TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH Chapter 6

Chapter 6: How to teach language Harmer, J.(1998) How to teach English Longman 1.Language study consist of… Whatever level of Ss & however language organized in ESA sequences 4 things Ss need to with ‘new language’ Be exposed to it Understand its meaning Understand its form (how it is constructed) Practice it How to expose Ss to language? At any level, Ss opportunities: to see it to hear it before asking them to produce it a Complete beginners Ss require language by hearing it first  exposed to the spoken form first E.g The teacher holds up a pen, points to it and says ‘pen… look….pen… pen’  offering them a chance to hear the word Later, T holds up the pen & say ‘Listen… It’s a pen…… It’s a pen…… It’s a pen Later, still T starts asking ‘What is it?’  hearing what the question sounds like Ss need the reassurance of the written word b Elementary Letting Ss have a chance to hear a dialogue (playing the cassette player, or CD player) Showing Ss a written version c Low intermediate Reading a text in which many examples of comparative adjectives used in a fairly realistic way d Upper intermediate Ss read the printout from a computer in which many examples of ‘the word’ being used These examples are taken from a variety of sources (books, newspapers, ads….) How to help Ss to understand meaning? Real objects, pictures and drawings Teacher’s mime, gesture & expression Listing, synonym/antonym, timelines & explanation (structures) Check questions to make sure Ss understand concepts Harmer’s techniques (1991) Vocabulary Visual aids Providing rich context Giving many examples Listing related words (synonym/antonym) Discovery techniques Numeration (general  specific or vice versa) Harmer’s techniques (1991) Grammar structures visually (Teacher’s performance) through a situation discovery techniques/ problemsolving approach providing rich contexts, situations using students’ context (family/friend) Inductive and deductive approach How to help Ss to understand language form? Two basic and important ways: Giving a clear model and asking students to listen and repeat or times Writing the word/ structure clearly on the board and getting students to tell you (the teacher) what to write Complete beginners  explaining the sound construction of the word  writing the word on the board & indicating which syllable is stressed  using voice & gesture to demonstrate intonation Elementary learners  writing tables on the board making construction clear Lower intermediate learners  Asking Ss to discover the construction for themselves (using their own questions & procedure)  Telling Ss if they’ve worked out rules correctly Upper intermediate learners  Encouraging Ss to use dictionaries  Individual work or group work to answer T’s questions How to practice the language?  Oral practice  Written practice Oral practice Oral drill i) Four –phase drills (Q-A-Q-A) ii) Mixed question and answer drills (Teacher elicits questions) iii) talking about frequency of activities iv) Chain drills Information gap activities Games Personalization / localization Students use the language they have recently learned to talk about themselves  Oral Interactions e.g find someone who…… Likes/Dislikes Agree/Disagree Questionnaires Written practice Sentence writing: (a) The fill-in: writing a post card (b) What are they doing? describing what the people in the picture are doing (c) Christmas: Students use personalization to write sentences using time clauses (when, while, after, before) Parallel writing (a) hotels: looking at a hotel guide book, especially key symbols and writing hotel instructions (b) sentence - ordering task: (looking at someone’s picture and arranging given sentences about this person’s life into a correct order) Cohesion combing sentences by using coordinators (and, but, or, so) or concession (although, in spite of) Oral composition  visual or aural stimuli  showing Ss a series of pictures, mine a story, or playing them a tape with a series of sounds  useful for the teaching of narrative style and the use of various past tenses Dictation 6.Why Ss make mistake Two reasons why Ss make mistakes  the interference of their mother tongue  their natural language development 7.How to correct Ss’ mistakes  Encouraging Ss to self-correct by themselves if possible  Asking other Ss to help  Choosing how to correct sensitively ... sounds  useful for the teaching of narrative style and the use of various past tenses Dictation 6. Why Ss make mistake Two reasons why Ss make mistakes  the interference of their mother tongue