of letter types, both informal and formal. The

teacher may set up a pen-friend writing scheme with students from a school abroad, which

could provide learners with a real incentive for writing. Most letter writing done in class

involves role-play elements, in which the context and reason for writing are simulated. The

teacher should set up motivating, purposeful activities which involve students in thinking

about relevant content, organisation and stylistic choices intended for efficient

communication.

j) Form filling

Filing in forms is quite a common writing activity, required in diverse application contexts,

so giving students relevant practice in this area is a highly practical and realistic activity,

preparing them for real-life situations such as university or job applications.

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k) CVs/Cover letters

In terms of long-term learner needs, it is undoubtedly worth teaching these specialised text

types requiring personal information adapted to a specific format. Of course, they are more

suitable for higher level students, but the idea can be introduced even earlier as a fun activity

using imaginary or strange job advertisements (see Hadfield 1990). The activity can be done

as a role play, in which students are given real job advertisements to respond to. Other

students will be involved in writing job requirements and descriptions for each advert, then

act as recruiters who will evaluate the received applications. In the context of an increasingly

competitive work market, teaching our students to present personal qualities and

achievements in an efficient, convincing and concise way constitutes a worthwhile pursuit.

4. FREE WRITING AT ADVANCED LEVELS: A PROCESS APPROACH

From the upper-intermediate level onwards, when learners are likely to have acquired

reasonable fluency in the written medium, we may safely provide them with more

opportunities for self-expression, usually under the form of lengthier texts types, essays in

particular. Although it may be argued that, in terms of learner-needs, an essay is a written

form rarely practised outside the classroom, it is still widely used in public examinations or

for academic assessment. Essay writing offers more varied challenges for fluency-building

writing programmes at secondary or tertiary levels. In giving our students confidence in

dealing with free writing tasks, we should observe a number of principles which offer a pre-

requisite to a fluency-building writing programme.

a) Raising awareness of the writing process

In order to promote a note of realism in our students’ approach to writing and to replicate the

practice of professional writers, we should rely on awareness-raising activities meant to

familiarize them with the stages and mechanisms of the writing process. They may be well

aware of the difficulties of getting started when confronted with a written assignment, which

shows that writing is hardly a spontaneous activity, but a time-consuming effort requiring

such operations as composing, planning, organizing, drafting, crafting, revising and editing. It

is the teacher’s task to highlight and illustrate these stages via relevant activities aimed to

mark a necessary departure from more traditional, product-oriented approaches,and to

promote a more realistic process approach.

b) Exposure to well-written models

It is a widely acknowledged pedagogical assumption that experienced and fluent readers

generally make good writers, as well. And although in a foreign language the transfer is not

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automatically realized, this assumption is tenable. Exposing students to pieces of good

writing via a well-balanced reading programme is a necessary pre-requisite for developing

writing skills. But mere exposure is not enough. We should devise activities that promote a

close analysis of the model text at different levels.

Firstly, knowledge of text types and their specific conventions and codes is of

paramount importance and a logical starting point. Consequently, students should be

presented with a variety of text types and formats, and made aware of general characteristics

such as layout or formulaic conventions (as in letters, for example), problems of

addressability, organization of content, paragraphing, discourse markers and linking devices

ensuring textual coherence and cohesion, style and register, communicative function,

efficiency and expressiveness. Therefore, a close examination of model texts should be an

obligatory first step in initiating any writing activity.

c) Stagingin the writing process

The main stages of the process are commonly sequenced as pre-writing, while-writing and

post-writing. Of course each stage comprises a number of sub-stages with a particular

function and various activities that guide us toward the construction of the text. The most

important phase is the one preliminary to the actual writing, which provides the students with

key data and material that will inform their writing and, more importantly, will help alleviate

such frustrating phenomena as the writer’s block.

Successful writing depends on careful preparation, where the need for guidance is

paramount. That is why approaches where the student is simply assigned a task without any

kind of guidance are not only pedagogically inadequate, but also hopelessly unproductive.

Preparing to write is as important as the act of writing itself, as it paves the way towards a

successful written product.

4.1. THE PRE-WRITING STAGE

a) Communicating

The stage of communicating has the role of drawing attention to the communicative function

of any piece of writing, which inherently pre-supposes an audience. Therefore text-type,

content and style will be dependent on the prospective reader we have in mind as the

recipient of our message. Creating a clear sense of audience is bound up with establishing a

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context for writing, a sense of purpose and function. The basic questions at this stage should

be: ‘Why am I writing?’ and‘Who am I writing for?’

Answering these questions will help writers decide on the kind of information that

must be included in the text. So clarifying information implies reconstructing the

impiedreader and his needs, according to which we have to decide on the content and the type

of details that may be relevant for that particular reader. The most pertinent questions for the

students to ask themselves would be:

What do I know about the topic?

