HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT METHODOLOGY FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS (FOR 3RD YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR IN EDUCATION) COMPILER: Nguyen Van Phi M.A Haiphong, May 2019 0 Table of contents Table of contents…………………………………………………………………….3 Chapter 1: Shape of a skills lesson .4 The teacher’s role .10 Chapter 2: Teaching reading …………….1 The importance of teaching reading ………………………………………….2 Kinds of reading students should do.3 Reading skills students should acquire .4 The principles behind the teaching of reading .5 Characteristics of a good reader.6 Steps for presenting a reading text .19 Chapter 3: Teaching speaking ………………………….1 The importance of speaking .2 Principles in teaching speaking.3 Example activities for speaking .4 Example activities for communication .33 Chapter 4: Teaching listening ……………………………………….1 The relationships between listening and the other language skills .2 Reasons for teaching listening.3 Kinds of listening students should do .4 Special characteristics of listening .5 The principles of teaching listening .6 Example activities for listening practice .48 Chapter 5: Teaching writing …………………………………………………….1 The purpose of teaching writing.2 Kinds of writing students should do .3 Principles in teaching writing .4 Exercises and activities for teaching writing .5 Some guidelines for correcting written works .57 Chapter 6: Teaching grammar.1 A brief overview of a PPP lesson.2 Problems with overemphasizing grammar .3 Steps for introducing grammatical structures .4 Principles for teaching grammatical structures .6 Activities for free practice of structures .67 Chapter 7: Teaching vocabulary .1 The importance of teaching vocabulary .2 The difficulties of learning vocabulary .3 Principles for communicating the meaning of words .4 Techniques for communicating the Meaning of Words .5 Guidelines for teaching words. Active and passive vocabulary. 74 Chapter 8: Teaching pronunciation .2 Stress and Intonation .3 Some ideas for focusing on specific pronunciation features .4 How to teach pronunciation .88 2 Preface As a teacher of English, one should be aware of the importance of methodology. If teachers find the theories of language teaching essential, they will have opportunities to observe and evaluate their teaching results from different perspectives.
Using theoretical knowledge about language teaching and analyzing the effects of its implementation can help improve the English teaching quality. This book is the second one in a series of three that constitute a set of textbooks for language teacher training course at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Haiphong University. It will guide students to discover practical techniques, guidelines and principles related to English language teaching with the purpose to help student teachers to apply educational principles and use creative methods in their future English classes. This book is organized into eight chapters covering different aspects such as shape of a skills lesson and shape of a grammar-vocabulary lesson, how to teach the three linguistic elements and the four language skills and so on.
The tasks are based on readings from a variety of source materials by methodologists and educators. This provides an opportunity for students to challenge themselves in preparation for their future career. 3 Chapter 1 SHAPE OF A SKILLS LESSON A skills lesson has three stages: Pre, While and Post. Pre- While- Post- Set the scene, ask Ask focus questions, give Ask students to do questions about a topic, scanning and skimming further exercises to ask students to predict text tasks, ask comprehension exploit the text to the content based on title.
For example, the first stage in a writing lesson is the Pre-writing stage. The second stage is the While-writing stage, and the third stage is the Post-writing stage. This simple framework structures the teacher’s lesson plan so that students not only ‘understand’ but also use the four skills in a meaningful, task-based way. The Pre, While and Post techniques give students practical tools for using the four skills in real life, not for just passing their school exams.1 Pre-stage We need this stage because it gets students to think about the topic or situation before they read, listen, speak or write.
It gives students a purpose to read, listen, speak, or write. They can relate what they already know about the topic. Pre tasks can be: - Vocabulary tasks, where the teacher pre-teaches vocabulary to aid comprehension. - Prediction tasks where students guess what they are about to learn.
- Brainstorming or discussion tasks where students collect all their ideas on the topic. Example 1: - Ask student to think about what they already know about transportation on and under water. Give them a couple of minutes to share their predictions of the content of the text with a partner. Debrief as a total class, writing the responses on the board.
4 - Ask students to look at the pictures in the text (The text has vivid pictures of a sailboat, an aqualung, a submarine, a propeller, and several types of ships, as well as a lighthouse). Ask students to write down what they think the text is about, based on the pictures. Debrief as a class and add those ideas to the list on the board. - Before actually reading the text, the teacher asks students if anyone has ever traveled anywhere in a boat or ship.
Then ask the class if anyone has had any experiences in a boat. Students share their stories. Example 2: Provide a structured overview that previews and highlights important information and the interrelationships of ideas. For this activity, students can be placed in groups and given a set of index cards containing the inventions related to the reading selection.
