Subject Area Teaching in English

Language for Teachers

Module One

BY

MEKASHA KASSAYE (PhD)

DR ABIY YIGZAW (TECHNICAL ADVISER),

BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

DR NURU MOHAMMED (EDITOR),

ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY

August 2012

Addis Ababa

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 Introduction to the Module

Dear student!

Subject Area Teaching in English Language for Teachers or as sometimes called ―Skills
Development Methodology‖ is a course designed for teacher trainees who join the
popular Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching Programme (PGDT) the Federal Democratic
Republic Government of Ethiopia has introduced in July 2011. The central objective of
the PGDT programme is to train effective teachers in subject discipline areas. English
language being one of the subject areas, the contents in this course are all tailored
towards building the teaching capacities of teachers who will be graduating from the
PGDT programme.

The aim of the course Subject Area Teaching in English Language is thus to help trainee
teachers get the fundamental skills of teaching English language for trainees who will be
engaged in teaching English language after graduating from the PGDT programme. The
course intends to offer opportunities for English language teacher trainees in examining
all possible options in using teaching methodologies which will help them while they will
be engaged as teachers in secondary schools in Ethiopia.

The course has got two parts called part one and part two. For each part of the course two
integrated modules have been developed. These are Module 1 and Module 2.

This is the first Module and it is concerned with the basics of teaching English language
as a foreign language. The Module has four units.

The first unit is an introduction to the general concepts and theories in Teaching English
as a Foreign Language. The second unit deals with the teaching of reading skills. This
unit is followed by a third unit that discusses in detail the teaching of listening skills. And
the final unit in this Module deals with the teaching of grammar skills to secondary
school students. For each unit and section texts/inputs have been selected from various
sources and adapted to design appropriate tasks that may help you develop effective
teaching strategies for each skill and micro-skill discussed.

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Modular Learning outcomes

At the end of this Module you will be able to:

 keep a reflective position as regards fundamental English language learning

and linguistic theories and utilize those insights for developing appropriate
teaching styles/strategies for teaching secondary school learners;

 demonstrate self-direction and reflection on the learning and teaching process

in order to continue professional development throughout your teaching
career;
 explain and appreciate the different roles of learners, teachers, and materials
in enhancing language acquisition of learners or your students;
 describe classroom learners in terms of variables such as learning styles,
strategies, individual differences, affective factors, etc and address those
variables in an informed manner using appropriate teaching methodology or
styles;

 demonstrate originality in the application of your knowledge to the

teaching/learning situations in secondary schools in Ethiopia;
 acquire a systematic understanding of the current problems in teaching
reading skills, listening skills and grammar;
 gain a comprehensive understanding of the processes of teaching reading
skills, listening skills and grammar informed by research;

 analyze and demonstrate your understanding and use of the different

teaching techniques that are in place so far in ELT for the teaching of
grammar, reading and listening, and,
 systematically build up your methodological skills to help learners in schools
develop their English language skills in the classroom to the expected level
and in appropriate manners.

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 Contents of the Module

Contents Page

Introduction to the Module ……………………………...........

Glossary .............................................................................
Acronyms..........................................................................

Unit 1: Introduction to English Language Teaching

Section 1.1: English Language Teaching as a Profession

Section 1.2: Language Learning Theories and Styles: Implication for Teaching
.Section 1.3: Individual Differences in Language Learning
Section 1.4: Major Approaches in ELT: Evaluating Teaching Approaches

Unit 2: Teaching Reading Skills ………………………

Section 1.1: Introductions to Reading Skills: Meaning and Context

Section 1.2: Reading Purposes and Ways of Reading
bSection 1.3: The Teaching of Reading Skills: Exploring Approaches
Section 1.4: Analyzing and Developing Reading Lessons

Unit 3: Teaching Listening Skills ……………………

Section 1.1: Introduction to Listening Skills: Meaning and Context

Section 1.2: Listening Purposes and Ways of Listening
Section 1.3: The Teaching of Listening Skills: Exploring Approaches
Section 1.4: Analyzing and Developing Listening Lessons

Unit 4: Teaching Grammar.......................................................

Section 1.1: The Goals of Grammar Instruction

Section 1.2: Traditional Versus Communicative Ways of Grammar Teaching
Section 1.3: Error Correction: Accuracy Versus Fluency
Section 1.4: Analyzing, Developing and Micro-Teaching Grammar Lessons

Module Conclusion

Bibliography

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GLOSSARY

1. TEFL

What is TEFL? Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics (2006) defines TEFL as:
a) The use of a language as medium of instruction whose home base is another country, and
b) Instruction in a transnational language such as Arabic or English whose identification
with a particular country is minimal.

2. Academic Language

Language used in the learning of academic subject matter in formal schooling context; aspects of
language strongly associated with literacy and academic achievement, including specific
academic terms or technical language, and speech registers related to each field of study.

3. Acquisition

A term used to describe language being absorbed without conscious effort; i.e. the way children
pick up their mother tongue. Language acquisition is often contrasted with language learning: the
internalization of rules and formulas which are then used to communicate in the L2. For some
researchers, such as Krashen, 'acquisition' is unconscious and spontaneous, and 'learning' is
conscious, developing through formal study.

4. Audio-Lingual Method

Listen and speak: this method considers listening and speaking as the first tasks in language
learning, followed by reading and writing. There is a considerable emphasis on learning sentence
patterns, memorization of dialogues and extensive use of drills.

5. Bilingualism
According to Stern [1983] bilingualism is to communicate effectively in two or more languages,
though the proficiency level of the speaker can be varied in the two languages. Similarly Carter
and Nunan (2001:93) define a bilingual society as one in which two languages are used for
communication though there are a large number of monolinguals. For example, Canada is a
bilingual country for it uses English and French.

1. Corpus
A sample of authentic texts collected in order to find out how the language actually is used. Most
of the time a corpus is restricted to particular type of language use, for example, a corpus of legal
documents, or a corpus of informal spoken English. The samples are collected to be used by
researchers and material developers.

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 2. Communicative Competence
This is the ability to interact appropriately with others by knowing what to say, to whom, when,
where, and how. This involves acquiring both socio linguistic and linguistic knowledge, in other
words, developing the ability to use the language accurately, appropriately, and effectively.
Communicative competence identifies the semantic and pragmatic needs of the learners and
proposes way of meeting their needs.

3. Code-switching
The term used to describe any switch among languages in the course of a conversation, whether
at the level of words, sentences or blocks of speech. Code –switching most often occurs when
bilinguals are in the presence of other bilinguals who speak the same languages. [Baker and
Jones, 1998).

4. (CLT) Communicative Language Teaching

This method was in introduced in the late 1970‘s. The emphasis of CLT based language teaching
for foreign language teaching is on meaning rather than on form, and on the ability to use
language rather than on knowledge about language.

5. ESP (English for Specific Purpose)

Richards and Platt (1995) define it as ―the content and aims of the course fixed by the specific
needs of a particular group.‖ The ESP teaching and its materials are based on needs analysis. For
example, an English course for engineers will use engineering situations. ESP is also known in
its early days as English for special purpose.

6. English for Academic Purpose

It is designed to prepare students of non-native speakers to the medium of instruction of the

academic context. It focuses on the learner and the situation. Many EAP courses give emphasis
on reading and writing; this is because reading and writing are the immediate purposes of many
students in academic contexts.

7. Lingua Franca

A language that is used as a medium of communication between people or groups of people each
speaking different native languages. It can be expressed as communication exchange using a third
language, i.e. the language of communication is their second language to the speakers. For
example, Amharic can be used in communication between a Wolayta and a Hadya person in
Ethiopia.

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Unit 1: Introduction to English Language Teaching
Outline of Contents
Section 1.1 English language teaching as a profession
Section 1.2 Language learning theories and learning styles: implication for teaching
Section 1.3 Individual differences in language learning
Section 1.4 Major approaches in E.L.T: parameters for evaluating teaching approaches

Introduction to the Unit

This unit is more of a theoretical unit. It presents the basic concepts in the field of English
Language Teaching (ELT) as an introduction. The concepts are presented in various sections and
lessons. Each lesson deals with a particular topic in teaching methodology of English as a Foreign
Language. And each lesson has an activity or activities termed as task. The tasks are there to
reinforce your understanding of the concepts presented. You are required to do all the tasks either
individually, or in pairs or in groups.

Some of the tasks have definite answers. But some others do not have definite answers. They are
open for personal reflection and discussion. Sometimes you may forward some questions to your
instructor for further discussion and understanding.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this unit you will be able to:

 Identify reasons why the English language teaching has become a profession;
 Explain factors that facilitated the rise of English as a lingua franca;
 Analyse different theories of language, language pedagogy, and language learning;
 Compare and contrast teaching English as a Second and as a Foreign language;
 List and examine different learning styles and learning strategies of learners
 Identify individual differences in language learning;
 Compare and contrast the pedagogical importance of different teaching approaches in
ELT;
 Develop materials on one of the learnt teaching approaches for micro-teaching; and,
 Conduct a micro-teaching using the developed materials above.

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Section 1.1 English Language Teaching as a Profession

Introduction

This section presents you a very brief background about the profession of English Language
Teaching (ELT). It explores the major factors that gave rise to the use of English language as a
lingua franca. The distinctions between English as a Second and English as a Foreign Language
are discussed in this section of the Unit. Finally, the status of English as a Foreign Language
Teaching in Ethiopia is examined. In Ethiopia, English language is taught predominantly as a
Foreign Language.

Dear student!

Do you know the difference between teaching English as a Second language and teaching English
as a foreign language? As you read across this section get prepared to answer this question later.

Learning outcomes

After completing this section you will be able to:

 explain factors that facilitated the rise of English as a lingua franca;

 identify reasons why the English language teaching became a profession;
 distinguish the differences between ELT/ESL/EFL; and,
 indicate developments in ELT in Ethiopia.

Nowadays, ELT has in place internationally validated courses of preparation for teachers, such as
the Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults (DELTA) and the In-service Certificate in
English Language Teaching (ICELT), both validated through the British Cambridge ESOL. There
have been initiatives towards English language teaching professionalism by setting entry
standards for practitioners, so that professional ELT becomes a regular service.

English language teaching has an extensive knowledge base, and research continues to contribute
to it. And as ELT practice is traditionally theory driven, there are mechanisms for change that are
not entirely controlled by the administrative needs of employers.

Perhaps the implications of this are best appreciated by comparing professional systems with
those currently guiding ELT practice. In current ELT orthodoxy, the service given depends on the
education of the teachers, which in turn depends on what has been researched.

Good practice in a professional system is good because it works, and does not depend on whether
or nota satisfactory theoretical explanation exists. The growth of professional bodies depends on
the existence of good practice. First, it is necessary to define the ELT service, thinking about
what practitioners must know and what they must be competent to do, having a clear view of their
service from the client's point of view and a clear conception of who their clients are.

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These are not traditionally the concerns of ELT literature, yet they underlie all attempts to educate
ELT professionals and to evaluate their work. It may be concluded that any attempt to form a
professional body in ELT in the present state of knowledge would tend to freeze practice in
current orthodoxy rather than address client needs.

Lesson 1: The Rise of English as a Lingua Franca and E.L.T as a

Profession

Task 1: Your thoughts

Discuss the following questions briefly in groups before you read the text
(an extract taken from Harmer 2010) given below:

1. What is a lingua franca? Is English language a lingua franca? How many people speak
it, as a mother tongue or as a second language?
2. How do you explain the place of English language in international communication?
3. Can you give examples of ―false friend‖ from Ethiopian languages?
4. What common languages are spoken among the European Union?
5. Which number you think is greater, the number of speakers of English as a first
language or as a second language? Which one is potentially rising? Give reasons?
6. Will English language remain to be the dominant language among the world languages?
Why

Task 2: Read the following material taken from Jeremy Harmer (2006) and
check your answers.

The World of English

Although English is not the language with the largest number of native or first language speakers,
it has become a lingua franca. A lingua franca can be defined as a language widely adopted for
communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from each other‘s and
where one or both speakers are using it as a second language. Many people living in the European
Union, for example, frequently operate in English as well as their own languages (where these are
different), and the economic and cultural influence of the United States has led to increased
English use in many areas of the globe.

Like Latin in Europe in the middle Ages, English seems to be one of the main languages of
international communication, and even people who are not speakers of English often know words
such as bank, chocolate, computer, hamburger, hospital, hot, dog, hotel, piano, radio, restaurant,
taxi, telephone, television, university, and walkman. Many of these words have themselves been
borrowed by English from other languages of course (e.g. chocolate, hamburger, taxi etc.), and
speakers of Romance languages are likely to have a number of words in common with English.
But there are many ‗false friends‘ too where similar sounding words actually mean something

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quite different, for example, Italian eventualmente (= in case) contrasts with English eventually
(=in the end).

The Numbers Game

Whatever the spread of English across the globe and whatever its overlap with other languages,
there has been an intriguing debate over the years as to how many people speak English as their
‗first‘ or ‗second‘ language. Estimates of speaker numbers are somewhat variable. For example,
Braj Kachru (1985) suggested between 320-380 million people spoke English as a first language,
and anywhere between 250-350 million as a second language. On the other hand, David Crystal
(1995 and 1997) takes 75 territories where English ‗holds a special place‘ (territories which
include not only Britain, the USA, Australia, Canada, etc but also places such as Hong Kong,
India, Malaysia and Nigeria) and calculates around 377 million first language speakers of English
and only 98 million speakers of English as a second language.

What do you understand by the phrase” the numbers game” above ?

Not only is the calculation of such figures problematic, but a lot he suggests, also depends on how
well we expect people to be able to speak English before we can start including them as second
language English speakers. As he points out, ―the more limited command of English we allow to
be acceptable, the more this figure can be inflated‘ (crystal 1995:108). It seems to be the case,
therefore, that anywhere between 600-700 million people in the world speak English, and of that
huge number, a significant minority speaks it as a second language.

In 1983, however, Kachru made a prediction which, if correct, means that there is now more
second language than first language speakers. He wrote: ―One might hazard a linguistic guess
here. If the spread of English continues at the current rate, by the year 2000, its non-native
speakers will outnumber its native speakers‖.

David Graddol, writing some fourteen years later, thought it would take until at least 2007 before
this position was reached (Graddol 1997).

It is not necessarily the case that English will remain dominant among world languages.
However, there is no doubt that it is and will remain a vital linguistic tool for many business
people, academics, tourists and citizens of the world who wish to communicate easily across
nationalities for many years to come.

How English Got There

There are a number of interlocking reasons for the popularity of English as a lingua franca. Many
of these are historical, but they also include economic and cultural factors which have influenced
and sustained the spread of the language:

1. A colonial history: when the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the Massachusetts coast in 1620 after
their eventful journey from Plymouth, England, they brought with them not just a set of religious
beliefs, nor only a pioneering spirit and a desire for colonization, but also their language.
Although many years later the Americans broke away from their colonial masters, the language

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of English remained and it is still the predominant language of the world‘s economic and political
power.

It was the same in Australia, too. When Commander Philip planted the British flag in Sydney
Cove on 26th January 1788, it was not just a bunch of British convicts and their guardians who
disembarked (to be rapidly followed by many free settlers of that Land), but also a language. In
other parts of the British Empire, English rapidly became a unifying/ dominating means of
control. For example, it became a lingua franca in India, where a plethora of indigenous
languages made the use of any one of them as a whole-country system problematic. The
imposition of English as the one language of administration helped maintain the coloniser‘s
power. Thus, in the same way as Spanish was imposed on much of the new world by the
conquistadores form castile, or Brazil and parts of Africa took on the language of their Portuguese
conquerors, English travelled around many parts. Of the world, until, many years from the
colonial reality that introduced it, and long after that colonial power faded away, it is still widely
used as a main or at least an institutional language in countries as far apart as Jamaica and
Pakistan, Uganda, New Zealand.

2. Economics: a major factor in the spread of English has been the spearhead of commerce
throughout the world, and in particular, the emergence of the United States as a world economic
power. Of course other economic blocks are hugely powerful too, but the spread of international
commerce has taken English along with it. This is the twentieth- century phenomenon of
‗globalisation‖; described by the journalist John Pilger as‘… a term which journalists and
politicians have made fashionable and which is often used in a positive sense to denote a ―global
village‖ of ―free trade‖, hi –tech marvels and all kinds of possibilities that transcend class,
historical experience, and ideology (Pilger 1998:61). Thus one of the first sights many travellers
were arriving in countries as diverse as the Czech Republic and Brazil, for example, is the yellow
twin arched sign of a MC Donald‘s fast food restaurant. Whether we take a benign view of such
―multinational‘ economic activity or, like John Pilger and many others, view it as a threat to the
identities of individual countries and local control, English is the language that frequently rides
on its back.

3. Travel: much travel and tourism is carried on, around the world, in English. Of course this is
not always the case, as the multilingualism of many tourism workers in different countries
demonstrates, but a visit to most airports on the globe will show signs not only in the language of
that country, but also in English, just as many airline announcements are glossed in English too,
whatever the language of the country the airport is situated in. So far, English is also the preferred
language of air traffic control in many countries and is used widely in sea travel communication.

4. Information exchange: a great deal of academic discourse around the world takes place in
English. It is often a lingua franca of conferences, for example, and many journal articles in fields
as diverse as astrophysics and zoology have English as a kind of default language. The first years
of the Internet as major channel for information exchange have also seen a marked predominance
of English such a situation may not continue). This probably has something to do with the
Internet‘s root in the USA and the predominance of its use there in the early days of the World
Wide Web.

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5. Popular culture: in the western world, at least, English is a dominating language in popular
culture. Pop music in English saturates the planet‘s airways. Thus many people who are not
English speakers can sing words from their favourite English medium songs. Many people who
are regular cinemagoers (or TV viewers) frequently hear English in subtitled films coming out of
the USA. However, we need to remind ourselves that ‗Bollywood (in India) produces more films
than Hollywood (in the USA) and that many countries, such as France, do their best to fight
against the cultural domination of the American movie.

Task 3: Now that you have read the material above that depicts the background of
English language; based on the material, please discuss the following points in
detail.

1. Reasons for the popularity of English as a lingua franca

a. Colonial history: examples, the 1620 invasion of Britain to USA
b. Economics: examples, emergence of USA, globalization, the McDonald‘s
chain business, etc.
c. Travel: examples, airport and aviation language, multi-lingualism
d. Information exchange: examples, the World Wide Web (WWW).
e. Popular culture: examples, Pop music, TV channels
2. Why do you think that some people view the spread of English as a cultural
imperialism?
3. Why does the author call ―numbers game‖ the attempts to calculate the speakers
of English language over the globe?

Task 4: Further questions for group discussion

Read gain the full text from Harmer 2010 and discuss the following questions.

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 2. Most English language teaching in the world is not practiced by native speakers.
Why?
3. Language is an intensely a political issue. Why?
4. What do you think is the future of English?
5. What is mutual intelligibility? What is appropriation?
6. Compare the number of Internet users of English and other languages in the
world, which one is increasing more? Why?
7. What are some of the varieties of English?
8. Discuss the three circles of English: Inner circle, outer circle and the expanding
circles.
9. What is general English or what is specific English: ESP/EAP?
10. What is your evaluation of the Hispanic language community in the USA and the
Asian languages in the future?

Task 5: Dear student! Should we import English language teaching methodology

from the native places of English or should we adapt it to local educational
culture? What is your position? What is the position of the writer of the text
above? Can you support your argument citing evidence from the text itself?

Write a two-page critical essay on this issue and submit it to your instructor.
While you write the essay make references to the subject in the library.

Task 6: English Language Teaching (ELT) has come to be one of the fast-
growing professions. A certain profession has distinctive characteristics to be
considered as a profession.

Read the following text, “ELT as a profession”, and discuss in groups of three the
following questions and ideas. Assign a group leader. At the end of your
discussion, let the group leader report to the whole class your reactions to the
questions and ideas.

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 1. What characterizes language teaching as a profession?
2. What is the relationship between theory and practice in ELT?
3. What are the characteristic features of a profession? Mention some, such as personal
dedication and public service.
4. Discuss the three models of professional education.
The craft model
The applied science model
The reflective model
5. Which model of teacher education does best work for teaching secondary school students?
6. Can EFL teaching be both a craft and a science?
7. Discuss the difference between received knowledge and experiential knowledge.
8. In secondary schools you had been so far in, which model of teacher education was
common?
9. What implication do you think the reflective model of teacher education has on syllabus
and materials development for teaching?

ELT as a Profession

1. Wallace (1991) describes three models of teacher education, which, if applied, may also be
used to describe any EFL education programme. One of these is the Craft model. Under this
model, teachers are expected to learn, by copying, or imitating, or otherwise, from their instructor
or trainer who is considered as a model.

2. Another one is the applied science model. Under this model, teachers-in-preparation are
expected to learn various theories, approaches, strategies, and techniques of teaching yet from
their instructors or trainers. Trainee's role is just to learn these methods of teaching directly from
their teachers and thus to apply them later in their own teaching career, thus the phrase ―applied
science ―.

3. The last one is the reflective model. It is in this model that teachers-in-preparation are expected
to experiment teaching in their own ways. Under this model, trainees are given the opportunity to
make a trade off between received and experiential knowledge .Here, trainees are allowed to learn
various teaching theories, approaches, or strategies and to practice them in such a way that
trainees would reflect upon them in quest for further innovative or effective ways of teaching.
This later model was improved and termed by Ur (1996) as an enriched reflective model.

4. Other writers described EFL teacher education in terms of complementary variables like the
micro approach to EFL teacher education and the macro approach to EFL teacher education
(Richards and Nunan 1990). The micro approach to teacher education refers to low-level
variables or factors like the number of display questions or the number of inferential questions
the teacher asks in the classroom, the number of assignments the teacher is expected to give

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his/her students, etc. which the teachers-in-preparation can easily be trained about. The macro
approach to teacher education refers to high-level variables or factors like classroom
management, the use of time on tasks, etc. which the teachers-in-preparation cannot be easily
educated about for such variables emanate from all theoretical and practical provisions the
trainees are provided with.

5. Therefore, a successful EFL education is the one that accommodates both the micro and macro
aspects of training or education. Richards (Richards and Nunan 1990) presents a set of training
experiences which he thinks would provide teachers-in-preparation opportunities for learning the
low-level variables. This set includes teaching assistantships, simulations, tutorials, workshops
and mini-courses, microteaching, and case studies. Whereas training experiences such as
practised teaching, observation, self and peer observation, seminars and discussion activities,
were suggested by Richards as opportunities that would help trainees to be familiar with the high-
level variables or the macro approaches to teacher education.

Lesson 2: English as a First, Second, and Foreign Language

Dear student!