What does my reader know about the topic?

What does my reader not know?

What is my reader’s attitude likely to be?

The crucial issue these questions are meant to establish is the ratio of shared and unshared

knowledge we can anticipate between writer and reader. An awareness of this is likely to

influence our decisions on what information we need to include or leave out. One line of

action usually recommended is to start with shared information and continue with new

information. The need for a correct estimation of shared and unshared knowledge and of the

necessity for explicitness is more relevant in the case of cross-cultural communication,

culture-bound or highly specialized texts (scientific, expert-oriented, etc.). It often happens

that when we write about things familiar to us, we tend to underestimate the need for further

explicitness of a reader who may not be acquainted with certain facts that we take for

granted. Encouragingstudents to anticipate and be alert to a prospective reader’s needs will

ensure clarity and eliminate ambiguity from their final texts. Moreimportantly, it provides the

writer with a sense of direction that will influence the selection of ideas and planning.

b) Composing

This is the stage initiating the exploration of a general outline and of content issues. It mainly

consists in the mental processes of idea-generation, although it may include more perceptible

manifestations like thinking aloud. It is usually the incipient phase of finding something to

say, humorously described by applied linguists as a “time of sighing, pencil-chewing, foot-

shuffling agony” (Tricia Hedge1983, 20) or, in a punning formulation, as “Anguish as a

Second Language” (Raimes1987,32). To illustrate the frustratingperplexities characteristic of

this stage, White and Arndt (Process Writing, 1991) quote a description of the writer’s block

by the Chinese poet Lu Chi, which metaphorically encapsulates the strenuous process of idea-

generating: ‘The anxiety is because buckets carried from the well are time and again

empty…’ (White and Arndt 1991, 17)

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Getting some ideas on the topic is a problem that requires support from the teacher

and collaboration with peers. Students should be given tasks which demonstrate basic

techniques for encouraging critical thinking, idea-generation, outlining and planning,

applicable to a wide range of topics or text-types. These guided techniques can be based on a

wide range of prompts – visual (pictures, films); auditory (tapes), reading materials or

discussion sessions – generally speaking, activities which lend themselves to the integration

of skills and function as a springboard for thinking out content.

c) Unstructured listing

Lists of ideas are a helpful device in helping students to put something down on paper.

Starting from the assumption that one idea sparks off another, this activity involves both

thinking and note-taking, and it is essential that no censoring should impede the random

emergence of ideas. Any attempt to structure or evaluate ideas at this stage would be

inhibiting or would stop the ball rolling. Judging the quality, relevance or usefulness of ideas

should be postponed until a subsequent stage involving focusing, selecting and structuring

operations.

d) Brainstorming sessions

These are based on using a long-standing and efficient technique for idea-generation.

Brainstorming may concern ideas for content or for ways of organization. The activity may

lend itself to many purposes: choosing a topic/title; identifying a purpose or reason for

writing; finding an appropriate text-type or format; developing a topic or a

plot.Brainstorming can be carried out individually, in pairs, groups or with the whole class. It

can also be done on the snowball principle, where individual lists of ideas are shared in a

pair, then in a group and, finally, among groups, so that the class ends up with a common

pool of ideas.

e) Sets of questions

The procedure employs questions intended as prompts which draw attention to the different

aspects of a topic or problem and provide a pretext for further idea-generation.

f) Cubing

This is a technique taking its name from the six facets of a cube, as it uses a set of six

questions under different task-headings:

1) Describe: what is the colour, size, shape, feel, smell, sound of X?

2) Compare: what is X like or unlike?

3) Associate: what does X bring to mind? What is it similar or dissimilar to?

4) Analyze: how is X composed? What is it part of? What is part of X?

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5) Apply: how can X be used? What can be done with X?

6) Argue: what points can be put for or against X? What reasons are there for taking a

position in favour of or opposed to X?

g) Classical invention

The procedure proposes five categories of questions, following the principle of classical

invention derived from Aristotle:

Definition: what are festivals? Classify them into types.

Comparison: to what extent are festivals similar to or different from what they are

being compared with?

Relationship: what caused festivals? What effect do festivals have on people? What

comes before/follows festivals? What is against festivals?

Circumstances: what kinds of festivals are possible? What things are possible in

festivals? What is not possible? What are the past facts about festivals? What can we

predict about festivals in the future?

Testimony: where did festivals originate? Who says so? What statistics are available?

What time-tested theories or laws support festivals? What personal experience of

festivals do you have?

h) The SPRE/R approach

The technique provides a highly productive way of organizing ideas and is proposed by

Michael Hoey in his book On the Surface of Discourse (1983). The acronym stands for:

Situation: what is the present situation? How did it come about? What are its characteristics?

Problem: is there a problem? What is it?

Response: how can the problem be dealt with? What alternative solutions are there? What

constraints are there on each possible solution?

