TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH Chapter 6

1.Language study consist of… Whatever level of Ss & however language organized in ESA sequences  4 things Ss need to do with ‘new language’  Be exposed to it  Understand its meaning

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 do with ‘new

language’

 Be exposed to it

 Understand its meaning

 Understand its form (how it is constructed)

 Practice it

2 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

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….)

3 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)

 providing rich contexts, situations

 using students’ context

(family/friend)

 Inductive and deductive approach

4 How to help Ss to understand language form?

Two basic and important ways:

 Giving a clear model and asking

students to listen and repeat 2 or 3 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

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

5 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

Written practice

1 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)

3 Cohesion

 combing sentences by using

coordinators (and, but, or, so) or concession (although, in spite of)

4 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

5 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