By and large, L1 teaching is that part of general education which deals with the transmission of a

society's written culture and STANDARD speech (which may or may not involve training in an
approved accent). It usually includes instruction in aspects of a particular literature, and it has
traditionally included explicit instruction in GRAMMAR, SPELLING, PUNCTUATION, and
COMPOSITION, matters that are currently controversial. L2 teaching for many centuries centred
on acquiring a classical language, in Europe especially LATIN, sometimes GREEK or
HEBREW, and elsewhere such languages as classical ARABIC, Mandarin Chinese (see CHINA),
and SANSKRIT.

In Britain, the teaching of a second vernacular (non-foreign) language has taken place, on a
limited scale and mainly since the 19c, in Scotland and Wales, usually for those who have already
had GAELIC or WELSH as their mother tongues, their general education proceeding in English
as a second language which more often than not becomes their primary medium.

Because there has been no significant other VERNACULAR in England since NORMAN
FRENCH in the 14c, L2 teaching in that country has generally been concerned with ‗foreign‘
languages. The most powerful L2 tradition in England, and elsewhere in the English-speaking
world, has usually been the teaching of French. Dear students, could you try answering the
following questions based on your knowledge of languages you have had so far?

Task 7: Discuss the similarities and differences between the following terms.

L1 L2
First language Second language
Native language Non-native language
Mother tongue Foreign language
Primary language Secondary language
Stronger language Weaker language

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Note: the above terms indicate a subjective relationship between a language and an individual
or a group. There is a set of terms which describes language objectively, i.e. without reference to
the relationship of individuals to that language. This set refers to the geographical distribution,
social function, political status, origin, type or importance of the language. This set of terms is
given in the following box.

Task 8: Read H.H. Stern 1983 (from pp1. 70) and any other ELT introductory book
and discuss the terms one by one in your group.

 Language of wider communication

 Standard language
 Regional language
 National language
 Official language
 Modern language
 Classical language

Task 9: Again, based on the readings you have made above, explain the
following in short.

1. The difference between L1 and L2

2. Bilingual and bilingualism
3. Intranational and international language
4. English as a lingua-franca/English as an international ―passport‖
5. Purposes of learning a second language and a foreign language
6. Learning (deductive move) and acquisition (inductive move)versus L2 and L1
7. The difference between teaching and learning
8. Learning style and learning strategy
9. Ambilingualism/equilingualism
10. Modern language and classical language
11. Critical period of language learning

Task 10: What do you understand by the following statements in terms of

language acquisition, language proficiency, and importance of language,
subjectivity and objectivity?

16
 1. I am a native speaker of French.
2. His first language was Hungarian.
3. Hungarian was my first language, but I have completely forgotten it.
4. We are learning French in school.
5. Canada is a bilingual country.
6. He speaks French fluently but English and Italian very poorly.
7. English is nearly a second language in Ethiopia, earlier it was a foreign
language.

Lesson 3: English Language Teaching (ELT) in Ethiopia

Task 11: Your thoughts

Before you read the text below, please discuss the following questions in
pairs and report your answers to the whole class.

1. What do you think is the status of English language in Ethiopia?

2. How is the attitude of students towards learning English language in Ethiopia?

Read the following text (Extracted from Mekasha (2006) and discuss in pairs
the questions that follow it.

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In theStatus
The of English
civil service sector,inEnglish
Ethiopiais used as an official language (beside the Federal
Government‘s official language, Amharic). It is also used in universities and colleges,
banks, and
English is used
the in
civil
Ethiopia
aviation.
as aThe
second
Ethiopian
officialElectric
language Corporation
in the pressandandthe
theEthiopian
business
Telecommunication
sectors as its importance
Corporation
has grown usually
over years
print customer
in many offices
tariff bills
in running
only intheir
the English
day-to-
language.
day activities
In many
(Dejene
of the
1990;
non-governmental
Gebremedhin 1993;
EnglishHailemichael
is used as an 1993;
alternative
Italo official
1996).
languageweekly
Popular both inprivate
writtennewspapers
and oral communications.
such as The Reporter,
In some Thechurches
Addis Tribune
of the Christian
and daily
denominations
government newspapers
however service
such asis made
The Ethiopian
only in theHerald
Englishare language.
printed in the English
language. In the business sector, a sizeable share of the communication is made both
in the English language and local languages in events such as business advertisements,
business promotions, business fairs, workshops, seminars, etc. In daily social routines
as well, one can easily find the English language used in companion with other
languages in invitation letters, visiting and wedding cards, congratulatory messages,
billboards, brochures and technical manuals.

Important legal documents such as the Ethiopian Constitution, Federal and regional
state proclamations and economic and accountancy releases are made both in the
English and the Amharic languages. Some official government press conferences are
organised for the local and international journalists both in the English and the
Amharic languages. These are also sometimes followed by written communiqués to be
issued both in the English and local languages. Even though the official parliamentary
language of the country is the Amharic language, almost all the bills and draft bills on
national issues to be discussed by the parliament are prepared both in the English and
the Amharic languages. Almost all reference books and course books for secondary
and tertiary education are books written in the English language. This indicates the
important status that the English language has come to occupy in the academic sector
in Ethiopia. English as a medium of instruction, along with the Western-type of
education, was introduced by the imperial Ethiopian government.

It was, in particular, in the year 1944 that the English language was adopted as a
means of instruction with the designing of the 1947/48 Elementary English
Curriculum and with the British Council‘s provision of teaching materials (Teshome
1979; Gebremedhin 1993). Mostly Indians and American Peace Corps Volunteers
were engaged in the teaching of English. The language has widely been used as a
medium of instruction as of junior elementary schools, Grades Seven and Eight. It has
been taught as one of the major school subjects right from the start of schooling,
which is from Grade One. The fact that more time is given to English and
Mathematics in the school schedules more than any other subject shows the emphasis
given to the English language in the curriculum of education in Ethiopia.

18
 Task 12: Discuss in pairs

1. In which sectors is English language being used in Ethiopia?

2. Which schools is English used as a medium of instruction?
3. What positive situations or opportunities are there in current Ethiopia to facilitate
the learning of English language?
4. What do you think motivates Ethiopian students to learn English language?

Section Summary

Dear student!

The previous section highlighted the basics in ELT as a profession. It outlined a number of factors
that all contributed to the rise of English language as one of the most dominant languages of
instruction and communication the world over.

The professionalism advocated here is nothing more than theeffective management of the client's
learning, led by professionalsclaiming appropriate knowledge and competence, and accountableto
clients. No other system allows the delivery of a serviceof comparable quality combined with an
effective system of accountability.Perhaps the advantages of a professional approach to ELT
canbe outlined as follows:

 Service to the client

 Reduction inthe impact of peripheral considerations such asthe
teacher'spersonality
 Accountable practice with no passing the blamefor poor servicebetween
providers
 Management of incrementalchange based on proven improvementin client
service outcomes
 Accommodation of career development within the professionalsystem
 Consolidation of teacher education
 Valid systemsof service evaluation
 Clear directions for practice orientedresearch
 Valid criteria for recognition of teacher excellence
 Administrative procedures focused on client service ratherthan accountability to
the teacher's employers

The next section takes you closer to the nature of language learning and how students, that is,
you, learn English language effectively. The section attempts to offer you an insight into the
different language learning theories and learning styles.

Needleless to say that an ELT teacher should know their students language learning styles and
learning strategies before they start for planning for any kind of teaching or instructional
activities.

19
Section 1.2 Language Learning Theories and Learning Styles:
Implication for Teaching

Introduction

This section presents you with the major theories of language acquisition. It also attempts to make
a distinction for you between acquisition and learning. The section further examines different
language learning styles and strategies of learners.

It tries to make you very sensitive, as you will be a teacher, towards your students‘ individual
differences in learning. A teacher‘s teaching task always begins by identifying their students‘
learning styles and preferences.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this section you will be able to:

 identify major language acquisition theories; and,

 list and examine different learning styles and learning strategies of learners

Lesson 1: Language Acquisition Theories

Task 13: Your thoughts

Discuss the following questions in pairs and get ready to read the text
given below the questions.

1. What is a theory?
2. Please cite one theory of language from your undergraduate study in the areas of
theoretical linguistics and explain that theory to your group.
3. Why is it important for secondary school English language teacher to know how their
students learn English?
4. How do we know the interests and preferences of our students towards the use of a
teaching method or a teaching material in the classrooms?

20
 Task 14: Now read the text given below and discuss the concepts
presented here at the end of your reading.

 The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis,

 The Monitor hypothesis,
 The Natural Order hypothesis,
 The Input hypothesis, and
 The Affective Filter hypothesis

Krashen's theory of second language acquisition consists of five main hypotheses. These are the
following.

1. The acquisition-learning distinction

Adults have two different ways to develop competence in a language: language acquisition and
language learning.

Language acquisition is a subconscious process not unlike the way a child learns language.
Language acquirers are not consciously aware of the grammatical rules of the language, but rather
develop a "feel" for correctness. "In non-technical language, acquisition is 'picking-up' a
language."

Language learning, on the other hand, refers to the "conscious knowledge of a second language,
knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them." Thus language
learning can be compared to learning about a language.

The acquisition-learning distinction hypothesis claims that adults do not lose the ability to acquire
languages the way that children do. Just as research shows that error correction has little effect on
children learning a first language, so too error correction has little affect on language acquisition.

The following tables summarize the distinction between acquisition and learning.

Table 1
Acquisition Learning
Implicit, subconscious Explicit, conscious
Informal situations Formal situations
Uses grammatical 'feel' Uses grammatical rules
Depends on attitude Depends on aptitude
Stable order of acquisition
Simple to complex order of learning

21
2. The natural order hypothesis

The natural order hypothesis states that "the acquisition of grammatical structures proceeds in a
predictable order." For a given language, some grammatical structures tend to be acquired early,
others late, regardless of the first language of a speaker. However, this does not mean that
grammar should be taught in this natural order of acquisition.

3. The monitor hypothesis

The language that one has subconsciously acquired "initiates our utterances in a second language
and is responsible for our fluency," whereas the language that we have consciously learned acts
as an editor in situations where the learner has enough time to edit, is focused on form, and knows
the rule, such as on a grammar test in a language classroom or when carefully writing a
composition. This conscious editor is called the Monitor.

Different individuals use their monitors in different ways, with different degrees of success.
Monitor over-users try to always use their Monitor, and end up "so concerned with correctness
that they cannot speak with any real fluency." Monitor under-users either have not consciously
learned or choose to not use their conscious knowledge of the language. Although error
correction by others has little influence on them, they can often correct themselves based on a
"feel" for correctness.

Teachers should aim to produce Optimal Monitor users, who "use the Monitor when it is
appropriate and when it does not interfere with communication." They do not use their conscious
knowledge of grammar in normal conversation, but will use it in writing and planned speech.
"Optimal Monitor users can therefore use their learned competence as a supplement to their
acquired competence."

4. The input hypothesis

The input hypothesis answers the question of how a language acquirer develops competency over
time. It states that a language acquirer who is at "level i" must receive comprehensible input that
is at "level i+1." "We acquire, in other words, only when we understand language that contains
structure that is 'a little beyond' where we are now." This understanding is possible due to using
the context of the language we are hearing or reading and our knowledge of the world.

However, instead of aiming to receive input that is exactly at our i+1 level, or instead of having a
teacher aim to teach us grammatical structure that is at our i+1 level, we should instead just focus
on communication that is understandable. If we do this, and if we get enough of that kind of
input, then we will in effect be receiving and thus acquiring out i+1. "Production ability emerges.
It is not taught directly."

Evidences for the input hypothesis can be found in the effectiveness of caretaker speech from an
adult to a child, of teacher-talk from a teacher to a language student, and of foreigner-talk from a
sympathetic conversation partner to a language learner/acquirer.

One result of this hypothesis is that language students should be given an initial "silent period"
where they are building up acquired competence in a language before they begin to produce it.

22
Whenever language acquirers try to produce language beyond what they have acquired, they tend
to use the rules they have already acquired from their first language, thus allowing them to
communicate but not really progress in the second language.

5. The affective filter hypothesis

Motivation, self-confidence, and anxiety all affect language acquisition, in effect raising or
lowering the "stickiness" or "penetration" of any comprehensible input that is received.

The above five hypotheses of second language acquisition can be summarized as follows:

1. Acquisition is more important than learning.

2. In order to acquire, two conditions are necessary. The first is comprehensible (or even better,
comprehended) input containing i+1, structures a bit beyond the acquirer‘s current level, and
second, a low or weak affective filter to allow the input 'in'."

In view of these findings, a question is raised: does classroom language teaching help? Classroom
teaching helps when it provides the necessary comprehensible input to those students who are not
at a level yet which allows them to receive comprehensible input from "the real world" or who do
not have access to "real world" language speakers. It can also help when it provides students
communication tools to make better use of the outside world, and it can provide beneficial
conscious learning for optimal Monitor users.

Various research studies have been done comparing the amount of language competence and the
amount of exposure to the language either in classroom-years or length of residence, the age of
the language acquirer, and the acculturation of the language acquirer. The results of these studies
are consistent with the above acquisition hypotheses: the more comprehensible input one receives
in low-stress situations, the more language competence that one will have.

What kind of input is optimal for acquisition? The best input is comprehensible, which sometimes
means that it needs to be slower and more carefully articulated, using common vocabulary, less
slang, and shorter sentences. Optimal input is interesting and/or relevant and allows the acquirer
to focus on the meaning of the message and not on the form of the message. Optimal input is not
grammatically sequenced, and a grammatical syllabus should not be used in the language
classroom, in part because all students will not be at exactly the same level and because each
structure is often only introduced once before moving on to something else. Finally, optimal input
must focus on quantity, although most language teachers have to date seriously underestimated
how much comprehensible input is actually needed for an acquirer to progress.

In addition to receiving the right kind of input, students should have their affective filter kept low,
meaning that classroom stress should be minimized and students "should not be put on the
defensive." One result of this is that student's errors should not be corrected. Students should be
taught how to gain more input from the outside world, including helping them acquire
conversational competence, the means of managing conversation.

23
Task 15: The ideas presented in the following box are ideas that appear to
be supporting the input hypothesis. First discuss the ideas in pair, and then
present your opinion about one of those ideas to your class students.
Please make extra reading to support your opinions you present to the
class.

1. People speak to children acquiring their first language in special ways

2. People speak to L2 learners in special ways
3. L2 learners often go through an initial Silent Period
4. The comparative success of younger and older learners reflects provision of
comprehensible input
5. The more comprehensible input the greater the L2 proficiency
6. Lack of comprehensible input delays language acquisition
7. Teaching methods work according to the extent that they use comprehensible
input
8. Immersion teaching is successful because it provides comprehensible input
9. Bilingual programs succeed to the extent they provide comprehensible input

Evidence for the Input Hypothesis (chiefly Krashen 1985a)

Lesson 2: Learning Styles and Strategies

Dear student!

Effective matching between teaching styles and learning style can only be achieved when teachers
are, first of all, aware of their learners' needs, capacities, potentials and learning style preferences in
meeting these needs. Knowing their students‘ learning styles helps teachers to make an appropriate
selection of teaching methods and assessment strategies. So this lesson tries to help you, as would
be teachers, to be able to readily understand the learning styles and strategies of your students in
the future.

24
Task 16: Your thoughts

Discuss the following questions by considering back your own

experiences and others experiences as students in schools

1. Do all students in a classroom have the same learning styles and learning
strategies?
2. What are learning styles
3. What are learning strategies?
4. Did you ever feel in the past that your teachers knew your learning styles and
strategies?
5. Do you think that there is only one best learning style for all English language
learners?
6. Can some learning styles and strategies be good or bad in comparison to one
another?
7. What factors do you think determine or affect students‘ learning style
preferences?

What is meant by learning style?

The term learning style is used to encompass four aspects of the person: cognitive style, i.e.,
preferred or habitual patterns of mental functioning; patterns of attitudes and interests that affect
what an individual will pay most attention to in a learning situation; a tendency to seek situations
compatible with one's own learning patterns; and a tendency to use certain learning strategies and
avoid others (Lawrence, 1984).

Learning style is inherent and pervasive (Willing, 1988) and is a blend of cognitive, affective, and
behavioural elements (Oxford & Ehrman, 1988). At least twenty dimensions of learning style
have been identified (Parry, 1984; Shipman & Shipman, 1985). The following are the major
tendencies in learning styles of students.

1. Auditory Learners
Students with this style will be able to recall what they hear and will prefer oral instructions. They
learn by listening and speaking. These students enjoy talking and interviewing. They are phonetic
readers who enjoy oral reading, choral reading, and listening to recorded books. They learn best
by doing the following:

o Interviewing, debating
o Participating on a panel
o Giving oral reports
o Participating in oral discussions of written material

25
 2. Visual Learners
Visual learners will be able to recall what they see and will prefer written instructions. These
students are sight readers who enjoy reading silently. Better yet, present information to them with
a video. They will learn by observing and enjoy working with the following:

o Computer graphics
o Maps, graphs, charts
o Cartoons
o Posters
o Diagrams
o Graphic organizers
o Text with a lot of pictures

3. Tactile Learners
Students with this strength learn best by touching. They understand directions that they write and
will learn best through manipulatives. Try using the Language Experience Approach (LEA) when
teaching these students to read. These students will also benefit from whole language approaches
to reading. They'll learn best by:

o Drawing
o Playing board games
o Making dramas
o Making models
o Following instructions to make something

3. Kinaesthetic Learners
Kinaesthetic learners also learn by touching or manipulating objects. They need to involve their
whole body in learning. Total Physical Response is a good ESL method for them. They remember
material best if they act it out. These students learn best by:

o Playing games that involve their whole body

o Movement activities
o Making models
o Following instructions to make something
o Setting up experiments 26
 4. Global Learners

Global learners are spontaneous and intuitive. They do not like to be bored. Information needs to
be presented in an interesting manner using attractive materials. Cooperative learning strategies
and holistic reading methods work well with these learners. Global learners learn best through:

o Choral reading
o Recorded books
o Story writing
o Computer programs
o Games
o Group activities
5. Analytic Learners

Analytic learners plan and organize their work. They focus on details and are logical. They are
phonetic readers and prefer to work individually on activity sheets.

o Information is presented in sequential steps

o Lessons are structured and teacher-directed
o Goals are clear
o Requirements are spelled out

27
Task 17: Making a survey of learning styles of students

Use the following interview checklist and make a survey of learning styles of
about 10 students in your English Language Subject Area Methodology
classroom. Compile the findings or the results and make an analysis of
about one page and present it to your class by reading it out.

Your instructor will help you on how to compile the data and analyse it.

No Types of Students
learning S1 S2 S3 S4 S5
styles
1 Auditory
2 Visual
3 Tactile
4 Kinaesthetic
5 Global
6 Analytical

S= Student

Task 18: Read the following passage about brain research on learning
styles and answer the following questions in group.

1. Which processes do you think, right or left brain processes, that are
dominant among your classmates?
2. Which of the functions of the brain are very common with you
individually? Is it easy to tell?
3. How can teachers use the findings of the research indicated for improving
their students’ learning?

Brain Research

Brain research has led to an exploration of learning style preference. Teachers need to plan
activities that stimulate both the left and right brain processes. However, research does indicate
that Native American students may be culturally right-brain dominant. James Hand (1986) states
that there are a number of characteristics that distinguish left and right brained functions:

Left hemisphere Right hemisphere

Verbal, linguistic Intonation, inflection

Ideation (abstractions) Pictorial & pattern sense
Conceptual similarities Visual similarities

28
Sense of time Location in space
Controls right side of body Controls left side of body
Numeric, quantities Melodic perception
Logic Poetic processing
Outlook Insight
Geometric configurations

It should be noted that both hemispheres share in mental activities. Scientists have not discovered
any one higher intellectual function controlled entirely by one hemisphere.

Teachers can increase learning and the use of brain capacity by determining what the dominant
learning modality of each student is and supplying activities to stimulate that modality. However,
multiple channeling (learning through a number of sensory factors: visual, auditory, and
kinesthetic) is one of the most powerful methods for increasing connections made in the human
brain. Research indicates a higher learning rate and greater retention of learning when
information is processed through multiple senses.

Instead of merely sitting and silently reading the names of the bones of the feet, the student can
read them aloud and at the same time allow himself to touch various areas of his feet as he calls
out the name. He can visualize a giant walking through a village. Using his imagination's x-ray
vision, the student can see all the bones in the giant's feet as he storms through the village. When
the student can name all the bones of the feet, the giant must leave the village. The student can
proceed to play such a game for each set of bones in the body until he has memorized them all.

When he wants to recall the names of the bones, he can go back to the village and reenact this
game with the giant, he can recall the sounds of the names and the tactile sensations of having
experiences corresponding to points of his own body, and he can recall the printed words in the
book. This is a simple example of multiple channeling (Quina, 1989).

Learning Strategies?

Task 19: Your thoughts

29
 Read the following text and answer the questions given below. Answer
the questions in writing and then discuss your answers in pairs.

1. What are learning strategies?

2. Explain the following techniques
a. Cognitive strategies of learning
b. Meta-cognitive techniques
c. Affective strategies
d. Memory strategies
e. Compensation strategies
f. Social strategies
3. Where do you think your own learning strategies fall under the above broad divisions
of learning strategies given?
4. Which areas of language learning strategies has language learning research focused so
far?
5. Do you think one‘s language learning strategies vary as he/she learns grammar,
vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and speaking?
6. What factors dictate out selection and use of a learning strategy?

Language learning strategies are the often-conscious steps or behaviours used by language
learners to enhance the acquisition, storage, retention, recall, and use of new information (Rigney,
1978; Oxford, 1990).

Strategies can be assessed in a variety of ways, such as diaries, think-aloud procedures,

observations, and surveys. Research both outside the language field (e.g., Brown, Bransford,
Ferrara, & Campione, 1983) and investigations with language learners (see reviews by Skehan,
1989; Oxford 1989; Oxford & Crookall, 1989) frequently show that the most successful learners
tend to use learning strategies that are appropriate to the material, to the task, and to their own
goals, needs, and stage of learning.

More proficient learners appear to use a wider range of strategies in a greater number of
situations than do less proficient learners, but the relationship between strategy use and
proficiency is complex. Research indicates that language learners at all levels use strategies
(Chamot & Kupper, 1989), but that some or most learners are not fully aware of the strategies
they use or the strategies that might be most beneficial to employ.