Evaluation: which of the solutions is likely to be the best? What would be the result of

applying any of the solutions?

With a number of possible variations, this format can provide a basis for discursive writing

tasks. It also provides an ordered framework for the general organization of ideas and the

structuring of the future text.

i) Organizing content, planning and outlining

Once the students have finished listingideas for content, the subsequent activities are meant

to focus on problems of selecting, grouping and ordering ideas. Individually, in pairs or

groups, the students have to decide on items to be kept or left out, operating a selection of

content. Grouping or clustering ideas is based on the principle of relationships. Ideas

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relating to the same concept are grouped under a common heading. Ordering involves

ranking ideas in terms of their relevance or importance for the topic and deciding on the

hierarchy to be reflected in the overall structure of the text. Visually, the outline of the

envisaged text can be represented in different ways. Mind-maps or ‘spidergrams’ are useful

and visually suggestive tools for categorizing content and organizing points insofar as the

ramifications into categories and subcategories reflect the hierarchical relationships between

different content elements. Otherwise, any number of diagrams and layouts can be used to

reflect the initial provisional outline of the projected essay.

The end of this stage ushers in the subsequent process of drafting, and we may say

that the guidance offered at the pre-writing stage has taken the students halfway through the

writing task. The value of pre-text activities resides in their provision of relevant content

ideas.Emphasizing the pre-writing stage, with the sub-stages illustrated above, is not only a

pedagogical imperative, but the recognition of the old saying ‘well-begun is half done’.

4.2. WHILE-WRITING/DRAFTING STAGE

a) Drafting

This is the stage at which students engage in actual text writing. The main priority is getting

ideas down on paper, so drafting involves fluency rather than accuracy, which can be

considered at a later stage. Some useful techniques for encouraging written fluency are

presented below.

Fast-writing/Quickwrite. This is an exercise designed to eliminate ‘writer’s block

and get the learner started on the task and requires three to five minutes of continuous

writing for developing an idea.

Loop-writing. This exercise involves both a fast-writing and a subsequent reflection

activity, in which what has been written is revised and condensed in a main idea or

loop, which is developed in its turn. This is a good exercise in deciding on topic

sentences for each paragraph.

b) Revising/Peer consultation

After finishing a first draft of the text, students should be encouraged to revise what they

have written in order to add, cross out or improve points. Peer-revision activities are

extremely fruitful, as each student can get feedback from a reader who can point out unclear

or ambiguous ideas, areas needing to be clarified, completed, shortened, expanded, reordered

or omitted, as well as strong or interesting points which should be emphasised.

c) Redrafting

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d) Editing/Crafting

After revising a second draft, students should focus on the accuracy of their text. This

concerns grammatical and lexical accuracy. Students have to check sentence arrangement and

syntactic relations, vocabulary choice and rephrasing possibilities, as well as logical ordering

and organisation. Again, peer evaluation or peer editing may provide useful reader feedback

on accurate expression.

e) Re-editing/improving

Once students have finished their final drafts, the teacher may examine them and offer

suggestions for improving content or form. The teacher indicates mistakes or problem areas

which the student has to sort out.

4.3. POST–WRITING

The post-writing stage consists of activities concerned with the publishing, evaluation and

ranking of the students’ productions.

a) Publishing

Even if most student texts are intended for the eyes of the teacher-reader, we should find

ways in which the students can see their products ‘published’, even in the form of a wall-

display or in a class or school magazine. We can put texts up on display, with student judges

allowing each text points for strong points – based on clear evaluation criteria (clarity,

originality, creativity, communicative efficiency). The highest ranking three texts can, if

possible, be included in a school publication.

b) Discussion and evaluation of results

Students should be involved in discussing and evaluating their own written results,

comparing them with others and deciding on areas which they need to practise and improve

in their writing.

c) Evaluation and marking

The teacher’s feedback is essential in raising the students’ motivation for writing. That is why

students should be given a chance to improve their text before the final marking. Teacher and

students can devise a correction code in which the teacher can signal mistakes (e.g. WW for

wrong word, WT for wrong tense, WO for word order) (see Hedge 2005). Written comments

on the margins can be used to suggest areas needing to be improved. Having students re-edit

their texts according to the teacher’s suggestions before being marked motivated them to try

harder to improve their written products. Marking should be done on the basis of clear criteria

well-known to the students, which provides a warranty of objectivity and transparency. As

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already stated before, positive feedback and constant encouragement is essential in furthering

confidence and motivation for writing.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY AND GUIDE TO FURTHER READING:

GENERAL METHODOLOGY COURSEBOOKS

Brumfit, C. Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge University

Press, 1984

Doff, Adrian. Teach English: A Training Course for Teachers: Teacher's Workbook.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988

Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching (3rd edition).Longman, 2001

Littlewood, W. Communicative Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press, 1981

Nunan.Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom.Cambridge University Press 1989

Parrott, Martin. Tasks for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Scrivener, Jim. Learning Teaching: The Essential Guide to English Language Teaching.