If inventions for land and air transportation have been previously studied, they could be included. Students sort the inventions under the appropriate category as shown in the structured overview. This can be done as a prediction prior to reading.2 While-stage This stage gives students a guide or framework to help them practice the target skill of the lesson. It helps students to do the skill better, more accurately and thoroughly.
The teacher can check through the tasks if students have understood. Students work individually or in groups or pairs. While tasks can be comprehension tasks, where students answer questions based on the text; ordering tasks, where students show that they have understood by putting pictures or 5 statements into the same sequence as the text; and transformation tasks, where students take one format and transfer it into another. For example, instead of simply telling students to write a paragraph on ‘The Geography of England’, the teacher tells them to re-write the information about Vietnam’s geography.
In this way, the teacher gives the students a framework on which they can hang new information. This kind of framework reduces mistakes, provides the correct style, grammar and sentence type, and ‘guides’ students towards satisfactory completion of the task. Example 1: monitoring comprehension English language learners need to have an established purpose for reading something so they can evaluate whether they are successful readers. The purpose of during-reading strategies revolves around the teacher's modeling of questioning techniques in order to develop the self-questioning ability of students.
For example, the purpose for reading the selection "On or Under the Water," which was established during the pre-reading phase, was to find out what inventions promoted the development of different types of boats throughout history. Two during-reading strategies that effectively assist students in monitoring their own comprehension are using subheadings and headings and analyzing captions. Example 2: Analyzing captions For example: One caption from "On and Under the Water" says, "Finding the Way." The pictures surrounding the text are of a lighthouse, which might be within the students' background knowledge, and a gold, circular object that they probably will not be able to identify (It is a mariner's ASTROLABE). The teacher's role is to discuss the purpose of the lighthouse (or something students already know about) and then suggest that perhaps the other object is also something that will help ships "find their way," as the text says.
Example 3: Turn headings and subheadings into questions Using the same example, one of the subheadings reads, "Beneath the Surface." The teacher should guide students in the process of changing the subheadings into questions. The question should be a prediction of what the text will say below that subheading. For "Beneath the Surface," the question might be, "What invention made it possible to take a 6 boat beneath the surface, or under the water?" Because expository, or non-fiction texts usually have headings and subheadings, determining where to ask questions is easier. Good readers use those signals and self-question as they read.
Example 4: Read "On or Under Water" aloud, asking students to join in as they are able. Students have a copy of the chosen text so they can write notes as the selection is studied. During the reading, specific vocabulary words are identified as follows: navigation, invention, lighthouse, chronometer and satellite signals. Students write the words in the margin.
Before having students reread the text silently, pre-teach this key vocabulary using a variety of techniques. Example 5: a) Clustering In clustering, students guess the words meaning by the context of its use. From "On or Under the Water" the cluster might look like this: b) Word Scroll or Graphic 7 Completing the graphic helps readers visually see relationships that they might otherwise overlook. When completing a vocabulary graphic, a portion of the visual should include personal connections to the word, as in the previous example.3 Post-stage Students do an extension activity.
This helps students take the information or whatever they have produced in the While stage, and do something meaningful with it. The Post stage is usually an ‘information transfer’ production-type exercise where students ‘respond’ to what they have just learnt. The Post task usually involves the productive skills (speaking or writing). For example, students respond to reading a description of a sports event by writing a letter to a friend, describing what happened; or they do a role-play, acting out the story they have just read.
If the While task was speaking, for example, conducting a questionnaire on their friends, the Post task could be writing up the results in a short paragraph. The goal of this activity is to have students actually participate in a process that has traditionally been used by teachers to modify text for English language learners. Through the use of simplification, expansions, direct explanations, and comparisons, comprehension is built in to create a clearer, more understandable text, as in the following example: Simplification: The government's funds were depleted. (It was almost out of money.) Expansion of ideas: The government funds were depleted.
(It had spent a lot of money on things; equipment, helping the poor. It did not have any more money to spend on anything else.) Direct definition: The government's funds were depleted. For this activity, the teacher models the first work after creating a bulletin board which is labeled as follows: 8 The end goal of this activity is to have students do this activity in groups, with the teacher circulating as facilitator. The amount of teacher-directed instruction is going to vary depending on the students involved.
Organize students into small groups and have them brainstorm ideas about the history of inventions related to transportation. Then, let have them share with the whole class. As ideas are shared, create a graphic on the board or overhead. Each cooperative group is to select an area for further research.
An example of a graphic which might culminate study of transportation inventions as follows: 1.4 The teacher’s role In the Pre stage, the teacher’s role is to get the students thinking about what they are going to do before they do it, so they are prepared, and actively using their brains. The teacher will have to set up a pre task, so it is very important that the teacher give clear instructions. In the While stage, apart from setting up the activity, the teacher doesn’t have to do a lot of teaching – because students will be working on the While task, by themselves, working individually or in groups.