Many different strategies can be used by language learners: meta-cognitive techniques for
organizing, focusing, and evaluating one's own learning; affective strategies for handling
emotions or attitudes; social strategies for cooperating with others in the learning process;
cognitive strategies for linking new information with existing schemata and for analyzing and
classifying it; memory strategies for entering new information into memory storage and for
retrieving it when needed; and compensation strategies (such as guessing or using gestures) to
overcome deficiencies and gaps in one's current language knowledge (see Oxford, 1990).

Language learning strategy research has suffered from an overemphasis on meta-cognitive and
cognitive strategies, which are admittedly very important, at the expense of other strategy types
that are also very useful.

30
Some preliminary research suggests the existence of sex differences in strategy use (see review
by Oxford, Nyikos, & Ehrman, 1988). Choice of language strategies also relates strongly to
ethnicity, language learning purpose, the nature of the task, and other factors (see Politzer, 1983;
Politzer & McGroarty, 1985; Oxford, 1989). As noted earlier, one of these related factors is, no
doubt, learning style.

Important effects of training in the use of language learning strategies have been discovered by a
number of researchers (see Atkinson, 1985; Bejarano, 1987; Chamot & Kupper, 1989; Cohen &
Hosenfeld, 1981; Oxford, Crookall, Lavine, Cohen, Nyikos & Sutter, forthcoming)

It is clear that students can be taught to use better strategies, and research suggests that better
strategies improve language performance. Just how language learning strategies should be taught
is open to question, but so far it has been confirmed that strategy training is generally more
effective when woven into regular classroom activities than when presented as a separate strategy
course.

Language learning styles and strategies appear to be among the most important variables
influencing performance in a second language.

Much more investigation is necessary to determine the precise role of styles and strategies, but
even at this stage in our understanding we can state that teachers need to become more aware of
both learning styles and learning strategies through appropriate teacher training. Teachers can
help their students by designing instruction that meets the needs of individuals with different
stylistic preferences and by teaching students how to improve their learning strategies.

Task 20: Exploring learners‟ learning strategies

Now, you have read the above text and have understood that a teacher
should encourage his/her students to use appropriate effective learning
strategies in learning for example English grammar entitled „modal
auxiliary verbs”.

Select any two of the modal auxiliary verbs in English and conduct a
micro-teaching for about 20 minutes. In your micro-teaching encourage
your students to use what you think are appropriate learning strategies
for learning grammar especially modal auxiliary verbs.

Orchestration of L2 Learning Strategies

31
Research supports the effectiveness of using L2 learning strategies and has shown that successful
language learners often use strategies in an orchestrated fashion. Some further findings are listed
below:
1. Use of appropriate language learning strategies often results in improved proficiency or
achievement overall or in specific skill areas (Oxford et al., 1993; Thompson & Rubin,
1993).
2. Successful language learners tend to select strategies that work well together in a highly
orchestrated way, tailored to the requirements of the language task (Chamot & Kupper,
1989). These learners can easily explain the strategies they use and why they employ
them (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990).
3. Cognitive (e.g., translating, analyzing) and meta-cognitive (e.g., planning, organizing)
strategies are often used together, supporting each other (O'Malley & Chamot, 1990).
Well tailored combinations of strategies often have more impact than single strategies.
4. Certain strategies or clusters of strategies are linked to particular language skills or tasks.
For example, L2 writing, like L1 writing, benefits from the learning strategies of
planning, self-monitoring, deduction, and substitution. L2 speaking demands strategies
such as risk-taking, paraphrasing, circumlocution, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation.
L2 listening comprehension gains from strategies of elaboration, inferencing, selective
attention, and self-monitoring, while reading comprehension uses strategies like reading
aloud, guessing, deduction, and summarizing (Chamot & Kupper, 1989).

Dear student!

The powerful social and affective strategies are found less often in L2 research. This is,
perhaps, because these behaviours are not studied frequently by L2 researchers, and because
learners are not familiar with paying attention to their own feelings and social relationships as
part of the L2 learning process (Oxford, 1990b). See Oxford (1990b) for a detailed chart that
maps relevant strategies with listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.

Task 21: Reflecting on one‟s own English language learning strategies

Individually make a list of English language learning strategies you

personally use in the areas of the following skills and areas of knowledge.
Then discuss this list with any other classmate of yours and make
comparisons of the two lists.

No. Skills Learning Reasons for How often the

strategies used using strategy used
/you use (always,
(please list sometimes,
them down never)
using commas)
1 Listening skills
2 Speaking skills
3 Reading skills
4 Writing skills

32
5 Grammar
6 Vocabulary

Oxford (1990a) synthesized existing research on how the following factors influence the choice
of strategies used among students learning a second language.

1. Motivation. More motivated students tended to use more strategies than less motivated
students, and the particular reason for studying the language (motivational orientation,
especially as related to career field) was important in the choice of strategies.

2. Gender. Females reported greater overall strategy use than males in many studies
(although sometimes males surpassed females in the use of a particular strategy).

3. Cultural background. Rote memorization and other forms of memorization were more
prevalent among some Asian students than among students from other cultural
backgrounds. Certain other cultures also appeared to encourage this strategy among
learners.

4. Attitudes and beliefs. These were reported to have a profound effect on the strategies
learners choose, with negative attitudes and beliefs often causing poor strategy use or
lack of orchestration of strategies.

5. Type of task. The nature of the task helped determine the strategies naturally employed to
carry out the task.
6. Age and L2 stage. Students of different ages and stages of L2 learning used different
strategies, with certain strategies often being employed by older or more advanced
students.

7. Learning style. Learning style (general approach to language learning) often determined
the choice of L2 learning strategies. For example, analytic-style students preferred
strategies such as contrastive analysis, rule-learning, and dissecting words and phrases,
while global students used strategies to find meaning (guessing, scanning, predicting) and
to converse without knowing all the words (paraphrasing, gesturing).

8. Tolerance of ambiguity. Students who were more tolerant of ambiguity used significantly
different learning strategies in some instances than did students who were less tolerant of
ambiguity.

Section Summary

Dear student!

This section has attempted to introduce us to the major language learning theories especially
second language acquisition theories. With due reference to the major architect of language
acquisition theories, Stephen Krashen, the section discussed the distinction between language
acquisition and language learning, the natural order hypothesis, the input hypothesis, and the
affective filter hypothesis of language learning.

33
Moreover, the section gave us an introduction to the concepts of learning styles and learning
strategies. It outlined major learning styles such as the visual learners, the auditory learners, and the
tactile learners and how they learn, for example, English language.

The following Table summarises some of the key features of L1 acquisition and L2 learning for
further understanding and reflection.

34
 Acquisition-Learning Differences

L1 Acquisition

1. L1 acquisition is genetically triggered at the most critical stage of the child's cognitive
development.
2. The 'engine' of language – its syntactic system – is 'informationally encapsulated' –
which means that children are not even aware of developing a complex, rule-
governed, hierarchical system. Most L1 speakers do not even realize this is what they
are using.
3. The L1 is typically acquired at the crucial period of cognitive development; pre-
puberty, when L1 and other crucial life-skills are also acquired or learned.
4. Children never resist L1 acquisition, any more than they resist learning to walk.
5. Given even minimal 'input' during critical pre-pubescent development, all humans
acquire the L1 of the society or social group they are born into as a natural and
essential part of their lives. Even brain-damaged and/or retarded children usually
acquire the full grammatical code of the language of their society or social group.
6. In short, L1 acquisition is an essential, biologically–driven process. It is part of every
individual's evolutionary history and development in the most critical stage of that
individual's acquisition of essential life-skills.

L2 Learning

1. L2 learning is not genetically triggered in any way unless the child grows up bi-
lingually (in which case, it is not really L2 learning at all).
2. The syntax of the L2 is not acquired unconsciously, or at least not in the way L1
syntax is acquired. Few L2 learners develop the same degree of unconscious, rule-
governed insight into and use of the L2 which they demonstrate with the L1.
3. The L2 is not learned as part of the learner's general cognitive development. It is not
an essential life-skill in the same way that the L1 is.
4. There is often great conscious or unconscious resistance to L2 learning.
5. Many highly intelligent individuals with impressive learning skills often have great
problems learning an L2. Many L2 learners 'fossilize' at some stage, so that even if
they use the L2 regularly, and are constantly exposed to input in it, they fail to
develop full grammatical or 'generative' competence.
6. L2 learning is not a biologically-driven process. It is not an essential aspect of an
individual's general development. Especially when the L2 is simply another subject on
an already overloaded school curriculum or something that has to be undertaken by
people with busy lives and heavy work-loads.

As a continuation to our discussion on factors that affect learning languages, the next section will
provide us with a closer look at individual differences in language learning.

35
Section 1.3: Individual Differences in Language Learning

Introduction

Dear student!

The previous section gave emphasis to different learning styles and learning strategies. It
underlined that there cannot be one best learning style or strategy for all learners in an ELT
classroom.

This section does still focus on learners. It depicts the possible differences learners may have in
learning languages. Just like learning styles and learning strategies, understanding learner
individual differences is extremely vital for the classroom teacher as the teaching methods they use
have to be compatible or suitable to different groups of learners. This is important for effective
teaching of English language.

Learning outcomes

After completing this section you will be able to:

 Identify environmental, demographic and social factors in creating individual

differences in English language learning context; and,
 Differentiate psychological and genetic factors in learning English language.

Lesson 1: Environmental and Demographic Factors

Understanding the way in which learners differ from one another is of fundamental concern to
those involved in second-language acquisition, either as researchers or teachers.

Task 22: Exploring for environmental and demographic factors

36
 Discuss the following questions in your group. As a group, produce a one
page critical essay on one of the questions you discussed and read out
the essay to the whole class.

1. What do you think are demographic factors and how they affect English language
learning in your own context?
2. What do you think are environmental and cultural factors and how do they affect
English language learning in your own context?
3. Wouldit be possible to think of a learning situation where there cannot be
individual differences in learning?
4. What implications does it have for an English language teacher to know learner
factors?

Task 23: Learner factors in actual classrooms

The following talk entitled “Individual Differences in Second language

Learning” was offered to the academic community at National Chengchi
University (September 2001) by Rod Ellis (University of Auckland). Please
as read the talk think of learner factors in your Subject Area methodology
Class and use the talk to explore those learner factors and report in
writing of about one page to your instructor

Individual Differences in Second language Learning (talk script)

1. Beliefs

Learners possess beliefs about language, language learners, language use, and language learning
that influence the way they set about learning an L2. These beliefs are generally investigated by
means of Likert scale questionnaires that require learners to respond to statements like:

I study English because it is useful to communicate with English speaking people.

Learning English is mostly a matter of learning grammar rules.
Girls are better than boys at learning English.
Other methods (e.g. learner diaries and interviews) have also been used to examine beliefs.

The study of learner beliefs has a number of possible applications:

 developing self-awareness in learners (learner autonomy)
 indentifying beliefs that relate to successful language learning
 Countering beliefs that have a negative impact on language learning.

37
However, to date, there has been little success in indentifying which beliefs relate to successful
and unsuccessful learning.

2. Affective States

The affective variable that has attracted most attention is anxiety. This has been investigated by
means of questionnaires and learner diaries.

Three types of anxiety:

 Trait anxiety
 State anxiety
 Situational anxiety

Sources of language learning anxiety are:

 communication apprehension
 tests
 fear of negative evaluation

Research has shown very mixed relationships between anxiety and proficiency.
Anxiety can be both debilitating and facilitating.

3. Learner factors

A number of general factors have been found to influence L2 learning. These can be divided into
two principal groups:

A. Immutable factors, e.g.

Age
Language aptitude

B. Mutable factors, e.g.

Learning style
Personality

C. Language Aptitude

Modern Language Aptitude Test (Carroll and Sapon 1959) and Pimsleur Language Aptitude
Battery (Pimsleur 1966) used to measure language aptitude. These are based on a four-factor
model of language aptitude:
 phonemic coding ability (i.e. ability to code foreign sounds in a way they can be remembered
later)
 grammatical sensitivity (i.e. ability to recognize grammatical functions of words in sentences)
 Inductive language learning ability (i.e. ability to identify patterns of correspondence and
relationships involving form and meaning).
 Rote learning ability (i.e. ability to form and remember associations between stimuli, as in
vocabulary learning).

38
Research has shown a fairly strong relationship between MLAT/PLAB scores and measures of
language proficiency (i.e. correlations of between .4 and .6).

Language aptitude appears to be related to both measures of basic interpersonal communication

skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP).

D. Motivation

In general, motivation has been examined by means of self-report questionnaires (e.g. Gardner
1985).

Different types of motivation have been identified in language learning research:

 Integrative motivation (i.e. ‗i.e. motivation informed by an orientation towards the target
language people and culture)
 Instrumental motivation (i.e. a motivation that derives towards a functional orientation to
learning the language)
 Resultative motivation (i.e. a motivation that derives from success in learning an L2)
 Intrinsic interest (i.e. motivation that results that the pleasure gained by performing language
learning tasks)

Research indicates that both integrative and instrumental motivation can promote L2 learning.
Also, success in learning results in increased motivation. Current interest in motivation has
switched to studying how teachers can develop intrinsic motivation in learners (e.g. Dornyei‘s
research).

E. Learning Experience

Learners also vary in their learning experience (e.g. naturalistic vs. classroom learning
experiences). These are likely to influence how they orientate towards the task of learning an L2.
Two broad orientations can be identified:
Experiential (functionally oriented)
Studial (norm-oriented)

The potential exists for changing learners‘ orientation through learner training or through new
learning experiences.

F. Learning strategies

Learning strategies are general approaches, specific actions or techniques used to learn an L2.
They can be both behavioural and mental. They are problem-oriented and learners are conscious
of them.

Learning strategies have been researched primarily by means of self-report questionnaires (e.g.
Oxford‘s ‗Strategy Inventory for Language Learning‘ – SILL). Some studies have used think-
aloud tasks.

Learner‘s choice of learning strategies is seen as influenced by both individual learner differences
(as above) and situational/social factors.

39
Task 24: Reflection on individual differences (environmental and
demographic factors)

Based on your reading of the above lecture/talk by Rod Ellis please give
short answers to the following questions first individually and then
discuss your answers in group.

1. What is integrative motivation?

2. What are mutable learner difference factors?
3. How do you understand experiential learning given your own experience of English
language learning?
4. What is anxiety? Where does it come from? Have you ever experienced it
5. How does personality make a difference in the learners‘ success of learning?

Lesson 2: Psychological and Cultural Factors

Task 25: Setting the emotional atmosphere of the classroom: the role of
the teacher

Read the following text (paragraph 1-3) and answer the questions
presented below in this Box.

1. What aspects are called emotional aspects of the classroom?

2. What does the writer mean by the ―Chemistry‖ that develops between the learner, the
group of the learners, and their teacher?
3. How can a teacher create a true learning environment?
4. What are the abilities of effective teachers as far as maintaining emotional atmosphere
to the classroom is concerned?

The establishment of a good emotional atmosphere in the classroom does not just depend on the
learners. Arnold and Fonseca (2007) point out those teachers play a central role in
establishing a positive learning environment. On the one hand, they need to be aware of the
need to structure their discourse so that it is comprehensible and, on the other hand, they have
to create – through verbal and non-verbal means –"a true learning environment where
students believe in the value of learning a language, where they feel they can face that

40
 challenge and where they understand the benefit they can get from attaining it". The progress
of an L2 learner can be linked to the chemistry that develops between the learner, the group
of learners and their teacher. Pedagogical practices and classroom environment have also
been linked to students' motivation levels.
Pertinent and appealing subject matters combined with non-threatening techniques create a
positive language learning experience, support and promote group solidarity and lower levels
of foreign language anxiety in the classroom (Arnold 1999; Arnold and Fonseca 2007;
Dörnyei 2001; Ewald 2007; Williams, Burden, Poulet and Maun2004).The teacher's verbal
and non-verbal behaviour affects learners' perception of them from the first few minutes of
class. Ambady and Rosenthal (1993) found that students' first impressions of teachers'
nonverbal behaviour (10 seconds from the first 10 minutes of class, 10 seconds from the
middle of class and 10 seconds from the last 10minutes of class) correlated significantly with
their end-of-year evaluations of the teacher. Teachers who were fidgeting with their hands or
with an object and teachers who were frowning typically obtained lower ratings during the
first meeting. Teachers who scored higher "were judged to be significantly more optimistic,
confident, dominant, active, enthusiastic, likable, warm, competent, and supportive on the
basis of nonverbal behaviour‖. Borg (2006) found that one crucial trait of effective language
teachers was "an ability to communicate freely and to radiate positive feeling" and to develop
close relationships with the students.

This finding reflects the conclusion of an earlier study on effective teachers of all subjects,
namely their ability to create a supportive and caring emotional environment and express
empathy with the learners (Ehrmanand Dörnyei 1998; Walls, Nardi, von Minden and
Hoffman 2002). Ross (2005) demonstrated the effect of formative assessment procedures on
the development of learners' listening confidence and the transformation of their beliefs about
listening. Kramsch (2009a) argues that foreign language teachers should abandon the
traditional monolingual perspective and embrace a multilingual perspective. The traditional
emphasis on the instrumental or referential uses of language as determined by monolingual
speakers needs to shift towards the expansion of learners' system.
Source: EAN-MARCDEWAELE, London, Reflections on the Emotional and
Psychological Aspects of Foreign Language Learning and

Task 26: Introvert and extrovert students

Read the following text (Paragraphs 1-3) and describe the behaviours of
group of students indicated in the box here.

 Introvert students
 Extrovert students
 Confident students
 Diffident students
o Where do you think you belong to? Introvert Group? Extrovert Group?
o What is the importance for the teacher to describe students‘ behaviours
in psychological terms?

41
 1. Learners may be divided into two in terms of psychological factors: introverts and
extroverts. It‘s a bit difficult for introvert students who are very shy and quiet to contact
with other people. They are often unwilling to share their ideas with their teachers and
friends and to participate in activities. Thus, they need to be encouraged to speak or join
the activities by the teacher. ―Because of personality, or perhaps from a feeling that they
don‘t know enough or having nothing to contribute, these participants quietly melt into
the group.‖ (Robert W. Lucas, Michael O'Hora, 2003:354) As these students feel more
comfortable if they know when they will speak, easy-to-follow time exercises are good
for them. They feel better if we ask them to perform within small groups rather than in
front of the whole class. Pair-work activities, in this sense, appeal them very much.
2. Moreover, the activities in which we ask the students to talk about facts such as pictures
and places or neutral things appeal to them much more instead of the activities which
require them to expose what they feel, think or like.
3. On the contrary, extrovert students are very comfortable while speaking and sharing their
experiences with their friends and teachers. They even help their introvert partners with
the tasks. Outside stimulation and interaction are what they need to improve their
understanding. They are willing to speak in the target language and they are not afraid of
making mistakes. They enjoy learning through role plays, dramas, act outs; any activities
which communication takes part in. This type of students should be allowed to show their
abilities and given enough opportunity to express themselves.

Task 27: Addressing cultural differences

Discuss the following questions and observations and write down your
answers in an essay form. Please read the text presented below the Box
and develop your understanding of cultural differences among students
and the implication it has on classroom teachers.

1. What is culture and what are cultural differences among students?

2. Mention and discuss some cultural practices
3. What is multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism?
4. What is guided practice?
5. How can a teacher structure academic lessons to address different leaning styles of
learners in the classroom

Now, read the following text and improve the answers you gave to the
questions in the task above.

42
Cultural Differences

Understanding the students' home culture is vital for understanding basic aspects of their behavior
both in and out of the classroom, including language related behaviors. Different cultures have
varying standards of what is and is not acceptable or respectful behavior.

Silence versus talking, touching, smiling, eye contact, competition versus cooperation, leadership
roles, and expectations of the teacher's role can all differ depending on standards of a culture.
Differences between a teacher's culture and that of students' can create conflicts and
misunderstandings.

Schaffer (1988) in her article, "English as a Second Language for the Indian Student," points out
that group activities in public schools have been groups with one leader putting the student in
competitive roles which is against Native American cultures. She gives two examples of
traditional ways Native American students learn. Silent observation is one. An example would be
when children are present at a storytelling session but do not speak, or when children observe an
adult performing a task such as weaving.

Many of us have begun to learn how to cook, sew, ride a horse, and so forth through silent
observation. Supervised participation is the second example. When children have observed a task
long enough to feel capable of successfully performing it, they participate in some part of the task
under adult supervision. Recent researchers such as Madeline Hunter would define this as guided
practice. The teacher stands close by while the student tries the activity by himself for the first
time.

Schaffer goes on to talk about conflicts that are created because of cultural differences. Calling on
individual students to respond puts the student in an adversarial relationship with the teacher. The
student is singled out and forced to respond instantly and on demand in front of other students.
Traditionally children were often given as much time as they needed before being called upon to
demonstrate ability to perform, were allowed to test their ability in private before performing
publicly, and avoided competitive roles with others.

Teachers in classrooms have several ways to structure academic lessons so that students learning
styles are taken into consideration and they can best achieve. A teacher may have them 1) in a
win-lose struggle to see who is best; 2) learning individually on their own without interacting
with classmates; or 3) learning in pairs or small groups, helping each other master the assigned
material.

Section Summary

Dear student! On the whole, no matter what age, level or group you are teaching, it is very
important to identify the students‘ individual differences and learning styles which affect your
audience‘s language learning. It might be too difficult to meet the needs of all the learning styles,
all different personalities, cultures or abilities.

43
However, what is crucial in effective language teaching is planning the lessons considering all
these factors and preparing a variety of different activities which will appeal well to different
learning styles, personalities or cultures in a learning process so that the learners enjoy learning
more. The more the learners develop positive attitudes to learning the more successful is the
learning process.

Motivation has also an important role on how and the students learn. There are lots of factors
affecting motivation; like age, gender, goal and attitude, which are internal; and also positive and
negative feedback by the teacher, expectations, rewards and confidence, which are external.

Teachers need to prepare activities appropriate for the learners‘ age, level and sex in order to keep
them motivated. Group works and competitions stimulate the young learners to do well.
However, the teachers should be careful at choosing tasks in which the students don‘t let each
other down.

The students who feel inferior as they have failed to accomplish a task loose their
motivation.―Accentuating the positive with plenty of praise and positive feedback may increase
the frequency of desired behavior.‖ (Ann Marriner-Tomey, 2004:95)

Encouraging and helping learners take part in the activities and accomplish the tasks like and
giving positive feedback and reinforcement such as; ‗Well done!, Congratulations!, Perfect!‘ are
also good forces to motivate the learners. ―Sincerely delivered positive feedback in a classroom,
seen by students a s a validation of their own personal autonomy, critical thinking ability and self-
fulfillment, can increase or maintain intrinsic motivation.‖ (Brown, 1993:143) Learners also need
to be given opportunities to get or maintain a high level of motivation during language learning.