MacMillan, 2011

Ur, Penny. A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Trainee Book. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1999

GRAMMAR

Aitken Rosemary. Teaching Tenses. ELB Publishing, 2002

Celce-Murcia and Hilles.Techniques and Resources in Teaching Grammar.Oxford University

Press, 1988

Frank and Rinvolucri.Grammar in Action Again.Prentice-Hall, 1991

Gerngross, Günter, Puchta, Herbert. Creative Grammar Practice.Longman, 1992

Hall and Shepheard.The Anti-Grammar Grammar Book. ELB Publishing, 2008

Harmer, Jeremy. Teaching and Learning Grammar. Longman, 1995

Rinvolucri, Mario. Grammar Games:Cognitive, Affective and Drama Activities for EFL

Students. Cambridge University Press, 1985

Rinvolucri, Mario. The Q Book

Ur, Penny. Grammar Practice Activities: A Practical Guide for Teachers. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1988

Wajyrb, Ruth. Grammar Dictation

VOCABULARY

Digby and Myers.Making Sense of Vocabulary. Cassel, 1991

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Gairns, Ruth, Redman, Stuart. Working with Words: A guide to teaching and learning

vocabulary. Cambridge University Press, 1992

Morgan, Rinvolucri, Mario. Vocabulary. Oxford University Press, 1986

Redman, Stuart. A Way with Words. Cambridge University Press, 1991

Underhill, Adrian. Use Your Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1980

Wallace, Michael J. Teaching Vocabulary. English Language Book Society (ELBS),

Heinemann Educational Books, 1989

Watcyn-Jones, Peter. Test Your Vocabulary (Vol. 1- 4). Penguin, 1979

LISTENING

Anderson, A, Lynch, T. Listening. Oxford University Press, 1988

Blundell, L, Stokes, J. Task Listening. Cambridge University Press 1981

Stokes, J. Elementary Task Listening.Cambridge University Press, 1984

Ur, Penny. Teaching Listening Comprehension.Cambridge University Press, 1984

READING

Collie, Joanne, Slater, Stephen.Literature in the Language Classroom:A Resource Book of

Ideas and Activities. Cambridge University Press, 1988

Gower, Roger, Pearson, Margaret.Reading Literature. Longman, 1998

Gower, Roger. Past into Present: An anthology of British and American Literature.

Longman, 1990

Grellet, F. Developing Reading Skills. Cambridge University Press, 1981

Hedge, Tricia. Using Readers in Language Teaching. Phoenix ELT, 1985

Hill, Susan. Using Literature in the Classroom.Peguis Pub Ltd., 1995

Krashen, Stephen. The Power of Reading. Englewood Colorado Libraries Unlimited, 1993

Nuttal, C. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. Oxford: Heinemann ELT, 1996

Prowse, Phillip. ‘Powerful Magic: Using Readers’, BBC English, October 1996

Saragi, Y., Nation, P., Meister, G. ‘Vocabulary Learning and Reading’. System 6, 1978

Simpson, Paul. Language through Literature.Routledge, 1997

Wallace, Catherine. Reading. Oxford University Press, 1992

SPEAKING

Halliwell, Susan, Holmes, Bernardette, Jones, Barry. You Speak, They Speak: Focus on

Target Language Use. CILTNational Centre for Languages, 2002

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Klippel, Friederike. Keep Talking: Communicative Fluency Activities for Language

Teaching. Cambridge University Press, 1985

Ur, Penny. Discussions that Work: Task-centred Fluency Practice.Cambridge University

Press, 1981

WRITING

Byrne, Donn.Just Write. London: Macmillan, 1988

Byrne, Donn.Teaching Writing Skills.London: Longman, 1988

Davis, Paul, Rinvolucri, Mario. Dictation: New Methods, New Possibilities. Cambridge

University Press, 1989

Gerngross, Günter, Puchta, Herbert. Creative Grammar Practice.Longman, 1992

Hadfield, Jill, Hadfield, Charles. Writing Games. Nelson ELT, 1990

Hedge, Tricia. Pen to Paper. London: Nelson, 1983

Hedge, Tricia.In a Word. London: Nelson,1983

Hedge, Tricia. Writing.Oxford University Press, 2005

Hoey, Michael.On the Surface of Discourse.Allen and Unwin,1987

Klauser, H. A. Writing on Both Sides of the Brain. Breakthrough Techniques for People who

Write. London: Harper and Row, 1986

Raimes, A. Exploring Through Writing. New York: St. Martin’s Press,1987

White, Ron, Arndt, Valerie. Process Writing.Longman, 1991

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