The next section discusses the major approaches of English language teaching. As a profession
several approaches have emerged in teaching English as a foreign Language through time. These
approaches have research bases from the various disciplines such as linguistics theories,
pedagogical theories, and theories of educational psychology.

Section 1.4: Major Approaches in E.L.T: Evaluating Teaching

Approaches

Introduction

Language teaching came into its own as a profession in the last century. Central to this process
was the emergence of the concept of methods of language teaching. The method concept in
language teaching—the notion of a systematic set of teaching practices based on a particular
theory of language and language learning—is a powerful one, and the quest for better methods
preoccupied teachers and applied linguists throughout the 20th century. Howatt (1984) documents
the history of changes in language teaching throughout history, up through the Direct Method in
the 20th century. One of the most lasting legacies of the Direct Method has been the notion of
method itself.

44
Methodology in language teaching has been characterized in a variety of ways. A more or less
classical formulation suggests that methodology links theory and practice.

Within methodology a distinction is often made between methods and approaches, in which
methods are held to be fixed teaching systems with prescribed techniques and practices, and
approaches are language teaching philosophies that can be interpreted and applied in a variety of
different ways in the classroom.

This distinction is probably best seen as a continuum ranging from highly prescribed methods to
loosely described approaches as presented in this section.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this section you will be able to:

 Compare and contrast the pedagogical importance of different teaching

approaches in ELT;
 Develop materials on one of the learnt teaching approaches for micro-
teaching; and,
 Conduct a micro-teaching using the developed materials above.

Lesson 1: Traditional Approaches (Prior to the Late 1960s)

Task 28: Your thoughts

45
 Discuss the following concepts which will help you to explore or get a
better insight into understanding effective teaching methods for teaching
English as a Foreign Language.

1. Methods
2. Procedures
3. Approaches
4. Design
5. Effective teaching
6. The structural view of language
7. The notional functional view of language
8. The communicative view of language
9. Factors that determine the selection of an English language teaching method/s

 Taskdiscuss
Please 29: After you read
the following the following
concepts which will text, please
help you discuss
explore the bestthe
wayfollowing
of English
language teaching
approaches andand thus to become
language an effective
teaching teacher.
methods. Finally, select one of those
methods and conduct an individual library research/term paper on it.
Consult your instructor on how to do a library research or a term paper.
The1.size
Methodology
of your paper should not exceed 10 pages.
2. Methods
3. Procedures
4. Design
1. Grammar Translation Methods
5. Effective English language teaching
2. The Cognitive approach
6. Factors that might determine teachers‘ ways of selecting English language teaching
3. The Audio-lingual method
methods
4. The Direct method
7. Structural notion of language/behaviourism and cognitivism
5. The natural/Communicative Approach
8. Functional notion of language
6. The Total Physical Response (TPR)
9. Communicative notion of language/constructivism
7. The Silent way
8. Suggestopedia
9. Total immersion technique

1. Grammar-Translation Method(1890s-1930s): Around the turn-of-the-century,

language students often translated cumbersome volumes from Classical Greek or Latin into
English via this approach. It consisted mainly of exhaustive use of dictionaries, explanations
of grammatical rules (in English), some sample sentences, and exercise drills to practice the
new structures. Little opportunity for real second-language acquisition existed then.
2. Cognitive Approach (1940s-1950s):This approach introduced the four principle
language skills for the first time: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Oral
communicative competence became the focus. Comprehensible auditory input became
important and speaking in the target language began to occur. Learning about the language
was overemphasized.

46
3. Audio-Lingual Method (1950s-1960s): With the advent and popularity of audio
tapes, this approach ushered in the first recordings wherein the language learner could
actually hear and mimic native speakers on reel-to-reel audio tapes, often used with
earphones in a language lab setting. Lessons often began with a sample dialogue to be recited
and memorized. This was followed up with substitution pattern and saturation drills in which
the grammatical structure previously introduced was reinforced, with emphasis given to rapid
fire student response. Repetition, substitution, transformation, and translation became the
order of the day. This method was strongly influenced by B.F. Skinner's behaviourist view
toward learning which favoured habit-forming drill techniques. Unfortunately, most students
couldn‘t transfer these dialogues into their own real-life experiences.
4. The Direct Method (1970s): This method presented discussion in the target language
as the major priority. Reference to English equivalents became discouraged. Grammar
learning became inductive in nature without overt explanations given the pupil.
Teacher/student interaction became fuller, guessing of context or content, completing fill-ins,
and doing ―cloze‖ exercises were the order of the day. Accuracy in pronunciation and oral
expression became vital. Examples to be followed became the main intention.
5. The Communicative Approach (1960s-2000s): Originally developed by Tracy
Terrell and Stephen Krashen, this acquisition-focused approach sees communicative
competence progressing through three stages: (a) aural comprehension, (b) early speech
production, and (c) speech activities, all fostering "natural" language acquisition, much as a
child would learn his/her native tongue. Following an initial "silent period", comprehension
should precede production in speech, as the latter should be allowed to emerge in natural
stages or progressions. Lowering of the Affective Filter is of paramount importance. Only the
target language is used in class now, introducing the "total immersion" concept for the very
first time, with auditory input for the student becoming paramount. Errors in speech are not
corrected aloud. Now enters the era of glossy textbooks, replete with cultural vignettes,
glossaries, vocabulary lists, and glazed photographs.
A deliberate, conscious approach to the study of grammar is considered to have only modest
value in the language learning process. Pairing off of students into small groups to practice
newly acquired structures becomes the major focus. Visualization activities that often times
make use of a picture file, slide presentations, word games, dialogues, contests, recreational
activities, empirical utterances, and realia provide situations with problem-solving tasks
which might include the use of charts, maps, graphs, and advertisements, all to be performed
on the spot in class. Now the classroom becomes more student-centred with the teacher
allowing for students to output the language more often on their own. Formal sequencing of
grammatical concepts is kept to a minimum.
6. Total Physical Response/TPR(1960s-2000s): This approach, also known as TPR,
was founded by James Asher. In this method, both language and body movement are
synchronized through action responses and use of the imperative (direct commands). TPR
may be used in conjunction with some other methods involving psychoneuro kinetic
techniques wherein the teacher gives a host of commands with the students then responding
by ―acting out‖ the command: ―Stand up‖, ―Go to the door‖, "Sit down", etc. Kinetic
movement of the hands and arms is incorporated in lieu of rote memorization. Student speech
is delayed until they feel comfortable enough to give other students commands too. TPR is
very effective in teaching temporal states, personal pronouns, and other deep grammatical
structures.
7. The Silent Way (1960s-2000s): Dr.Caleb Gattegno, originally out of Alexandria,
Egypt, introduced this classroom technique wherein the teacher remains silent while pupils
output the language on cue through perpetual prompting. This is the production before
meaning school of thought and practice. A colour-coded phonics (sound) chart called a fidel,

47
 with both vowel and consonant clusters on it, is projected onto a screen to be used
simultaneously with a pointer, thus permitting the pupil to produce orally on a continuous
basis in the target language, via a sequence of phonemes or sound units. Brightly coloured
Cuisenaire rods, which are also used in Mathematics, are integrated into this method (used as
manipulatives) for pupils to learn spatial relationships, prepositions, colours, gender and
number concepts, and to create multiple artificial settings through their physical placement.

Lines or blank spaces on a chalkboard represent syllables, devoid of letters in them, for a
subliminal, collective memory experience in recall for the students. Students are encouraged
to self-correct their pronunciation errors through manual gesticulation on the part of the
instructor. Modelling of correct pronunciation for students is discouraged. The greatest
strength of this method lies in its ability to draw students out orally, while the teacher "takes a
back seat". This method works most effectively with round tables being used to promote
small group discussion and for ample student rotation. In general, reliance on and the use of a
structured textbook or an outlined syllabus is much discouraged during the initial phases of
learning. The Silent Way truly gives students a spoken facility.
8. Suggestopedia (1960s-2000s):This extremely esoteric method is subconsciously
subliminal in texture. It is based on the pioneering efforts in 1967 of Bulgarian medical
doctor, hypnotist, and psychology professor Georgi Lozanov and on his techniques into super
learning. Classes are small and intensive, with a low-stress focus. Material is presented in an
especially melodic and artistic way. By activating the right "creative side" of the brain, a
much larger portion of the intellectual potential can be tapped, thus drawing out long-term
memory. This innovative approach to language pedagogy maximizes the learners' natural
holistic talents. Background classical or baroque chamber music, oftentimes accompanied
with soft lights, pillows or cushions on the floor for relaxation, accentuate active and passive
meditations, séances, yoga, breathing exercises leading into the "alpha state", songs for
memorization purposes, therapy sessions and stream-of-consciousness catharsis in the target
language with little reliance on English. Little emphasis on grammar is given.
9. "Total immersion technique": This generalized technique in foreign language
pedagogy "immerses" or "submerges" the student directly and immediately into the target
language from the first opening day or hour of class. There are basically two (2) types of total
immersion approaches: (a) effective and (b) ineffective. An effective total immersion
environment begins in hour one wherein the teacher speaks the foreign language slowly,
clearly, and uses easily understandable and comprehensible cognates, at least to the best of
his or her ability as a foreign language professional educator. These closely and oftentimes
immediately recognizable related words may differ only slightly in pronunciation or spelling
from the student's native language. Hand gesticulation, appropriate modeling, various realia
(such as picture files or photos), and sometimes TPR can facilitate such effectiveness. An
ineffective total immersion approach occurs when the teacher opens class by speaking rapidly
at native speed as if the students were residing within the target culture, as if they were
inputting the attempted language on an hourly, daily basis. In essence, the student is being
treated as if they were living in the country where the foreign language is predominant.

Task 30: Study the following Table and make a matching between teaching
approaches or methods and their closest descriptions made.

No. Descriptions Teaching Answers Write more

approaches/methods descriptions of
your own for the

48
 approach/method
indicated
1 Repetition, substitution, Total immersion
transformation, first used technique
in USA, heavily
dependent on reel tapes.
2 Discussion in the target The silent way
language, inductive
grammar learning, etc.
3 Material is presented in an Grammar translation
especially melodic and method
artistic way.
4 both language and body The audio-lingual
movement are method
synchronized through
action responses and use
of the imperative (direct
commands)
5 Exhaustive use of Suggestopedia
dictionaries, explanations
of grammatical rules,
mother-tongue
translations, etc.
6 The use of a foreign Total physical response
language for teaching and (TPR)
no use of a mother-tongue
in class.
7 Gives students a spoken The direct method
facility, manipulatives
may be used to prompt
students to talk.

Task 31: What does the following quotation mean to you? Discuss in pairs.

"Any given method is only as effective as its implementation."

Lesson 2: Classic Communicative Language Teaching (1970s to 1990s

49
Task 32:

1. Where does the early communicative language teaching (the Communicative

Approach) come from?
2. What is communicative language teaching?
3. What are some examples of communicative exercises?
4. How do the roles of teachers and students change in communicative language
teaching?

Where does communicative language teaching come from?

Its origins are many, in so far as one teaching methodology tends to influence the next. The
communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators and linguists who had
grown dissatisfied with the audio-lingual and grammar-translation methods of foreign language
instruction.

They felt that students were not learning enough realistic, whole language. They did not know
how to communicate using appropriate social language, gestures, or expressions; in brief, they
were at a loss to communicate in the culture of the language studied. Interest in and development
of communicative-style teaching mushroomed in the 1970s; authentic language use and
classroom exchanges where students engaged in real communication with one another became
quite popular.

In the intervening years, the communicative approach has been adapted to the elementary,
middle, secondary, and post-secondary levels, and the underlying philosophy has spawned
different teaching methods known under a variety of names, including notional-functional,
teaching for proficiency, proficiency-based instruction, and communicative language teaching.

What is communicative language teaching?

Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate

communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life.
Unlike the audio-lingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the
communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise,
which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real-life simulations change from
day to day. Students' motivation to learn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful
ways about meaningful topics.

Margie S. Berns, an expert in the field of communicative language teaching, writes in explaining
Firth's view that "language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship
with society. In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context,
both its linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its
social, or situational, context (who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come
together to speak)" (Berns, 1984, p. 5).

What are some examples of communicative activities?

50
In a communicative classroom for beginners, the teacher might begin by passing out cards, each
with a different name printed on it. The teacher then proceeds to model an exchange of
introductions in the target language: "Guten Tag. Wie heissen Sie?" Reply: "Ich heisse Wolfie,"
for example. Using a combination of the target language and gestures, the teacher conveys the
task at hand, and gets the students to introduce themselves and ask their classmates for
information. They are responding in German to a question in German. They do not know the
answers beforehand, as they are each holding cards with their new identities written on them;
hence, there is an authentic exchange of information.

Later during the class, as a reinforcement listening exercise, the students might hear a recorded
exchange between two German freshmen meeting each other for the first time at the Gymnasium
doors. Then the teacher might explain, in English, the differences among German greetings in
various social situations. Finally, the teacher will explain some of the grammar points and
structures used.

The following exercise is taken from a 1987 workshop on communicative foreign language
teaching, given for Delaware language teachers by Karen Willetts and Lynn Thompson of the
Centre for Applied Linguistics. The exercise, called "Eavesdropping," is aimed at advanced
students.

Instructions to students: Listen to a conversation somewhere in a public place and be prepared to

answer, in the target language, some general questions about what was said.

1. Who was talking?

2. About how old were they?
3. Where were they when you eavesdropped?
4. What were they talking about?
5. What did they say?
6. Did they become aware that you were listening to them?

The exercise puts students in a real-world listening situation where they must report information
overheard. Most likely they have an opinion of the topic, and a class discussion could follow, in
the target language, about their experiences and viewpoints.

Communicative exercises such as this motivate the students by treating topics of their choice, at
an appropriately challenging level.

Gunter Gerngross, an English teacher in Austria, gives an example of how he makes his lessons
more communicative. He cites a widely used textbook that shows English children having a pet
show. "Even when learners act out this scene creatively and enthusiastically, they do not reach the
depth of involvement that is almost tangible when they act out a short text that presents a family
conflict revolving round the question of whether the children should be allowed to have a pet or
not" (Gerngross & Puchta, 1984, p. 92).

51
He continues to say that the communicative approach "puts great emphasis on listening, which
implies an active will to try to understand others. [This is] one of the hardest tasks to achieve
because the children are used to listening to the teacher but not to their peers. There are no quick,
set recipes

Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less and listening more
becoming active facilitators of their students' learning (Larsen-Freeman, 1986). The teacher sets
up the exercise, but because the students' performance is the goal, the teacher must step back and
observe, sometimes acting as referee or monitor. A classroom during a communicative activity is
far from quiet, however. The students do most of the speaking, and frequently the scene of a
classroom during a communicative exercise is active, with students leaving their seats to
complete a task. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they
gain confidence in using the target language in general. Students are more responsible managers
of their own learning (Larsen-Freeman, 1986).

Task 33: Practicing with the Communicative Language Teaching CLT)

Read the following full explanation of the Concepts of communicative

language teaching and prepare a micro-teaching for about 20 minutes on the
topic entitled “Greetings in English language”. Assume that this micro-
lesson is prepared for grade 9 students in Ethiopian high schools.

52
Goals
To become communicatively competent, able to use language appropriate for a given social
context; to manage the process of negotiating meaning with interlocutors.
Roles
Teacher facilitates students' learning by managing classroom activities, setting up
communicative situations. Students are communicators, actively engaged in negotiating
meaning.
Teaching/Learning Process
Activities are communicative—they represent an information gap that needs to be filled;
speakers have a choice of what to say and how to say it; they receive feedback from the
listener that will verify that a purpose has been achieved. Authentic materials are used.
Students usually work in small groups.
Interaction: Student-Teacher & Student-Student
Teacher initiates interactions between students and participates sometimes. Students interact a
great deal with each other in many configurations.
Dealing with Feelings
Emphasis is on developing motivation to learn through establishing meaningful, purposeful
things to do with the target language. Individuality is encouraged, as well as cooperation with
peers, which both contribute to sense of emotional security with the target language.
View of Language, Culture
Language is for communication. Linguistic competence must be coupled with an ability to
convey intended meaning appropriately in different social contexts. Culture is the everyday
lifestyle of native speakers of the target language. Nonverbal behaviour is important.
Aspects of Language the Approach Emphasizes
Functions are emphasized over forms, with simple forms learned for each function at first,
then more complex forms. Students work at discourse level. They work on speaking, listening,
reading, and writing from the beginning. Consistent focus on negotiated meaning.
Role of Students' Native Language
Students' native language usually plays no role.
Means for Evaluation
Informal evaluation takes place when teacher advises or communicates; formal evaluation is
by means of an integrative test with a real communicative function.
Response to Students' Errors
Errors of form are considered natural; students with incomplete knowledge can still succeed as
communicators.

53
Lesson 3: Current Trends in Communicative Language Teaching (Late
1990s to the Present)

Task 34: Library survey

Visit one of your campus libraries and do the following activities:

1. Look for an EFL course book and copy lessons from the books you think are developed
using the grammar translation method. Bring those copies into the classroom and
discuss with your classmates.
2. Look for EFL books that discuss the Communicative language teaching (CLT) and
copy sections that explain about the future status of the CLT. Then discuss this with
your classmates.
3. Please make extra library reading from EFL books and prepare a short lecture about the
CLT to your class students. Explain in detail what your understanding of the CLT is
about and show the class how you will implement it in your classrooms in the future.

Section Summary

The following Table summarises the major differences and similarities between the different
language teaching approaches prior to CLT and the CLT as discussed in the preceding section.

54
 Pervious approaches CLT

 Learner focused as an individual Learner focused as a member of social group

 Curriculum undress food as a persecuted list Curriculum usually negotiated b/n teachers and
of items learners
 Learners tend to be passive in the pedagogy Learners tend to be active
 Less focus on literally texts More focus on literary texts
 Focus on production of language before Focus on comprehension of language before
comprehension in class production in class
 The desired goal is linguistic competence The primary goal is communicative competence
 Drilling is an important classroom teaching Contextualization is an important technique
 Over teaching of grammar males Learning by communication
 Native speaker like accuracy is desired Comprehensible level of proficiency desired
 Less tolerance for errors Tolerance for errors
 Symmetrical relationship favored (teacher Asymmetrical relationship fawned (student-
students) student)
 Text - based teaching Task-based teaching
 Learning outcomes focused Learning process focused

Reading Materials for the Unit

 Lightbown and Spada. 1999. How Languages are Learned. Oxford.
 Cook, V. 1991.Second language Learning and Language Teaching. Arnold.
 Gardener, R.1985.Social Psychology and Second Language Learning: the
Role of Attitude and Motivation. Edward Arnold.
 Littlewoods, W. 1981. Communicative Language Teaching. Cambridge
University Press.
 Richards, Jack C. 2006. Communicative Language Teaching Today.
Cambridge University press. Cambridge.
 Krashen, S.D.1982. Principles and Practices in Second Language
Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamum Press.
 Stern, A.H.1983. Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching. Cambridge:
CU.

Unit Summary

This Unit has attempted to give us a brief background about English language teaching as a
profession. It outlines the major factors such as economic, scientific, political and cultural factors
that all contributed to the rise of English language as a world major language.

55
The Unit also familiarised us with a number of learning styles and learning strategies which we as
English language teachers, may observe in our classrooms on our students. It was however stressed
that there cannot be one best learning styles preferred by all across English language learners. The
role of the English teacher is just to help learners find their own best learning styles and utilise it in
developing their English language abilities.

Unit Self-Assessment Questions

Dear student!

You have studied the first unit in this Module. Below there are
some of the most important points drawn from the Unit you
have been studying. Please put a tick (  ) mark in front of the
point you have understood well in the box under “Yes” and ( 
) in the box under “No” for points you have not understood well
yet.

And if the (  ) marks are more than those (  ), it means you

are left with a lot to understand the unit and you have not yet
achieved the objectives/learning outcomes indicated at the
beginning of the unit.

This tells you to go back and read the unit you passed through.
This will be very much helpful to you in at least two ways:

1. It will enable you master the subject matter in this unit which will be the foundation
of many of the concepts in this course, so that the difficulty to study subsequent units
will be greatly reduced.
2. You can easily work on self-assessment questions that follow.

I Can Yes No
Explain the reasons that gave rise to the prominence of English language.
Identify the difference between L1&L2
Differentiate learning styles and learning strategies
Determine how to select a teaching approach to my classroom students.
Develop a lesson based on a given teaching approach and conduct a micro-
teaching
Conduct a micro-teaching

56
Below are different types of questions intended to help you assess your level of understanding of
the lessons in unit one. So, work on them carefully.

Task 35: Discuss the following questions in group.

1. The distinction between acquisition and learning

2. The overall goals of teaching English as a foreign language
3. Explain the term “appropriation”
4. What does this assumption (in bold) of language teaching mean to you? ―
teachers should avoid explicit discussion or teaching of grammar”
5. Do you think that there are more similarities or dissimilarities between L1
acquisition and L2 learning? Enumerate and discuss each similarity or
dissimilarity.
6. What do you think are the roles of teachers and learners in communicative
language teaching
7. What is the importance of knowing learners‘ learning styles and strategies
for the EFL teacher?
8. The social interactionist view of learning
9. Discuss “intrinsic motivation”
10. The impact of gender and social status on language learning
11. Define the term “bilingualism” and “language of wider communication”
12. Critic al period of language learning

Task 36: Discuss the following questions in group.

57
 1. Active and reflective student versus a passive student
2. Visual learners
3. Global learners versus analytical learners
4. Inductive learners versus deductive learners
5. Auditory learners
6. Dependent versus independent learners
7. Theory and practice
8. Criteria of a good theory development
9. What factors dictate the use of pre-communicative activities in teaching grammar
according to William Littlewoods?
10. How do you describe grammar-translation -based and CLT-based EFL classes (take
grammar teaching class as an example) in terms of teacher, learner, and materials‘
roles in the classroom?
11. What factors do you think would contribute to the quest for the best teaching method
of language skills in a particular context?

Task 37: Copy any teaching material (such as a lesson, a unit, etc) from
any EFL course book and analyse it in terms of the following questions.

What kind of language teaching approach presupposes the use of the

given teaching material in classrooms? Why?

1. What skills or abilities do you think the material plans to develop in the learners?
2. Does the material address the issues of accuracy and fluency in grammar teaching?
Which activities go with which?
3. What assumptions does the material make about learners‘ and teachers‘‘ roles and the
theory of language?
4. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses (if any) of the methods the material
follows in light of contemporary teaching of grammar skills?

58
 Unit 2: Teaching Reading Skills

Outlines of Contents
Introduction to the Unit
Unit learning outcomes
Teaching methods and activities
Unit assessment methods
Teaching resources
Section 1.1 Introduction to reading skills: meaning and context
Section 1.2 Reading purposes and ways of reading
Section 1.3The teaching of reading skills: exploring approaches
Section 1.4 Analysing and developing reading lessons
Unit summary
Self-assessment questions
Reading materials

Introduction to the Unit

Dear student!

This unit is concerned with the teaching of reading skills as part of teaching English as a Foreign
language. It has four sections. The first section is a background section. It deals with the
meanings of reading in various contexts. It describes the types of context as well. The second
section deeply explores the reasons why we read reading materials and the reading purposes.

Moreover, this section examines the different ways of reading and how to make them compatible
with our reading purposes and the nature of reading text we read. The third section attempts to
present different ways of teaching the reading skills in English as a foreign classrooms. This
section explores in detail the different approaches of tackling a reading text usually for academic
purposes. The last section takes us closer to the necessary pedagogical skills that are used in
developing reading lessons for our students. This section makes us also familiar with a number of
model reading lessons that can be adopted or used readily for our secondary school classrooms.

The reading texts used in all sections have been selected from various sources and adapted to
design appropriate tasks that may help you develop different sub-skills of your reading abilities
and which in turn will help you to teach your students to develop their reading abilities.

59
Unit Learning Outcomes

At the end of this unit you will be able to:

1. Explain the meaning of reading in various contexts

2. Critically examine the importance of reading skills in the academic world
3. Distinguish the various reading purposes and the ways we read texts
4. Select effective reading strategies that are suitable for comprehending a given text.
5. Use effective reading strategies to teach your students the reading skills
6. Provide your students with techniques that are useful in varying their reading speeds.
7. Develop reading lessons that have pre, while and post reading activities
8. Have a pool of readily available skills to analyse the worth of prepared reading tasks and
activities
9. Integrate the reading skills with other skills as well.

Teaching Methods and Activities

The approach of teaching reading skills in this unit will be text-based approach. Students will be
provided with different reading texts based on which all the classroom discussion will run.
Classroom discussions (both pair and group discussions), problem-solving activities,
presentations, and demonstrations will be employed depending on the type of activity the students
are required to do.

Student‟s Activities
Students will read various reading texts and hold discussions with their peers,answer questions
and analyze the pedagogical worth of different reading skills and techniques for teaching. They
will read a number of texts for examining reading comprehension skills. They also develop
reading lessons in consultation with their instructor and stage micro-teachings in the classroom.
They will collect and evaluate comments to be forwarded to them by their peers, as well as their
instructor.

Instructor‟s Activities

60
The instructor will provide all the required materials for the teaching of the reading skills such as
worksheets and reading texts, and facilitate the student‘s reading process in the classroom. S/he
will also set pre-reading brainstorming questions and monitor the stages of the reading lesson into
pre-, while- and post-reading lessons. Along with the brainstorming sessions, the instructor will
pre-teach some vocabulary items to help students‘ understand key concepts.

Assessment Methods

Students will be asked both oral and written questions to check their understanding of the basic
concepts of teaching reading skills. They will be required to develop reading lessons
demonstrating their abilities of using effective teaching strategy/strategies. Then, they will be
required to conduct a micro-teaching towards the end of the unit. They will also be required to
take reading comprehension tests or quizzes where necessary.

Instructional Resources (Materials and Equipment)

Reading texts (modules, worksheets, etc) may be used in the classroom. LCD power point will be
used to deliver a short lecture on the background concepts or issues about reading skills and the
teaching techniques of reading skills.

Section 1.1 Introduction to Reading Skills: Meaning and Context

 Introduction

Dear student!

This section presents the basic concepts in the learning of the reading skills as an introduction.
The concepts are presented in five lessons. Each lesson deals with a particular concept about
reading. And each lesson has an activity or activities termed as task. The tasks are there to
reinforce your understanding of the concepts presented. You are required to do all the tasks.
Some of the tasks have definite answers. But some others do not have definite answers. They are
open for personal reflection and discussion.

Learning outcomes

At the end of learning this section you will be able to:

61
 1. explain the meaning of reading in various contexts;
2. critically examine the importance of reading skills in the academic world; and,
3. identify the roles visual and non-visual information (background knowledge) play in students‘
reading practice.

Lesson 1: The Meaning of Reading in Various Contexts

Definition of Reading Skills

Task 38: Your thoughts
Prior to your reading of the following text, please discuss the following
questions in pairs and then in groups.

1. How do you personally define ―reading‖?

2. From all English language skills, which one do you think is the most important one in
one‘s academic life?
3. Do you think we can understand a reading passage even if we do not have any prior
background knowledge about the topic or the subject of the reading passage?
4. Enumerate and describe some of the ways of helping students to understand a reading
lesson in teaching reading skills.
5. What are the characteristics of good readers?
6. What are some of the advantages of working in a group in English language classes
specially in teaching listening skills?

The Meaning of Reading

Reading is an activity characterized by the translation of symbols, or letters, into words and
sentences that have meaning to the individual. The ultimate goal of reading is to be able to
understand written material, to evaluate it, and to use it for one's needs. In other words, reading is
extracting messages out of a written text as efficiently as possible.

In order to read, one must follow a sequence of characters arranged in a particular spatial order.
For example, English flows from left to right, Hebrew from right to left, and Chinese from top to
bottom. The reader must know the pattern and use it consistently. Ordinarily, the reader sees the
symbols on a page, transmitting the image from the eye to the brain, but reading also can be

62
accomplished by touch, as in the Braille system, a printing method designed for the blind that
involves raised or punched dots.

Reading refers to activities as varied as a first grader's struggling with simple sentences in a
storybook, a cook's following directions from a cookbook, or a scholar's attempting to understand
the meanings of a poem. Reading exposes people to the accumulated wisdom of human
civilization. Mature readers bring to the text their experiences, abilities, and interests in the form
of background knowledge; the text, in turn, allows them to expand those experiences and abilities
and to find new interests.

What We Bring to a Reading Task: Activating Schemata

If a British reader walks past a newspaper stand and sees the headline ‗England in six-wicket
collapse‘ he or she will almost certainly guess that the England cricket team has been beaten in an
international match. This guess will be based on the reader‘s pre-existing knowledge of
newspapers, their experience of how headlines are constructed, their understanding that wicket is
a cricketing term and their knowledge that England has not been doing too well in the sport lately.
If the reader then goes on to buy a newspaper, he or she will use all this pre-existing knowledge
to predict the relevant article‘s contents both before and during the reading of it. However, a
reader who did not have such pre-existing knowledge (because he or she did not know anything
about cricket, for example) would find the reading task fire difficult.

What the above example suggests is that understanding a piece of discourse involves much more
than just knowing the language. In order to make sense of any text we need to have ‗pre-existent
knowledge of the world‘ (Cook 1989:69). Such knowledge is often referred to as schema (plural
schemata). Each of us carries in our heads mental representations of typical situations that we
come across. When we are stimulated by particular words, discourse patterns, or contexts, such
schematic knowledge is activated and we are able to recognize what we see or hear because it fits
into patterns that we already know. As Chris Tribble points out, we recognize a letter of rejection
or a letter of offering a job within the first couple of lines (Tribble 1997:35).

When we see a written text, our schematic knowledge may first tell us what kind of text genre we
are dealing with. Thus, if we recognize an extract as coming from a novel we will have
expectations about the kind of text we are going to read. These will be different from the
expectations aroused if we recognize a piece of text as coming from an instruction manual.
Knowing what kind of a text we are dealing with allows us to predict what is coming next.

In conversation knowledge of typical interactions helps participants to communicate efficiently.

As the conversation continues, the speakers and listeners draw upon various schemata-including
genres, topic, discourse patterning, and the use of specific language features-to help them make
sense of what they are hearing. As with the readers, such schemata arouse the expectations which
allow listeners to predict what will happen in the conversation. Such predictions give the
interaction a far greater chance of success than if the participants did not have such pre-existing
knowledge to draw upon.

Shared schemata make spoken and written communication efficient. Without the right kind of
pre-existing knowledge, comprehension becomes much more difficult. And that is the problem
for some foreign language learners who, because they have different shared knowledge of cultural
reference and discourse patterning in their own language and culture from that in the English
variety they are dealing with, have to work doubly hard to understand what they see or hear.

63
Task 39: Further reflection on schemata

Read the following questions. Answer them in short paragraphs and get
ready to present them to your classmates orally in the whole class
discussion session.

1. Give two more examples as to how lack of schemata about a topic may affect
one‘s understanding of a reading text.
2. In a classroom how can an English teacher increase the prior knowledge
(schema) about a topic of his or her students prior to a reading passage?
3. What is shared schema?
4. What are the possible types of schema?

Identifying Reading Purposes and Reading Contexts

What reading purposes might the people in the following situations have? Find out the physical
and the social settings of the following readings, and the reading purposes. The physical context
refers to the material setting of the reading such as the text type being read, the place where the
reading takes place, etc. The social setting refers to who reads the text and to whom it is being
read, etc.

Task 40

1. A man on an underground station raises his eyes to a computer printout message displayed on a
screen.

2. A three-year-old child on her father's knee turns the pages of a picture book.

3. A student in a library reads the pages of a textbook intently looking at the textbook
occasionally making notes.

4. To know the reading purpose of a reader we should know the setting first. The setting of
reading, the reading purpose, and the way we read are strongly related.

64
What does “Can you read this” mean in Task 3 below? Further discussion
on the meaning of
Reading.

Task 41: Identify what the question “Can you read this?" might mean in the
following situations/contexts.

1. An adult is having a sight test at an optician's and is asked to read a list of words.

2. A child in class is shown a flash card with the word 'here' on it by her teacher.

3. An Islamic religious leader asks a congregation of boys to read aloud the

Koran.

4. The owner of a new iPad asks an experienced friend about the instructions in the
manual.

In each case, look at above, we need to widen our understanding of context to consider not just
the physical setting of the activity but who is speaking to whom and in what set of circumstances.

In the fourth situation, we might want to say that 'read' could be substituted by 'interpret'. Here
we are talking about the need to work out the meaning of a written text with the purpose of being
able to take some kind of action as a result. This is the exact meaning of reading in an academic
context, reading as an interpretation.

Reading as interpreting means reacting to a written text as a piece of communication; in other

words, we assume some communicative intent on the writer's part which the reader has some
purpose in attempting to understand. Therefore, when a maximum understanding of a written text
is gained that the gap in communication between the reader and the writer is minimal. In other
words effective communication has been attained.

One important skill in academic reading, for example, is being able to pick out the general idea
from a first quick reading. You can then go back over the text if you think it is relevant to your
needs and identify the main points. A further important skill is being able to read critically - to
understand the writer's position towards his or her topic and his or her audience and to decide
whether you agree or disagree with the writer according to what you already know.

Lesson 1: What being a Reader Means in Contemporary Societies

The Importance of Reading

Read the following text which is about the importance of reading and get
ready for discussion in later tasks.

65
The Importance of Reading

Reading is so much a part of daily life that much of the time we hardly consider either the
purposes or processes involved. Those of us who live in literate communities take the activity for
granted, much as we do with listening and speaking (less so, perhaps, in the case of writing).

Certainly, there are poor readers-even non-readers - in part, for minimal reading ability.
Nonetheless, urban technological societies operate on the premise that their members can read.
For instance they are expected to be able to read the names of political parties and their
candidates in order to exercise the right to vote; to understand the words which follow 'caution' on
medications and household products, and to understand the purpose of the reminder to pay a
telephone bill and the accompanying threat of disconnection on failure to do so.

Besides its intrinsic value, the ability to read has economic consequences. Adults who are better-
than-average readers are also higher-than-average earners or are more likely to have high-paying
jobs. The growing technicalization of society has brought increasing demands for literacy, which
the schools are hard pressed to meet. A higher level of literacy is needed in business and industry,
in the armed forces, and even in everyday life. The reading ability needed to comprehend
materials important to daily living, such as income tax forms and newspapers, has been estimated
to be as high as the 12th-grade level. Some efforts have been made to simplify forms and
manuals, but the lack of sufficient reading ability definitely impairs a person's capacity to
function in modern societies especially in the West.

Adult literacy programs can be distinguished by the stages of literacy they address. Programs to
counter below-functional literacy stress the development of decoding and word recognition,
similar to the goals of early elementary schools, but they use materials more appropriate to an
adult age. Programs that deal with development at the functional literacy level stress the use of
reading to learn new information and to perform job-related tasks. Advanced literacy programs
stress the development of higher-level skills needed for high school equivalency diplomas.

The great importance of reading ability is underscored by the growth of literacy programs in
some Third World Nations, as, for example, in Cuba. These programs, which generally send
young people to rural areas to serve as teachers for illiterates in a national effort, often combine
the teaching of reading with political instruction.

Task 42: The values of reading in contemporary societies

66
 Now that you have read the above text on the importance of reading in
advanced societies, discuss the following question/ terms in short notes
individually and then discuss with your classmates.

1. Good readers
2. Poor readers
3. Non-readers
4. Functional literacy
5. Literacy programmes
6. Social status and reading
7. In Ethiopia to what extent does not being able to read well affect ones‘ life?
8. What is effective reading?

Effective Reading

Experienced readers make judgments during any reading activity about the degree of care and
attention, which the material warrants. In the real world, effective reading means a flexible and
appropriate response to the material in hand, and this is always guided by the reader's purpose; it
means that readers are aware that they have options, including the option to give up. How often,
for instance, do we read a newspaper article all the way through rather than just glancing at the
headlines and the first couple of paragraphs? These techniques are called scanning and skimming.

In other words, our day-to-day reading behaviour is highly selective. Just as we filter spoken
messages in deciding what to attend to, so do we filter written messages. And even when we
commit ourselves to a full reading, that reading will still be selective, some parts being read with
greater care than others.

Task 43: Reading purpose guiding reading strategies

Discuss the following questions in a group of four or five and report your
observations to the whole class at the end of the group discussion.

1. As far as possible, recollect all the reading material which you have encountered
during the day, including things like letters, print on bottles or packets, and street signs.

2. How did you respond in each case (for example, cursory read, careful scrutiny?)

3. What did you do as a result of the reading activity (for example, produce some kind of
writing, reflect on the implications of what you read, turn on the TV)?

Reflection on Task 4

67
It may be, for instance, that your response to a request for money from a charity was a casual
glance followed by putting it aside to be dealt with later, while a bill demanded immediate
attention. The reasons for our responses to and the results of any reading activity are likely to
depend on factors such as conflicting demands on our time, attention, and energy and, in
particular, on our purpose in reading any particular text.

Did you ever have any similar experience you would like to share with the rest of your
classmates?

Lesson 3: Readiness for Reading

Prerequisite skills for learning to read (How does a teacher help?)

To reach maturity in reading, an individual goes through a series of stages, from readiness to
adult reading ability. The earliest stage, readiness, encompasses the skills that young children
usually acquire before they can profit from formal reading instruction. Children acquire
knowledge of the language and of letter names; they learn that spoken words are composed of
separate sounds and that letters can represent these sounds.

Parents can aid in the process by reading to children, thus acquainting them with the more formal
language of books, pointing out words and letters, and making them aware that words in a book
can tell a story or give information. Other readiness skills are acquired through word and rhyme
games. Play with language apparently helps young children focus their attention on the sounds of
words as well as on their meanings.

Children also learn about other aspects of written language. At younger ages they can distinguish
their script from that of other languages, recognize commercial logos, and engage in ―pseudo-
reading‖ with familiar books, and so on. It has been suggested that these early ―reading‖
behaviours contribute to later reading success.

In kindergarten or first grade, children are often given readiness tests that measure abilities in
language, knowledge of letter names, and skill in matching words and letters. High scorers on
these tests usually become good beginning readers, but children with low scores may or may not
do well in reading. Experienced kindergarten teachers can often predict first-grade reading
abilities as well as or better than readiness tests.

Early, Middle and Advanced Reading

In the first grade, children begin to learn the printed equivalents for the spoken words they know.
Some schools and reading textbooks teach the child to recognize whole words and stress the
meaning of the text. Others first emphasize the study of phonics—that is, the sounds represented
by individual letters—and the development of independent word-recognition skills. Nearly all
current programs combine both techniques; they try to teach a child to recognize words and to
learn phonics.

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For more than 60 years, research has shown that early, systematic phonics instruction produces
high reading achievement, at least until the third grade. A limited vocabulary is necessary in the
beginning so that children can concentrate on learning to recognize and sound words.

In the early elementary grades, children read stories and selections containing common words
already familiar from speech. With practice, most children read with increasing fluency and
understanding. The different reading levels in a classroom may lead to the grouping of readers or
even to an individualized approach that adapts instruction to each reader's abilities.

In the mid-elementary and junior high school years, emphasis shifts from reading stories with
known content to reading more difficult materials that teach the child new ideas and opinions. At
this stage, silent reading for comprehension and study skills is emphasized. This shift from
learning to read to reading to learn is especially important because the student must now begin to
use reading skills to learn facts and concepts in social studies, science, and other subjects. Making
this shift is difficult for some students, and their reading scores may increase at a slower pace
than in the primary grades.

Some educators see reading comprehension as a series of sub-skills, such as understanding word
meanings in context, finding the main idea, making inferences about information implied but not
stated, and distinguishing between fact and opinion. Published programs based on this view
attempt to divide reading into as many as 350 different sub-skills to be mastered during the
elementary grades. Managing such a program, including the administration and scoring of tests
for each sub-skill, and providing sufficient practice for each sub-skill can be difficult for a
classroom teacher.

Some have suggested that an excessive emphasis on sub-skills leads to worksheets crowding out
children's opportunity to experience literature. These theorists tend to treat reading
comprehension as a general ability not made up of specific skills. Programs based on such
theories stress broad, extensive reading; understanding of word meanings; and development of
reasoning abilities.

In high school and college, reading materials become more abstract and contain a larger, more
technical vocabulary. At this stage, the student not only must acquire new information but also
must critically analyze the text and achieve an optimal reading rate based on the difficulty of the
material and the purpose of the reading.

Task 44: From phonic reading to silent critical reading

Discuss the following questions in brief in pairs and then produce a one-
page critical essay for one of the questions of your choice.

1. What skills does readiness for reading encompass?

2. What is Phonic reading?
3. What is the difference between loud and silent reading?
4. What qualities should reading materials in schools and colleges have?
5. Which view do you support, reading comprehension as a sum total of sub-skills or as a general
one-whole ability not made up of specific skills?
6. What is optimal reading rate?

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Section Summary

Dear student!

In this section you have been provided with key issues that give you an introduction to the
learning and teaching of the reading skills such as the meaning of reading, reading purposes, and
reading context, ways of reading, initial reading, the use of reading in the advanced world, and
factors that may help us improve our own and our students‘ reading skills. We have seen that
people see the meaning of reading in different ways in different contexts.

Some people see reading simply as identification of letters or symbols. Some see reading as the
physical ability of sight. Still some others consider reading as merely recitation regardless of
meaning as is the case in many ritualistic readings. But we underlined that reading in an academic
context is reading for communication or interpretation. In the context of communication reading
is indeed the extraction of meaning from a written text. Reading comprehension is the most
important thing for reading a text.

It is when the reader comprehends or understands a given written text that we claim that
information transaction has taken place between the encoder and the decoder of the information.
Thus reading comprehension in as much a shorter time as possible is the goal of any academic
reading.

In short, the way we perceive reading behaviour or the meaning of reading is linked to different
reader purposes, which, in turn, are linked to situational context, and also to social expectations,
for example what kind of reading behaviour is expected in classrooms, families, or particular
religious settings. The social dimension of both written texts and reading behaviour, as we have
seen in the discussion of the tasks above, is essential in understanding a given reading text.

The next section takes us closer to the very reasons for reading. It does also familiarise us with
ways of effective reading or reading strategies.

Section 1.2 Reading Purposes and Ways of Effective Reading

 Introduction

Any mode of language, whether it be listening, speaking, reading, or writing may be used to serve
immediate needs, to learn from, or to give us pleasure in language for its own sake. An important
feature which reading also shares with other modes of language use is its role in social
interaction. Any one of us may have our own personal reasons for reading. This section outlines
the main reasons why we read texts. It also explores effective ways of reading.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this section you will be able to:

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 1.identify the various reading purposes and the ways we read texts; and,
2. select effective reading strategies that are suitable for comprehending a given text and
a given purpose.

Lesson 1: Reading Purposes, Context and Text

Task 45: Identifying reading purposes

Guess what each of the following reading purpose is all about and finally
read the pieces of texts below and confirm your understandings about
each purpose.

1. Reading for survival

2. Reading for learning
3. Reading for pleasure

Below are given some notes on each purpose of reading a text.

Reading for Survival

We might call some kinds of reading in response to our environment 'reading for survival'. Indeed
some reading is almost literally a matter of life and death -for example, a 'stop' sign for motorist.
Survival reading serves immediate needs or wishes. Obvious examples are 'ladies', 'gentlemen',
and 'exit'.

Task 46: Further reflection on reading for survival

1. Can you think of other examples of what may be called survival reading, in whatever language
including your mother tongue, which are related to your own daily life?

2. How are we able to identify survival reading for any individual?

3. For example what might count as survival reading for?

A young child
A factory worker
A tourist

Young children, for instance, tend to feel that things like ice creams and hamburgers are, if not
essential, at least important to their well-being. In fact it has been found that children from all
social backgrounds very readily acquire an understanding of print, related to the ways they

71
perceive their day-to-day needs and interests, from such sources as TV, advertising, and street
signs.

This is sometimes called 'environmental print'. For other social groups such as parents survival
reading might involve the ability to read instructions on baby food and safety regulations on toys.

Reading for Learning

As well as a means of finding out information on a strictly utilitarian basis (reading for survival)
reading serves the wider role of extending our general knowledge of the world. Much day-to-day
reading is for this purpose of learning. Moreover, we keep on verifying about half-known facts or
vaguely formulated opinions. For instance, as writers move on the writing process they keep on
checking between the texts they are creating and key sources in order to support, consolidate, and
clarify their ideas.

One might expect reading for learning to be exclusively school related. In fact, while a good deal
of reading to support learning clearly takes place in academic contexts - there are also many kinds
of reading activities sanctioned and supported by educational institutions which arguably have
little to do with acquiring facts or opinions. The function of some of these activities is what
Goodman (1984) has called 'ritualistic'.

One example of this would be those situations when readers read aloud a text either individually
to the teacher or to the whole class with, as may become evident on questioning, little
understanding of its content. Particularly where English is being learned as a second or foreign
language, 'language practice' may take the form of 'reading round the class'. This kind of reading
might be said to have a 'display' function rather than offering evidence of learning or reflection.
This seems to have been the case in the teaching of reading of Ethiopian high schools.

Reading for Pleasure

While reading for survival involves an immediate response to a situation and reading for learning
is also goal orientated, albeit in a rather different way, reading for pleasure is done for its own
sake-we don't have to do it. This point may be lost on children in school where literature,
originally written primarily to offer enjoyment, is a required reading for examinations.
Educational practices tend to neglect the pleasure principle.

And if readers do not read for pleasure in their mother tongue, they are very unlikely to do so in a
second or foreign language. An important by -product of reading for pleasure in any language is
fluency. This can create a vicious circle. Unless a reader gains fluency, that is speed and ease of
reading, the reading of any material for whatever purpose is likely to be tedious. This, in turn,
decreases motivation to read anything other than essential 'survival' material- the minimum
required to function in school or the work-place-and fluency never gets a chance to develop.

Task 47: Group discussion

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 The following terms and concepts have been taken from the readings
above. Discuss them in your group.

1. Environmental print
2. Fluency in reading
3. Accuracy in reading
4. Ritualistic reading

The Meaning of Reading: Exploring Further Insights

Now you are going to read an article entitled the Meaning of Reading by Carter and McGinnis,
(1962). Please before you read, study the following statements in the box. First, decide whether
you think each statement is true or false. Then read the passage below quickly and find out what
the writers say.

Task 48: Decide if the statements are true or false

1. In order to read effectively in a language, one only needs to have knowledge of its grammar
and vocabulary.

2. Although we may understand all the individual words or sentences in a piece of writing, we
may still not really understand what the writer is saying.

3. We understand by relating what we read to our previous knowledge and experiences.

4. Reading is an active process, but it does not involve thinking or using knowledge we already
have.

The Meaning of Reading

The process of reading has been defined in various ways. Some people consider it to be an act of
interpreting printed symbols. Some consider it to be a creative activity closely allied to thinking.
Still others consider it a tool for learning in all subject-matter areas. Common to all to these ideas
is the concept that the major purpose of reading is to achieve meaning. For many, this might
imply that reading involves word study and sentence and paragraph comprehension.

Reading, however, is more than an accumulation of isolated skills, just as a watch is more than
the sum of all its parts. It is more than word study and vocabulary building. It is more than
sentence, paragraph, and chapter reading. It is an activity in which the individual seeks to
identify, interpret and evaluate the ideas and points of view expressed by a writer. Thus in the
reading process we are concerned primarily with meaning. But we identify, interpret and evaluate

73
what we read based on, among several other factors, our background. Background refers to the
following three elements:

*The knowledge already possessed by the reader as related to the facts, ideas, and language used
in what is being read.

*The experiences the reader has had related to what he or she is reading.

*The interest of the reader regarding the subjected matter

Our background knowledge varies from individual to individual and is proportionate to the
quality of our experience in the world in which we live. For example, a little boy from the
countryside who had never seen people with blue eyes before whispered to his mother, upon
observing such eyes: "Mom, these people have got eyes similar to that of the cats‖. The little boy
compares the human eyes with those of the cat with which he was quite familiar. The meaning of
the facts observed by the child is the result of his background and experience. This interpretive
process is similar to that of getting meaning from a printed page. Effective reading is thus a
process of securing meaning and involves thinking and critical application of one's experiences
and previous knowledge.

Task 49:You have now finished reading the text above. Discuss in
groups the following questions in the box.

1. Do you still keep the answers you gave to the pre-reading questions above or you want to
change them now. If you change them what are your reasons? Do you agree with the writer?

2. How important do you think background knowledge is in helping you to read? Why?

3. According to the writer, reading is an activity concerned with identifying, interpreting and
evaluating the ideas and points of view of the writer. Can you give an example of something you
might read (e.g. newspaper article) where you might decide to agree or disagree with the writer's
point of view? Why do you think this might be important in academic reading?

Lesson 2: Ways of Effective Reading

For an effective reading word study is one way for the older student to improve reading ability.
This involves using a dictionary and thesaurus, studying word parts, and learning how to find the
meaning of a word from the context. Students can also improve their vocabulary by paying
conscious attention to any new words they may encounter.

Because a mature reader must have several different reading rates available for different materials
and purposes, practice in skimming a passage for general meaning and scanning for specific
information is useful.

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The development of efficient study strategies is important in learning various kinds of subject
matter. One useful study technique is outlining, which helps to develop an awareness of the main
points and details of a selection.

Various studies have shown the importance of good teaching and of effective school leadership in
promoting reading achievement. Students seem to learn to read better, for example, if the school
principal is a strong leader with high expectations about reading achievement. The amount of
direct instruction in reading and the amount of time students spend in reading-related activities
also affect reading development.

Task 50: Your thoughts

Discuss in pairs what the following terms could mean for you. Then read
the text below the Box and check your understanding.

1. Skimming
2. Scanning
3. Intensive reading
4. Extensive reading
5. Effective reading and comprehension
6. Reading speed
7. How can you apply each of the above for teaching reading skills in secondary
schools?
8. Gist of a passage or a reading text

There are three main techniques that you can use in order to read in such a way as to achieve
your purpose: scanning, skimming, and focused reading.
The technique of scanning is a useful one to use if you want to get an overview of the text you
are reading as a whole – its shape, the focus of each section, the topics or key issues that are
dealt with, and so on. In order to scan a piece of text you might look for sub-headings or
identify key words and phrases which give you clues about its focus.

Scanning involves a process of quickly searching reading materials in order to locate

specific bits of information. When scanning you don't start from the beginning and read
to the end. Instead, what you do is jump around in the text, trying to find the
information you need. You probably already scan the TV guide, the phone book, or the
dictionary, but it is possible to improve your scanning skills. Effective scanning
techniques can be useful in any academic setting.

Skimming is another technique whose purpose is to gain a quick overview in order to

identify the main points or usually the main idea or the gist of a passage. When
skimming, you will often skip words, sentences, and paragraphs. When you are satisfied

75
you have a general understanding of the author's main ideas and key points, you put the
reading material aside. Skimming can serve as a substitute for careful reading.

Some useful techniques are to read the first and last sentences of paragraphs, the
introduction, and the summary if one is provided. When examples are given, you may
want to read a few of them until you understand the concepts they are meant to
illustrate. When skimming a textbook, quickly note the title, subheadings, italicized
words, boldface print, and illustrations. Skimming will not serve as a substitute for
careful reading, but it can serve you well when you have put off until tomorrow what you
should have done yesterday.

Both scanning and skimming can help you locate specific pieces of information and gain
an overview of the main points in an article or text. Do not rely on these techniques for
more sophisticated college courses, but they will come in handy if you are pressed for
time and working under a deadline! There are different ways we can organize our
reading material. Sometime you may feel overwhelmed by a textbook or books. You can
use various techniques to help yourself organize the material. These might include:
annotating, outlining, mapping, making time lines, compare and contrast charts, etc.

1. Scanning: for a specific focus

The technique you use when you're looking up a name in the phone book: you move your
eye quickly over the page to find particular words or phrases that are relevant to the task
you're doing.

It's useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to you:

 The introduction or preface of a book

 The first or last paragraphs of chapters
 The concluding chapter of a book

2. Skimming: for getting the gist of something

The technique you use when you're going through a newspaper or magazine: you read
quickly to get the main points, and skip over the detail. It's useful to skim:

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  to preview a passage before you read it in detail
 to refresh your understanding of a passage after you've read it in detail

Use skimming when you're trying to decide if a book in the library or bookshop is right
for you.

Skimming and scanning are very important reading techniques. In short, skimming refers to
looking through material quickly to gather a general sense of the ideas, information, or topic
itself. When you skim, you read through an article three to four times faster than when you read
each word. Scanning refers to reading through material to find specific information. When you
scan, you run your eyes over text or information to pull out specific words, phrases, or data.

3. Detailed reading: for extracting information accurately

Where you read every word, and work to learn from the text.

In this careful reading, you may find it helpful to skim first, to get a general idea, but then go
back to read in detail. Use a dictionary to make sure you understand all the words used.
Effective reading

What is effective rapid reading?

 Effective: We are able to comprehend, or understand, what we read while we read.

 Rapid: Refers to the rate, or speed, at which we read.

We focus on being able to read quickly while still, consciously, comprehending the material
being read. Some reading programs concentrate strictly on speed without testing comprehension.
Other programs rely upon the unconscious mind to synthesize, remember and understand the
information. You are expected to do much more reading at university than at school or College; it
is not called ―reading for a degree‖ for nothing.

Lesson 3: Identifying Reading Purposes, Context and Text type from

Reading Passages/Texts

In this lesson you will be provided with two already developed reading lessons. In each lesson
there are reading texts,“Cut and Thrust of an Olympic Hopeful”, and “Flower Power”. The
two comprehensive lessons are accompanied with activities such as pre-reading, while reading,
and post reading tasks.

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Task 51: Identifying reading purposes and texts types

Read the following two reading lessons and answer the following
questions in group.

1. What types of texts are used for developing reading activities for both lessons?
2. Do you think that the two texts have the same level of text difficulty and vocabulary
3. If we want to use the two texts for teaching reading skills in the secondary school
contexts of Ethiopia, are they appropriate?
4. Do the two lessons have the same lesson structure?
5. What is the lesson or activity structure used in both lessons and texts?
6. For what possible reasons do you think readers read the two texts?
7. For what kind of learners and for what kind of context you think that the two texts are
more appropriate?
8. Which text types do you like and why?
9. Which lesson or text does attempt to integrate the teaching of reading skills with other
skills?

Reading Text 1: Cut and Thrust of an Olympic Hopeful

Activity 1: Pre-reading task

Four people have written about their jobs and daily activities. You find the people in the first box
and the activities in the second box; please match them.

A nurse
A taxi driver
A shopkeeper
A university professor
A secretary
A novelist
An amateur footballer.

1. I usually get up at 5 a.m. I start work at 6 o'clock and finish at 3 p.m. I have dinner at 3.30 and
then I have a nap. In the evening, I usually watch television or go to the pub for a while. There I
meet my colleagues. We all like our job, though we think it is hard. You must be good at dealing
with people and have a lot of patience - especially on rainy days!

2. I never get up before 3 p.m. when I'm working on the night shift. I have my main meal at
teatime. In the evening, I go out with my boyfriend: we usually go for a drink. When I'm with
him, I try to relax and forget about work. Mine is a very demanding job and I have to cope with
lot of pressure.

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________________________________________________________________________
3. I don't get up very early. Just in time to rush to the bus stop. I don't come home for lunch: I
train in the sports fields during the lunch break. In the evening, I train again form 6 to 8. When I
get home, I have to do my homework. I go to bed at 10.30. I like what I'm doing: it's tiring but
fun. I'm not a born sportsman, but I am aggressive and have good reflexes. Besides, I don't mind
all the training. In fact, I enjoy it.
________________________________________________________________________
4. I usually get up at 7:30. I work from 8:30 to 5 with a break for lunch. I don't like my job. You
can't take the initiative and you must be prepared to be patient and tactful and take orders from
your boss- who is not always in the best of moods!

Now write just one paragraph of about 200 words about your daily activities, meaning what you
do the whole day from dawn to dusk. After you finish writing, give your paragraph to your friend
or classmate to read it. Can your friend understand what you write? Does handwriting matter in
reading? Discuss.

Activity 2: Writing from reading

Writing about your daily activities

Here in this box write your paragraph.

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Now, you are going to read about Linda Martin, who is an amateur sportswoman. Fencer Linda
Martin typifies the preparation of Britain‘s unsung true amateur contenders. Fifth at the 1982
world championship, a bronze medallist in Europe, Linda has practiced foil fencing for exactly

79
half her 30 years. She lives in Wimbledon and works at the Bank of England. She trains twice
daily with her coach.

Again before you read, please discuss the following questions in your groups.

Activity 3: Brainstorming

1. Where was the 27th Olympiad held? Where will the next Olympic be held?

2. Which type of sport is your favourite sport?

3. Name the famous international runners.

4. Who is your favourite athlete? Why?

5. What do you expect to read in the next article about?

6. Do you play fencing? What kind of sport is it? Is it familiar with many Ethiopians?

Now read the text below!

Cut and Thrust of an Olympic Hopeful

For three months before leaving to go to Los Angeles my days were built around intensified
training in lunch breaks and evenings. It's a total contrast since I sit down most of the time at
work in a fairly relaxed atmosphere. In the training, I have to direct my concentration so finely on
getting the point on target. Emotionally, physically and psychologically it's exhausting.
Lunchtimes, especially: I have three-quarters of an hour in fake fight situations with my coach,
and on the tube back to the Bank I'm really conscious of how people are looking at me. I get quite
a high colour after lots of exercise; I've got wet hair. I'm carrying a couple of foils and a kit bag,
yet I'm dressed in city clothes. Sometimes I hear comments like, "Looks as if she's been
swimming' and I often want to say, 'No, I haven't ... I'm training for the Olympics, that' s why I
look so strange!‖

I usually grab a cheese sandwich at lunch. My whole life is a rush but luckily I've a slow
metabolism. I should be up at seven but it's often 10 to 8 - better say 7.30 - so generally I don't
have breakfast: a sandwich if I'm lucky. I get on the train at Raynes Park, half asleep. Sometimes
I read a book; sometimes I don't because I really enjoy looking at people on the train. I don't
know whether it's because I'm nosey, I just like watching people's mannerisms.

I work in the Bank of England press office. Not as a press officer- no, no, no. You have to be a
high-ranking official to be a press officer. I'm very much in the background. I supply information
when necessary. I might answer an historical question, but not anything that demands intricate
briefing. A clerk's job really, but it suits me.

It's a really nice office, an interesting office, and I get on well with the people. There are eight in
my immediate office and they're all very understanding about my fencing. If there were any
hostility it would make me feel very guilty. I'm helped with my leave because my normal

80
entitlement wouldn't cover all my events, and the others fit around my lunch hour which can be at
extremely odd times, depending on when my coach is available. We train in a claustrophobic
room above an equipment shop in Holborn; he provides a blade for me to react against.

In the evening I need to dash off at 5 pm. I collect my car at home. It makes it easier to get home
at night after training. I'm usually in the house by 20 to 6 and, if I've been organized in the
morning, I collect my kit and go straight out again. Our club, Salle Paul in Pimlico, has been
kicked out by ILEA, so, while we're looking for new premises, I train at the AFA (Amateur
Fencing Association) in West Kensington. Train from 6.30 to 9.30, usually with Ziemek, my
coach, although every so often we have a session with a psychologist, Alan Fine.

We've been seeing him, I suppose, every three weeks for the past year. I have anyway.
Everybody's got a hang-up, something they feel sadly lacking in their performance. I've always
known I haven't the killer instinct.

It isn't nerves; I'm fairly extrovert and can cope with quite a lot of pressure. Ziemek says it's
nothing to do with aggression. It's more the ability to adjust to situations.

I'm not an aggressor, not at all unless provoked. I react very quickly to incidents. If somebody is
particularly horrible to me, or a bad decision goes against me I go all out for the next point. But I
really need a stimulus to spark me off.

Sport was born in to me to a certain extent. My father was a PTI in the Royal Marines and, after
that, a physical director of a YMCA in Manchester. We were a male dominated family.

Perhaps, because I was a girl, I wasn't expected to take sport so seriously, which is probably why
I was so determined to do it. There was always fencing equipment around and as soon as I started
I knew it was the sport I wanted to do. I was 15, quite young for that time but far too late for a
champion to start today, and it was much more fun than rounders or netball. It's the combination
of sound technique and good footwork: the control of reflexes and emotions; the brain game of
trying to stay one step ahead.

After trainings we sometimes socialize, perhaps at an Italian restaurant in Earl's Court Road. But
what you really need is a drink, and more often we go to a pub. I drink orange juice and
lemonade, and then drive home to the house I share with Jenny, a beauty consultant. We've quite
a good relationship. She's not particularly sporty though she gains a reflected thrill at my being at
the Olympics.

I rarely switch on TV. I usually put on music - blues, jazz, popular music like David Bowie, Van
Morrison. When we're not in such intensive training I like live theatre and films and I enjoy
meeting and talking to people. At home I rarely go to bed before 12, after I've fed the cat.

I'm coming to the end of my fencing career, towards the end anyway. I could go on for another
four years, but if I decide I want to marry and have children I can't devote all my time to the sport
as I've been doing for 15 years. Marriage never appealed to me during my twenties but values
change. And my coach is always going on about women being better athletes after they've had a
baby. He's always joking, but I'm sure he believes it's true and he may be right.

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Activity 4: Reading for specific information (Scanning)

Now scan the text and complete the information about Linda Martin's daily routine. Complete the
box only where appropriate .You do not need to fill in every blank space.

Activity What? Where? When? How often?

Gets up /////////////// ////////////////// ////////////////////
/////////
Breakfast a) ///////////////////// a)
Nothing
b) ///////////////////

Activities on the way to a) a)

work b) b)
Job
Lunch
Lunch break activity

Finishes work
Gets home
Main evening activity a)
b) b) Every so often
After training activities a) a) Sometimes
Socialize b) b)
Other evening activities A) a)
B)
C)
D) b)
E)
Bedtime

Look at the use of must and have to talk about the qualities required for a job or occupation:

Activity 5: Revising language through reading

Must/have to + be able to + verb

You must be able to adjust to situations.

Must/have to + have + noun

You must have a lot of patience.

Must/have to + be good at + -ing

You have to be good at controlling your emotions.

Must/have to + be + adjective/noun

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You have to be aggressive.

Don‘t have to/needn't + be + adjective/noun

You don't have to be a born sportsperson.

Don‘t have to/needn't + have + noun

You needn't have a good track record.

This is what Linda might tell a friend about the qualities necessary to be a good fencer. Use
information from the passage and language from above to complete the paragraph in the
box.

I am glad to hear you are thinking of taking up fencing seriously. It is not really as difficult as
people think. One of the most important points to keep in mind is that you 1 coping with
external pressure and adjusting to new situations. You 2 good control of your nerves
and your reflexes but you 3very aggressive. In my opinion, you 4 a
born sportsperson but you 5 a good technique. A good fencer 6
anticipate his or her opponent's movements. Of course, this is no different from many other
competitive jobs- it is just a matter of trying to stay one step ahead.

Reading Text 2: Flower Power

Activity 1: Pre-reading questions

1. Do you love flowers?

2. Which seasons in Ethiopia are seasons when flowers bloom?
3. Which flower types are your favourite flowers?
4. What are the cultural occasions in Ethiopia when we exchange flowers as signs of
expressing happiness or sadness?

Flower Power

Flowers are a yearlong tourist attraction besides being an industry in Holland. Tulips are
national symbols as much as the windmills and if you arrive in the country in spring, you can
enjoy unending fields of them wherever you go. If one logs on to the Internet to buy or send
flowers, hundreds of Dutch websites specialized in this trade will be displayed. Regular
exhibitions, flower-markets and parks are a must in anyone's itinerary while visiting this tiny
picturesque country. The two most famous "flower-events" are Keukenhof, the biggest garden
in the world, rearranged and improved yearly, and Floriaede, a humungous exhibition.
Situated in Lisse, one hour away from Amsterdam by train, Keukenhof is a 70-acre showcase
for the Dutch flower-industry which draws millions of visitors to witness a changing display
of more than 6,000,000 flowers, including 1,000 varieties of tulips alone. The events is
organized every year from late March to late May. Daffodils, crocus and narcissi are on
display when the gardens open, with tulips making their appearance a few weeks later.
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Hyacintis blossom in mid-April adn stay in bloom for several weeks. The flowers are arranged
in small gardens with specific designs and character. One can climb the steps of the
Groningen-type cornmill to see the view or listen to a clock-carillon that plays international
tunes every 15 minutes. The exhibition also houses many sculptures and other art objects
throughout the park. Artificial streams and fountains add to the heavenly atmosphere. A huge
indoor "Spring garden" is staged in different pavilions, where over 500 varieties are displayed
under the name "parade". A "Summer garden" was inaugurated in 1999, on occasion of the
50th anniversary of Keukenhof. This event runs only from August until mid-September each
year. Keukenhof also hosts a winter bulb-market in mid October.

"Keuken" in Dutch means "Kitchen" and "hof" means "garden". The explanation of the name
lies in the history of the grounds where the flower exhibition is held today. During the middle
ages, the present territory of Keukenhof was part of the property belonging to Countess Jacoba
van Beire (1401-1436). The Countess and her entourage used these grounds not only for
hunting, but also for growing vegetables, which later ended up in succulent dishes in her
kitchen. In 1949, a group of prominent Dutch bulbgrowers developed plans to create a flower
exhibition in order to show visitors teh splendor of the Dutch flower-industry. As a location
for the exhibition they chose the same lovely countryside that belonged to the Countess.
Keukenhof became prestigious enough by 1962 for Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard to
choose it for the celebrations of their twenty-eighth wedding anniversary, with royalties and
heads of state from around the world topping the guest list. Since then, for five decades, the
park has been receiving visitors from all over the world. This year Keukenhof is open from the
23rd of March to the 21st of May, offering new breathtaking flower arrangements adn a
permanent orchid show, a feast for the eyes.

In 2002, Holland will open Floriade 2002, a show that will cover the area from east Haarlem
down to Hoodfddorp (located about 10 miles north of Keukenhof and covering roughly the
same area). The entry area alone will cover nearly 20 acres and contain pavilions under a
gigantic floating roof. Florida is so vast that it is done only once every 10 years. The last
Floriade in 1992 attracted over 4,000,000 visitors and preparations for Floriade 2002 have
been going on since 1996.

Activity 2: Reading for main points

The two most famous flower events are

and
.
Why is Floriade done only once every ten years?

Does the title of the story relate to what is actually presented in the story? Give evidence?

Year 2000 heralds that Keukenhof is now years old.

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The word them paragraph one, line three, refers to

Why do you think that the Keukenhof event is normally organized between March and
May every year?

The two events that greatly contributed to keukenhof's becoming popular for flower
attractions were and
.
The biggest garden in the world is found in the continent in the
country called .

Activity 3: Information transfer

Fill in the Table with the right information from the text.

Description
of the show, Schedule
display
1 Summer garden
2 Mid-October
3 Floriade 2002
4 Late March to
Late May

Activity 4: Vocabulary from the text

Match the following words with their contextual meanings (as they are used in the text)

1. Host (Para. 2) a. Profession, field

2. Trade (Para. 1) b. blossom
3. Heavenly (Para. 2) c. stage, organize
4. Breath taking (Para. 3) d. exceedingly attractive, exciting
5. Topping the guest list (Para.3) ________ e. take place
6. In bloom (Para. 2) f. paradisiacal
7. Run (Para. 2) g. spectacle
8. Feast (Para. 3) h. eminent
9. Prominent (Para. 3) i. eminent
10. Succulent (Para.3) k. rank important

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Section Summary

The preceding section outlined three major purposes of reading: reading for pleasure, for
information and for learning. In fact, these purposes of reading are overlapping and they might be
complementary. It is always important to identify our reading purposes as our reading strategy is
also determined by our reading purposes.

The section also discussed a number of strategies for effective reading. Some of these are
skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading. We say one‘s reading is an
effective reading when he/she reads fast with optimal degree of comprehension. Reading without
achieving comprehension can be hardly called as effective reading. It is therefore important for a
teacher to identify his/her students reading purposes and use strategies for reading that are
appropriate to develop the desired reading abilities in class.

The next section discusses major approaches in teaching reading skills.

Section 1.3: The Teaching of Reading Skills: Exploring

Approaches
Introduction

This section takes you closer to the contents of a reading lesson. Contents of a reading lesson are
expected to help students develop their abilities in reading. The contents of a reading lesson are
usually classified in terms of pre-reading, while-reading and post reading activities. But the
overall approach these activities assume is very important for a teacher.

This section discusses broader approaches such as the top-down, the bottom-up and the
interactive approaches in teaching reading skills and then in designing contents of a reading
lesson.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this unit you will be able to:

1.distinguish effective teaching strategies for teaching reading skills in secondary schools
2. develop reading lessons that have pre, while and post reading activities.
3. grasp a pool of readily available skills to analyse the worth of prepared reading tasks and
activities for secondary school students.
4. integrate the teaching of reading skills with other skills.

Lesson 1: Characteristics of Good Readers, Reading Purpose and

Comprehension

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 Task 52: Prior to your reading of the text below please write down your
understandings of the following terms and concepts?

1. Characteristics of good readers

2. The meaning of reading comprehension
3. Top-down approach in teaching reading skills
4. Bottom up approach in teaching reading skills?
5. Reading as a process
6. Linguistic competence of a reader
7. Discourse competence
8. Socio-linguistic competence
9. Strategic competence

Dear student!

Traditionally, the purpose of learning to read in a language has been to have access to the
literature written in that language. In language instruction, reading materials have
traditionally been chosen from literary texts that represent "higher" forms of culture.

This approach assumes that students learn to read a language by studying its vocabulary,
grammar, and sentence structure, not by actually reading it. In this approach, lower level
learners read only sentences and paragraphs generated by textbook writers and
instructors. The reading of authentic materials is limited to the works of great authors
and reserved for upper level students who have developed the language skills needed to
read them.

The communicative approach to language teaching, which you studies in Unit one of this
module, has given instructors a different understanding of the role of reading in the
language classroom and the types of texts that can be used in instruction. When the goal
of instruction is communicative competence, everyday materials such as train schedules,
newspaper articles, and travel and tourism Web sites become appropriate classroom
materials, because reading them is one way communicative competence is developed.
Instruction in reading and reading practice thus become essential parts of language
teaching at every level.

Reading Purpose and Reading Comprehension

Reading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information or
verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer's ideas or writing style. A
person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language being
read. The purpose(s) for reading guide the reader's selection of texts.

The purpose for reading also determines the appropriate approach to reading
comprehension. A person who needs to know whether she can afford to eat at a
particular restaurant needs to comprehend the pricing information provided on the
menu, but does not need to recognize the name of every appetizer listed. A person
reading poetry for enjoyment needs to recognize the words the poet uses and the ways
they are put together, but does not need to identify main idea and supporting details.

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However, a person using a scientific article to support an opinion needs to know the
vocabulary that is used, understand the facts and cause-effect sequences that are
presented, and recognize ideas that are presented as hypotheses and givens.

Reading research shows that good readers

 Read extensively
 Integrate information in the text with existing knowledge
 Have a flexible reading style, depending on what they are reading
 Are motivated
 Rely on different skills interacting: perceptual processing, phonemic processing, recall
 Read for a purpose; reading serves a function

Reading as a Process

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting
in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that
encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what
that meaning is.

Reader knowledge, skills, and strategies include

 Linguistic competence: the ability to recognize the elements of the writing system;
knowledge of vocabulary; knowledge of how words are structured into sentences
 Discourse competence: knowledge of discourse markers and how they connect parts of
the text to one another
 Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge about different types of texts and their usual
structure and content
 Strategic competence: the ability to use top-down strategies as well as knowledge of the
language (a bottom-up strategy)

The purpose(s) for reading and the type of text determine the specific knowledge, skills,
and strategies that readers need to apply to achieve comprehension. Reading
comprehension is thus much more than decoding. Reading comprehension results when
the reader knows which skills and strategies are appropriate for the type of text, and
understand how to apply them to accomplish the reading purpose.

Lesson 2: Goals and Techniques for Teaching Reading

Task 53: Your thoughts

Discuss the following questions in groups.

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 1. What are the goals of teaching reading skills in English as foreign language
classrooms?
2. What do you think is the appropriate or effective procedure for delivering a reading
lesson in an English language class?
3. Do you think that dividing the reading lesson into pre, while and post reading stages is
usefulfor a teacher and or students as well?
4. Can you enumerate procedures your high school teachers followed in teaching
you reading skills in the past? Were the set of procedures your teacher used
effective?
5. When teaching reading skills do you think we need to focus more on the product than
the process of teaching?
6. What is an interactive approach in teaching reading skills?
7. What should EFL teacher do to improve the reading skills of their students as per the
process approach‘s prescriptions?

Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of
the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication
situations.

In the case of reading, this means producing students who can use reading strategies to
maximize their comprehension of text, identify relevant and non-relevant information,
and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension.

The Reading Process

To accomplish this goal, instructors focus on the process of reading rather than on its
product.

 They develop students' awareness of the reading process and reading strategies by asking
students to think and talk about how they read in their native language.
 They allow students to practice the full repertoire of reading strategies by using authentic
reading tasks. They encourage students to read to learn (and have an authentic purpose
for reading) by giving students some choice of reading material.
 When working with reading tasks in class, they show students the strategies that will
work best for the reading purpose and the type of text. They explain how and why
students should use the strategies.
 They have students practice reading strategies in class and ask them to practice outside of
class in their reading assignments. They encourage students to be conscious of what
they're doing while they complete reading assignments.
 They encourage students to evaluate their comprehension and self-report their use of
strategies. They build comprehension checks into in-class and out-of-class reading
assignments, and periodically review how and when to use particular strategies.

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  They encourage the development of reading skills and the use of reading strategies by
using the target language to convey instructions and course-related information in written
form: office hours, homework assignments, and test content.
 They do not assume that students will transfer strategy use from one task to another. They
explicitly mention how a particular strategy can be used in a different type of reading task
or with another skill.

By raising students' awareness of reading as a skill that requires active engagement, and
by explicitly teaching reading strategies, instructors help their students develop both the
ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may encounter
beyond the classroom. In this way they give their students the foundation for
communicative competence in the new language.

Integrating Reading Strategies

Instruction in reading strategies is not an add-on, but rather an integral part of the use of
reading activities in the language classroom. Instructors can help their students become
effective readers by teaching them how to use strategies before, during, and after
reading.

Task 54: Pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading activities

Before you read the following text, discuss the following questions in
groups

1. What are the pedagogical roles of pre-reading activities or questions?

2. What are the roles of while reading activities
3. What are the roles of post reading activities?
4. What special skills do we expect to develop in our EFL learners of reading?
5. What are authentic texts and what are their pedagogical importance in
teaching reading skills?

Before reading: Plan for the reading task

 Set a purpose or decide in advance what to read for

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  Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed
 Determine whether to enter the text from the top down (attend to the overall meaning) or
from the bottom up (focus on the words and phrases)

During and after reading: Monitor comprehension

 Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses

 Decide what is and is not important to understand
 Reread to check comprehension
 Ask for help

After reading: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use

 Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area

 Evaluate overall progress in reading and in particular types of reading tasks
 Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task
 Modify strategies if necessary

Using Authentic Materials and Approaches

For students to develop communicative competence in reading, classroom and

homework reading activities must resemble (or be) real-life reading tasks that involve
meaningful communication.

They must therefore be authentic in three ways.

1. The reading material must be authentic: It must be the kind of material that students
will need and want to be able to read when traveling, studying abroad, or using the
language in other contexts outside the classroom.

When selecting texts for student assignments, remember that the difficulty of a reading
text is less a function of the language, and more a function of the conceptual difficulty
and the task(s) that students are expected to complete. Simplifying a text by changing
the language often removes natural redundancy and makes the organization somewhat
difficult for students to predict. This actually makes a text more difficult to read than if
the original were used.

Rather than simplifying a text by changing its language, make it more approachable by
eliciting students' existing knowledge in pre-reading discussion, reviewing new
vocabulary before reading, and asking students to perform tasks that are within their
competence, such as skimming to get the main idea or scanning for specific information,
before they begin intensive reading.

2. The reading purpose must be authentic: Students must be reading for reasons that
make sense and have relevance to them. "Because the teacher assigned it" is not an
authentic reason for reading a text.

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To identify relevant reading purposes, ask students how they plan to use the language
they are learning and what topics they are interested in reading and learning about. Give
them opportunities to choose their reading assignments, and encourage them to use the
library, the Internet, and foreign language newsstands and bookstores to find other
things they would like to read.

3. The reading approach must be authentic: Students should read the text in a way that
matches the reading purpose, the type of text, and the way people normally read. This
means that reading aloud will take place only in situations where it would take place
outside the classroom, such as reading for pleasure. The majority of students' reading
should be done silently.

Reading Aloud in the Classroom

Students do not learn to read by reading aloud. A person who reads aloud and
comprehends the meaning of the text is coordinating word recognition with
comprehension and speaking and pronunciation ability in highly complex ways.

Students whose language skills are limited are not able to process at this level, and end
up having to drop one or more of the elements. Usually the dropped element is
comprehension, and reading aloud becomes word calling: simply pronouncing a series of
words without regard for the meaning they carry individually and together. Word calling
is not productive for the student who is doing it, and it is boring for other students to
listen to.

 There are two ways to use reading aloud productively in the language classroom. Read
aloud to your students as they follow along silently. You have the ability to use inflection
and tone to help them hear what the text is saying. Following along as you read will help
students move from word-by-word reading to reading in phrases and thought units, as
they do in their first language.
 Use the "read and look up" technique. With this technique, a student reads a phrase or
sentence silently as many times as necessary, then looks up (away from the text) and tells
you what the phrase or sentence says. This encourages students to read for ideas, rather
than for word recognition.

What are the special skills in reading?

1. Being able to find the central thought in a text.

2. Being able to find supporting ideas for a statement.
3. Being able to follow printed directions accurately.
4. Being able to fill out forms and blanks correctly.
5. Being able to locate some bit of information quickly.
6. Being able to summarize a paragraph in one sentence.
7. Being able to predict the outcome of a story.

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8. Being able to use the various parts of a textbook.
9. Being able to use the dictionary and other reference tools.
10. Being able to use materials arranged in alphabetical order.

Lesson 3: Correction of Faulty Reading Habits

Task 55: diagnosing classmates poor reading habits

Discuss the following question in pairs and then report orally your
understandings to the whole class.

1. What do you think are your poor reading habits?

2. What poor reading habits have you observed with some of your classmates?
3. Do you think that poor reading habits may be corrected and improved?
4. Below are listed a number of poor reading habits? Which of these apply to you?

1. Lip movement or whispering

Read silently with ―still lips‖ for greater speed. You can read five times as fast silently as you can
speak.

2. Mental pronouncing

Avoid this kind of reading. Train yourself to read more rapidly and omit that echoing of the sound
of words in your mind.

3. Mental attitude

Build up confidence in yourself and approach the task of reading with pleasurable emotions. If
you are indifferent or worried about it, you will not read as well as when you say to yourself, ―I
can do it!‖

4. Too many pauses and backward eye movements

Your eyes should swing from left to right in rhythmical sweeps with no more than two pauses per
line. If you find that practice does not provide this skill, see an oculist.

5. Visual Confusion

If you find that letters are blurred r that you substitute words for the actual ones printed in the
book, have your vision checked.

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6. Lack of power of attention

Get a grip on yourself when you are reading and concentrate on the passage. A good device is to
have questions listed that will direct your attention to specific items in the passage you are
reading.

7. Poor word recognition

Do not guess at words by pouncing upon the first few letters and skipping the rest. Use the
sentence or context as a clue, and notice the whole pattern of the word. Build up your
vocabulary!

8. Disregard of proper word grouping

Watch the punctuation marks and the structure of the sentence instead of concentrating on
individual words. Train your eyes to take in phrases and clauses as units of meaning.

9. Slow rate in reading

Comprehension is always more important than speed. A normal reading rate is 300 words a
minute for narrative material. More difficult texts will naturally require more time for grasping
the thought.

10. Posture and lighting

Sit up comfortably. Have the light at your left side.

Lesson 4: Procedures in Delivering a Reading Lesson in Classrooms

The following procedures of a lesson are designed for EFL instructors who teach secondary
schools English language learners in Ethiopia. It is based on an authentic, contemporary essay by
an accomplished American writer. The lesson plan includes various tasks and activities designed
to assist you, the would-be teacher, in developing your students‘ English language reading skills
as well as increasing their understanding of American culture by way of building up background
knowledge.

Students will study Butler‘s essay, complete tasks both individually and in pairs or groups, and
participate in activities that develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills though the
major aim of the lesson is developing students‘ reading skills. The lesson is divided into five
steps: Preparing to Read, Reading the Text, Understanding the Text, Making Connections beyond
the Text, and Integrating Language Skills.

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You can choose the parts of the lesson that you find most appropriate and useful for conducting a
30 minutes micro-teaching of reading skills in your class. Approximate times for each part of the
lesson are included, but these times may vary depending on the individual class or teaching
situation.

Step 1: Preparing to Read “A Postcard from America” (15 minutes)

In order to prepare your students to read Butler‘s essay, follow the suggested steps below.

A. Introduce the Subject: Postcard

1. Show or pass around various postcards to your students.

2. Ask questions such as the following:

a. What are postcards?

b. What are some common features (characteristics) of postcards?
c. Who sends postcards?
d. Why do people send postcards?
e. Have you sent or received a postcard this year? If so, to or from whom?
3. Show or pass around various postcards to your students.
4. Ask questions such as the following:

f. What are postcards?

g. What are some common features (characteristics) of postcards?
h. Who sends postcards?
i. Why do people send postcards?
j. Have you sent or received a postcard this year? If so, to or from whom?

B. Introduce the Lesson

Read an essay called ―A Postcard from America‖ written by Robert Olen Butler, a well-known
American author. You might not fully understand this essay the first time you read it, but after
reading it again and analyzing the essay, you will gain a better understanding of the writer‘s
message and will experience opportunities to communicate in English and improve your language
skills.

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 Task 56: Observations on Step 1

1. Do the pre-reading questions set motivate students in question?

2. Are the questions to many or too few?
3. How are the wordings of those questions?
4. Are the questions simple or difficult to understand?

Step 2: Reading the Text (30-40 minutes)

Students should have copies of the essay (and Glossary)

A. Review the during-reading tasks below. Then complete the tasks as you read
the essay silently.

1. Circle unfamiliar words or expressions.

2. Underline ideas you do not understand.
3. Discuss or ask about the essay.

B. Read the definitions of the circled words in the Glossary provided or look up
the unfamiliar words in a dictionary.

Task 57: Observations on Step 2

1. Do the questions set motivate students in question?

2. Are the questions to many or too few?
3. How are the wordings of those questions?
4. Are the questions simple or difficult to understand?
5. Are the questions and activities appropriate for the stage of the lesson?

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A Postcard from America

1. The picture postcard is nearly ninety years old. It is an original photograph, taken by someone
with the newly invented Kodak Brownie camera and then printed onto a stiff piece of cardboard
with a postcard back. This was a common practice in the early 20th century in America. People
took photos of every aspect of their daily lives and sent the images through the mail to each other.
This particular image is of a achingly fragile biplane, in the perilous early days of aviation, flying
solitary before an empty sky. If you look closely you can see the right end of the upper wing
beginning to tear away. The message on the back of the card simply reads: ―This is Earl Sandt of
Erie Pa. in his airplane just before it feel.‖

2. I have been collecting old American postcards for more than a decade. My collection focuses
to some extent on the images on the fronts of the cards—this one, certainly, was extraordinary—
but even more so on the messages on the backs. Before telephones were common, people would
not infrequently speak their hearts on the backs of postcards.

3. As a writer—a writer whose work, I feel, is deeply rooted in the spirit of America—I am
enchanted with these messages. An artist of any nationality is keenly attuned to nuance and
innuendo and subtext, to the revelation of personality and the deep yearning in every human
heart. And these fragments of voices of Americans who have long since passed away are
profoundly resonant not only of the individual lives pulsing behind the words but also of the
preoccupations and character of this nation in the early years of what would be an extra-ordinary
century.

4. I am now beginning to write a book of short stories based on my collection of American

postcards from the first two decades of the last century. There will be two dozen or more stories,
with the front and the back of each card reproduced as a kind of found epigraph. I will taken on
the voice in the message on the back of the card or the voice of the recipient, or perhaps even
seek out the voice of someone mentioned in the message.

5. In another private photo card, a woman sits beside a female friend in a 1906 Mitchell
automobile and she has written a poem beneath the image: ―No chord of music has yet been
found/to even equal that sweet sound/which to my mind all else surpasses/an auto engine and its

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puffing gasses.‖ She added, writing to the friend who sat beside her, ―Don‘t this recall many
pleasant rides over the beautiful Drive Way?‖ The town she wrote from was Quanah, Texas
named after a Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, who was the last to bring his people into the
reservation in the Texas Staked Plains and who later became a successful businessman, a hunting
companion to Theodore Roosevelt, and the deputy sheriff of Lawton, Oklahoma.

6. The story I have already written from this card chronicles the two women slipping off, while
their husbands are at a horse auction, and taking the automobile out for a spin themselves, an
assertion of independence which brings them face-to-face with the town‘s namesake. This nation,
built on the preservation of the rights of minorities, has sometimes been slow to apply those rights
fully. But this card captures an early 20th –century moment in the process of the further opening
of American society. A Texas town honours in its name a Native American chief who led a
protracted struggle against the very establishment of such a town but who then adapted
successfully to a new world. A woman delights with another woman in the technology of a male-
dominated society perhaps sensing that this very technology would one day help transform that
society into something even more egalitarian.

7. An image of the building that held the U.S. War, State, and Navy Departments in Washington,
D.C., bears this message: ―For my darling Jojo: As a memento of the pleasant hour spent standing
in front of the U.S. War, State, and Navy Department (on a chilly day) waiting for the procession
to move up to the White House where we shook hands with President Roosevelt, New Year‘s
Day 1908. From her own baby, Deedee.‖ This card, like many of those that contain the most
personal of messages, has no stamp. It had been placed inside an envelope for mailing to
preserve its privacy. Two women, quietly connected in an unconventional way, nevertheless
were proud to wait to exercise their rights to shake the hand of the President of the United States.

8. On the Fourth of July in 1906 an anonymous young man sent an image of the Saco River
flowing through the White Mountains of New Hampshire to a man in Shelburne Falls,
Massachusetts, perhaps his father. The postmark indicates that the young man was staying at one
of the grand resort hotels of the White Mountains, the Crawford House. ―This is a quiet 4th,‖ he
wrote. ―There are 220 in the house. When the flag was raised this morning they gathered on the
piazza and took off their hats and gave three cheers. Going to pitch tomorrow.‖ The card is very
moving to me in its understatement. Nearly a hundred years ago everyone in this great old hotel
came out into the yard, mostly strangers to each other, and cheered their devotion to an America

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that so closely bound them together. Then the next day our young man went off and participated
in that very American game, baseball, united yet again with others, this time in play.

9. Still another private photo was clearly taken on the entrenched front lines I World War I, with
trees trunks stacked against the deeply dug dirt walls and the fleeting image of a doughboy up
above, moving away. Standing on the dirt floor of the excavated position is a stout, matronly
woman in a dark gabardine dress and a narrow-brimmed hat with her pocket watch pinned to her
chest on a chain and with a faint, think-mouthed, you-better-be-taking-care-of-yourself smile.
The handwritten caption simply says, ―Mother in the trenches.‖ This very American mother has
come to the front lines to check on her son.

10. A mass-produced card shows an artist‘s image of a woman looking forlorn. The card‘s
printed sentiment says: heartbroken. On the message side, someone has written these simple
words to a man in Attleboro, Massachusetts, with no salutation and no signature: ―We‘ll meet in
death.‖ This at first sounds like a bitter break-up of two lovers. But a closer examination of the
man‘s address shows that he is in a sanatorium. He is dying of tuberculosis. The relationship
drastically shifts in one‘s imagination and becomes complex indeed – particularly with the
absence of any words of endearment or even identity in the message. In an age when so many
diseases readily turned fatal, a woman has stripped down her words to the essence of belief that
she shared with the dying man she loved.

11. There is something in this woman‘s faith and pragmatism and courage that seem particularly
American to me. As do the Texas woman‘s impassioned engagement with technological progress
and the Washington couple‘s pleasure in the openness of a representative government and the
young man‘s comradeship with his unknown compatriots and the mother‘s strength and
protectiveness and ability to abandon convention for a higher goal. But, of course, all these
qualities are universal, as well.

12. And it is important to understand how the particular and the universal are wedded in art. A
work of art does not come from the artist‘s mind. It does not come from the rational, analytical
faculties. It does not come from ideas. Art comes from the place where the artist dreams. Art
comes from the unconscious.

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13. The unconscious is a scary place. The great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa once
said, ―To be an artist means never to avert your eyes.‖ And if the artist truly does that, if she goes
into her unconscious, day after day, work after work, and does not avert her eyes, she finally
breaks through to a place where she is neither female nor male, neither black nor white nor red
nor yellow, neither Christian nor Muslim or Jew nor Hindu nor Buddhist nor atheist, neither
North American nor South American nor European nor African nor Asian. He is human. And if
he happened by birth or choice to call the United States of America home, he looks about him at
the particulars of this place and culture and finds those aspects of it that resonate into the
universal humanity we all share on this planet.

14. This past fall, I undertook a writing project using the internet in order to teach this basic tenet
of the artistic process. My students had long hear me speak of the origins of art being in the
unconscious, and of the corollary that works of art are fundamentally sensual objects that
comprehend and articulate the world in non-analytical ways. The paradox of teaching this art
form, however, is that one inevitably ends up using analytical discourse, as in these very
sentences, to reject analysis.

15. So on October 30, 2001, I began a Web cast under the auspices of the Web site of Florida
State University, where I teach. I would write a literary short story on the internet, for two hours
each night, until it was done. Students could see the artistic process directly, in its moment-to-
moment fullness. I began with a simple concept, and with no other preparation, I created the
story in real-time. My viewers saw every creative decision, down to the most delicate comma, as
it was made on the page. Every misbegotten, awkward sentence, every bad word choice, every
conceptual dead end was shared and worked over and revised and rewritten before the viewers‘
eyes.

16. I waited until the morning of October 30 to open myself to an inspiration so that I would not
have a chance, even unconsciously, to pre-pain the story. I wanted the whole process to be shared
on the Web cast. So I went to my postcard collection on that morning in search of the card that
had the strongest story hovering about it. And the one that leaped out at me held the image of
Earl Sandt‘s biplane.

17. When I‘d bought that card at a postcard convention the previous January, I‘d known that one
day I would write a story inspired by it. I‘d always assumed, however, that the story would be in

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the voice of Earl Sandt, the doomed pilot. That changed on October 30. I took up this antique
postcard, and my artistic unconscious, my sense of myself as an American, and my larger identity
as a human being all powerfully converged. Instantly knew that I had two write the story in the
voice of the man who watched.

18. Because on September 11, 2001, we were all the ones who watched. From my dream space I
wrote this story about America of the early 20th century, and in doing so I realized something
crucial about that terrible day in America of the early 21st century. The man who snapped the
photo and wrote the postcard ninety years earlier felt the same thing that we all did on September
11, and I came to understand that the most profound and abiding effects of that day have very
little to do with international politics or worldwide terrorism or homeland security or our unity as
a nation. Those issues are real and important too, of course, but it seems to me that the deepest
experience of 9/11 happened for use one soul at a time in an entirely personal way. We each of
us viewed the fall of an airplane under stunning circumstances for which we had no frame of
reference, and as a result, the event got around certain defences that we all necessarily carry
within us. And we confronted – one by one by one – in a way most of us never have – our own
mortality.

19. Artists of all nations of the world pass each day through the portal of the world pass each day
through the portal of the personal unconscious and enter into the depths of the collective
unconscious, and these artists emerge with visions of the things that bind us all together. I am an
American. I am an artist. I took at my country and I seek the human soul.

In ―A Postcard from America,‖ author Robert Olen Butler details some thoughts on his writing,
his work, and how postcards and America‘s past affect his art and life today. This rich essay can
be a powerful instrument for developing students‘ English language skills and insights into
American life, and perhaps, into the students‘ own lives. The following suggestions for using the
essay for English language development help the teacher to explore, with his or her students, the
richness of Butler‘s essay, ―A Postcard from America.‖
(English Language Forum. January, 2004)

C. Read the essay for a second time for better understanding of the text.

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Step 3: Understanding the Text

Discuss the following questions as a class or group and write a journal or

an essay topic in class or as homework.

1. Arrange yourselves into pairs or groups of three to four students.

a. Choose one student to read the questions aloud.

b. Choose one student to record the answers.
c. Choose other members to present the answers to the class.

2. Discuss the questions and complete the tasks in Step 3 before presenting their responses to
the class.
3. Present your responses to the class.

A. Comprehension Questions (15-20 minutes)

1. At the beginning of the essay, Butler describes a postcard of a biplane. What is wrong with
the upper wing of the plane?
2. How long has Butler been collecting postcards? What is the focus of his collection?
3. In paragraph 5, Butler writes about a photo card of two women in a 1906 automobile.
4. In paragraph 8, what game did the postcard writer play? On what date did this writer play the
game?
5. Butler describes a photo of a soldier‘s mother in paragraph 9. What is she wearing and where
is she standing?
6. In paragraph 10, Butler tells about a postcard addressed to a man. Where is the man and why
is he doing?
7. In paragraphs 13 through 15, Butler describes a writing project he did for his students during
a Web cast on the Internet. What postcard did he write about for this Web cast?
8. In the final paragraph, Butler writes that ―each day … artists emerge with visions …‖
According to Butler, what do these visions do?

B. Vocabulary and Idioms (15 minutes)

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Scanning is a reading skill that is useful for quickly finding specific information such as new
vocabulary words or idiomatic expressions. To scan, you should read through a text quickly as
you search for specific words, expressions, names, or numbers. Practice the skill of scanning as
you complete the tasks in this section.

1. Early in the essay, Butler questions whether to ―take on the voice in the message on the back
of the card,‖ or ―the voice of the recipient,‖ or ―the voice of someone mentioned in the
message.‖ Scan the essay to find this passage. Explain what the author means by take on the
voice.
2. Scan paragraph 7 to find the word memento. Try to guess the meaning of this word using the
context—the ideas in the paragraph surrounding the word memento. Memento comes from
the root word mem, which means ―recalling the past.‖ Make a list of other words that use the
root word mem.
3. Find the word caption in paragraph 9. Use the context in the paragraph to guess the meaning
of this word. What is another word for caption? In addition to postcards, where do we find
captions?

C. Dictionary Practice (15 minutes)

You will practice using the dictionary as you complete the tasks in this section.

1. Find the word convention in paragraphs 11 and 16. The meaning of this word is different in
each paragraph. Use the dictionary to find the specific meaning as it is used in each of the
paragraphs.
2. Find the word piazza in paragraph 8. Use the context to guess the meaning of piazza. Then
compare your meaning with the definition in a dictionary. Many words we use in English are
borrowed from other languages. Scan the dictionary entry for piazza to learn which language
this word originates from.
3. Scan paragraph 10 to find the word doughboy. How do we pronounce doughboy? Use a
dictionary for help if you need it.

D. Discussion Questions (15 Minutes)

Comprehension Questions: Discuss the following questions orally.

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1. Butler has been a collector of old postcards for more than ten years. Why is he interested in
collecting these postcards? . Why is he interested in collecting these postcards? How does he
plan to use his collection?
2. Each postcard that Butler writes about expresses a special message from the writer. Choose
one or two of the postcards. Discuss the meaning and the feelings that the writers
communicate through their brief messages.
3. During the Webcast in which Butler wrote a short story in real-time, his students were able to
witness the ―artistic process‖ from the beginning to the completion of his story. What did
Butler do each night for two hours on the Internet? What was he trying to teach his students
about writing with this Internet project?
4. Where does Butler claim art comes from? Do you agree? Explain your point of view.

Step 4: Making Connections beyond the Text (15-20 minutes): Write the
following questions in the form of journal or essay topics

1. Do you send postcards? Do you ever receive them? When you choose a postcard to send or
you receive one, what does the picture on the card express to you? Think of postcards you
have seen and remembered. Explain why you remember them.
2. What does it mean to be a collector? Besides postcards, what are some other things people
collect? Do you know someone who is a collector? What does that person collect and why?
3. Butler mentions the celebration of America‘s Independence Day in paragraph 8. How do you
celebrate a national holiday in your company? What is your favourite national holiday?
4. How do you prefer to communicate: by postcard, letter, fax, e-mail, or instant messages? Has
modern technology (e-mail, cell phones, and faxes) affected the practice of sending postcards
and letters by regular mail? Explain how.

Step 5: Written/Oral Report/Presentations

Do one the following projects first individually then as a group in the form
of oral presentation or written report.

Students to complete their projects as written reports or to prepare oral presentations.

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1. Design a postcard that represents an important event in your life. Write a message on the
back that reveals how this event has influenced you.
2. Selecta a postcard and compose a fictional story about the event, action, or image on the
postcard. Include the following elements of fiction writing: setting, plot, character, theme,
and tone.
3. Research the history of postcards on the Internet or in a library. Present your findings to the
class.
4. Use the Internet or library resources to find more information about one of the subjects
below. Then write a report or prepare a presentation of your findings for your classmates.

 Robert Olen Butler

 Kodak Brownie camera
 biplanes
 the history of postcards
 Akira Kurosawa
 collective unconscious

Task 58: Observations on Step 3

6. Do the questions set motivate students in question?

7. Are the questions to many or too few?
8. How are the wordings of those questions?
9. Are the questions simple or difficult to understand?
10. Are the questions and activities appropriate for the stage of the lesson?

Section Summary

We need to note that there are several factors that affect students‘ degree of reading
comprehension. Some of these are the reading purpose they have, the kind of strategy they use for

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reading, and the nature of the text to be read. Moreover reading comprehension may also suffer
from poor reading habits or faulty reading habits the students may have such as lode
reading(verbalising), lip movement, over dependence on dictionary, etc.

This section has also attempted to introduce us to the basic elements of a reading lesson or
contents of a reading lesson. A reading lesson in principle should contain activities that have
importance in developing student‘ varied reading abilities. The reading lessons should always
assume that reading is essentially a personal private activity that should primarily e done by the
student.

Section 1.4: Analysing and Developing Reading Lessons

Introduction

The section ahead aims at familiarising you with techniques of analysing a reading lesson. As a
teacher you need to develop skills that help you o determine the worth of a certain reading lesson.
Hands-on activities are also provided in this section that will help you both to develop and
analyse reading skills tasks.

Finally, in the section you will be required to undertake a micro-teaching of a reading lesson to
your classmates.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this section, you will be able to:

1. Analyse different reading skills lessons based on set standards;

2. Develop acceptable reading lessons for secondary school students in Ethiopia
3. Integrate reading skills lessons with other skills; and,
4. Conduct a micro-teaching for your classmates.

Lesson 1: Analysing Model Reading Lessons

Task 59: Guidelines for analysing reading skills lessons

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Below are presented four reading skills lessons/reading comprehension
lessons. Please read each set of lesson very carefully. Analyse it
individually and present your reaction to the class. You may choose one
of these set of lessons and analyse it in an essay form and present it to
your instructor. To do this you may need your instructor‟s help.

During the analysis and evaluation you make please base yourself on the
following checklist for evaluation or analysis of a reading lesson.

1. 1 Vocabulary level
2. 10.2 Language or grammar complexity
3. 10.3 Size of the text
4. 10.4 Familiarities of topics
5. 10.5 Text organization
6. 10.6 Grading the task or activity

7. What purpose is the reading material used for?

8. Is it of real interest for the level of students in question?
9. Is it authentic?
10. Is it well presented accompanied by purposeful activities?
11. What type of material is it? Journal article? Profile? Tale?
12. Do you think the learners would enjoy the material and the tasks? Why?
13. Does it have pre-, while, and post reading questions?
14. Are the questions in each set appropriate for the category they belong to?
15. Does the material help develop vocabulary? How?
16. Is the reading text used for consolidating language items?
17. Is the material linked to other skills?
18. What kinds of comprehension questions are asked? Literal? Discourse-based?
Inference?
19. Is the text complete, or there are gaps?
20. Does the material facilitate comprehension, e.g. by setting the scene, providing
background information, giving pre-reading questions, etc.?
21. Does the material address the learners‘ affective factors?
22. What is the place of vocabulary in the text?

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 Reading Comprehension: Text 1

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.

The Importance of Small Business in the U.S. Economy

1. In U.S. more than 99 percent of the nation‘s 16 million businesses employ fewer than 100
people. The vast majority of these companies are owner operated. Thus, just by sheer
numbers alone, small business is a strong presence in the nation‘s economy. But small
business is also a vital economic force because of its effect on job creation, innovation, and
big business.

2. Economists and politicians alike extol the virtues of small businesses as generators of jobs.
In fact, studies show that over the last twenty years most new jobs have come not from big
business but from small business. One study, for example, found that over a ten-year period,
businesses with 20 or fewer employees created 66 percent of all new jobs nation wide and 99
percent of all new, jobs in New England, Small, young, high-technology businesses create
new jobs at a much faster rate than do older, larger businesses. High-technology businesses,
especially those in chemistry or electronics, require individuals with a high degree of
scientific or engineering knowledge to succeed. Thus, they continually need new people
skilled in the latest breakthroughs.

3. Small businesses are also more common in some industries than in others. For example, the
five major industry group service, retailing, wholesaling, manufacturing, and agriculture-
differ in terms of personnel, money, materials, and machines. The more resources an
industry requires, the harder a business is to start and the less likely the industry to be
dominated by small firms.

4. As a general rule, manufacturing businesses are the hardest to start, while service businesses
are the easiest. To make sewing machines, for example, small businesses must invest not
only in personnel but also in raw materials and machines. They must also develop an
elaborate distribution network and advertise heavily. However, to prepare tax forms, small
business-people need only invest in their own education and a few office supplies and
reference books. They can run their businesses out of storefronts or even from their homes.

No. Major Industry Groups Level of Establishments Employees

Resources
1 Service Under 20 87-5% 26.7%
2 Retailing 20-99 10.4% 29.2%
3 Wholesaling 100-499 1.8% 24.3%
4 Manufacturing 500-999 0.1% 6.9%

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5 Agriculture 1000 or more 0.1% 12.9%

5. In part because service businesses require a relatively low level of resources, they are the
largest and the fastest-growing segment of small business enterprise today. Services also take
advantage of small business people‘s talent for innovation. No other industry group offers a
higher return on time invested. The different services offered by small businesses number
into the thousand ranging from shoeshine parlours to car rental agencies, from marriage
counsellors to computer software, from legal advice to accounting and management
consulting.

6. Approximately one half million new businesses incorporate every year. This figure contrasts
markedly with the 200,000 per year in the early 1960s. The rising tide of incorporations
reflects an active small business community. Indeed, the economic boom of the 1980s
resulted in more small businesses being formed than during any other decade in history.

7. Economic prosperity also led to a reduction in the rate of small business failure. During the
1960s and 1970s, for example, less than half of the new businesses lasted more than 18
months and only one in five lasted ten years. New data, however, suggest a dramatic change.
For example, one recent large study found that of new businesses started in the 1980s, over
77 percent were still in operation after three years. And recent estimates suggest that at least
40 percent of all new businesses can expect to last at least six years.

Activity A: Comprehension Questions

Answer the following questions according to the information in the text you have just read. Give
your answers in the spaces provided. (One mark each)

1. Why are small business ventures important in U.S.?‖

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

2. What is the major area of small businesses?

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

_______ 3. Which industry group offers a higher return on time invested?

a) Agriculture b) Manufacturing c) Service d) Retailing
_______ 4. According to the information in the table, which of the following is false?
a) The more resource a business has, the less number of workers it needs
b) Number of people working in agriculture is nearly twice of that of working in
manufacturing
c) Number of people working in service group in greater than that of working in
retailing

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 d) Service business is the fastest growing group
_______ 5. High-technology business create less job opportunity as they require skilled
manpower (True/False)
_______ 6. Economic development reduced the rate of small business failure and their
establishments (True/False)
_______ 7. Retailing is the second most growing segment of big business enterprise today
(True/False)
8. ‗they‘, in para. 2 line 9 refers to _______________________________
9. ‗They‘, in para. 4 line 3 refers to ______________________________
10. What does ‗one in five‘ mean in para. 7 ____________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
11. Fill in the following table according to the information in the reading test.

Difference between big and small businesses

Big businesses Small businesses

a. __________________________ Offer a higher return on time invested

Less likely to be dominated by small b. __________________________

firms
c. __________________________ Easy to start and run

Create less job opportunity d. __________________________

Activity B: Vocabulary from the reading text

Match those words given under Column ‗A‘ with their best meanings (as they are used in the
text) from Column ‗B‘. Write your answers in the spaces provided. (½ mark each

Column „A‟ Column „B‟

________ 1. Breakthrough (para.2) a. complicated
________ 2. Elaborate (para.4) b. becoming one
________ 3. Innovation (para.5) c. discovery
________ 4. Boom (para.6) d. expand
________ 5. Incorporation (para.6) e. additions
f. separate
g. introducing new things
h. growth

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Reading Comprehension: Text 2

Read the following text and answer the questions that follow.

The American Jazz

1. Possibly the most important contribution made by African-Americans to world culture
occurred in the area of music, specifically in the birth and development of that unique form of
modern music known as jazz. Jazz is a synthesis of diverse musical elements that came
together in the first decades of the twentieth century, but it was in the interwar era that jazz
came to express an exuberant kind of American optimism. Although some music historians
insist that jazz is the product of place, not race, the primary role of African-Americans in the
origins of jazz is indisputable.
2. Jazz is a performer's rather than a composer's art. It is dominated by African precepts of
rhythm and a wide range of Afro-European concepts of harmony, melody, and tone color.
The evolution of jazz has involved a variety of popular musical styles, including that of the
marching brass band, the minstrel stage, blues, and ragtime. Ragtime music and dance,
which featured a syncopated piano style, migrated north after the Civil War and became
popular during the 1890s. Its most inspired proponent was the black composer and ragtime
came to feature improvisation (that is, spur-of-the moment composition) and percussive
rhythms. Blues, on the other hand, began as a vocal rather than an instrumental form of
music. Native to America, but stemming from African traditions, blues is a highly subjective
form of expression by which one laments one's troubles, loneliness, and despair. A blues
song may recall the wailing cries of plantation slaves; it may describe the anguish of
separation and loss of the hope of deliverance from oppression. Often improvised, blues
songs like W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" (1914) begin with a line that states a simple
complaint ("I hate to see the evening sun go down"); the complaint is repeated in a second

111
 line, and it is "answered" in a third ("It makes me think I'm on my last go-round")- a pattern
derived perhaps from African call and response chants (see chapter 19). Musically, blues
makes use of a special scale known as a "blues scale," which features the flatted forms of E,
G, and B within the standard scale of C.
3. Both ragtime and blues played a large part in the development of jazz as a generic form of
popular music. If jazz has any singular characteristic, it is the exuberant disregard of
established forms of Western composition in favour of deviation and variety. Jazz employs a
unique variation on rhythm known as swing, in which some notes are held for longer or
shorter periods of accented in ways that depart from their notated values. Swing gives jazz
subtle rhythmic shifts that are virtually impossible to notate with accuracy. Jazz depends on
improvisation and on the exploitation of the tone color of various musical instruments.
Although syncopated rhythms, improvisation, and variant tonal qualities were not in
themselves new, their application, in combination with blues and swing, along with an
experimental attitude toward performance style, worked to give jazz a unique sound.
4. The beginnings of American jazz are found in New Orleans, Louisiana, a melting pot for the
rich heritage of Spanish, French, African, Indian, and Black Creole musical traditions. Here,
black and white musicians drew on the intricate rhythms of African tribal dance and the
European harmonies of traditional marching bands. The street musicians who regularly
marched behind funeral or wedding processions, many of whom were neither formally
trained nor could read music, might play trumpets, trombones, and clarinets. These
musicians made up the "front line" of small groups that also included a rhythm section of
drums and other instruments. (The crowd that danced behind them was called the "second
line") Jazz groups also played the kinds of music that were popular in nightclubs and
dancehalls. Louis Armstrong (1900-1971), a native of New Orleans who began playing the
cornet at the age of twelve, commonly crossed African and local New Orleans street rhythms
to produce instrumental jazz pieces often embellished by scat singing-an improvised set of
nonsense syllables. Armstrong is widely regarded as having turned jazz into an
internationally respected art form. "Hotter thanthat" (1927), a composition by Lillian Hardin
(Armstrong's wife), exemplifies that style termed hot jazz.

Activity A: Comprehension Questions

Answer the following questions according to the information in the passage you have just read.
Write your answers in the spaces provided.

1. According to the writer, how did Blues begin?

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 _______________________________________________________________________
2. What different features do ―front line‖ and ―second line‖ have?
a. ―front line‖ ______________________________________
b. ―second line‖ _____________________________________
3. Which music form is used for lamentation?
________________________________________________________________________
4. What did Jazz do during the interwar era?
________________________________________________________________________
5. The contribution of Afro-Europeans to Jazz is expressed through ____________,
____________ and ____________. Where as that of Africans is through ____________.
6. Complete the following table according to the information in the passage
Kind of Music Main feature
a. _________________ b. Uses a special scale

c. Jazz d. ______________________

e. __________________ f. give Jazz subtle rhythmic shifts

g. Ragtime h. ______________________

7. What does the pronoun ―its‖ in Para. 2, line 6 refer to: _______________________
8. ―their‖ in Para. 3, line 5, refers to: ___________________________
9. ―many of whom‖ in Para. 4, line 5, refers to: _____________________________

_________ 10. The writer believes that African Americans invented new dance styles.
(True/False)
_________ 11. The writer argues that the origin of American music is Africa. (True/False)
_________ 12. According to the writer street musicians are neither trained nor played music.
(True/False)
_________ 13. According to the text music did not show any change in its history.
(True/False) Total (this section) ____/20

Activity B: Vocabulary from the reading text

I. Find the meanings of the underlined words from the choices and write the letter of your
choice in the spaces provided (½ marks each)

_______1. Jazz is a Synthesis of diverse Musical elements.

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 a. isolation c. combination
b. example d. change
_______2. A blues song may recall the Wailing cries of plantation slaves.
a. concluding c. complementing
b. complaining d. congratulating
_______3. Black and white musicians drew o the intricate rhythms of African tribal dance…..
a. complicated c. clear
b. enjoyable d. backward

Activity C

Mach the words under column 'A' with their appropriate meanings (as they are used in the
text) in column 'B'. Write your answers in the spaces provided.

Column 'A' Column 'B'

______1. exuberant a. guiding rules

______2. indisputable b. disastrous
______3. precepts c. change
______4.anguish d. cheerful
______5.embellish e. rescue
______6. deliverance f. march
______7. syncopate g. add
h. angry
i. pain

Reading Comprehension: Text 3

Activity 1: Before you read the text, discuss the following questions in pair or in group.
1. When and where was the HIV virus discovered first?
2. Define the acronyms HIV and AIDS.
3. What are the means of the transmission of the Virus from person to person?
4. Have you ever heard about a virus called the FIV virus?
5. What are the social, economic, and psychological problems the AIDS
disease cause up on people?
6. Which three countries are seriously hit by the HIV virus in the world? List
them down in the order of the degree of the prevalence of the Virus.
7. Have you ever been tasted for HIV virus?
8. What is social stigmatization?

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Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome

1. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a human viral disease that ravages the
immune system, undermining the body‘s ability to defend itself from infection and disease.
Caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), AIDS leaves an infected person vulnerable
to opportunistic infections. Such infections are harmless in healthy people, but in those whose
immune systems have been greatly weakened, they can prove fatal. Although there is no cure for
AIDS, new drugs are available that can prolong the life spans and improve the quality of life of
infected people. Infection with HIV does not necessarily mean that a person has AIDS. Some
people who have HIV infection may not develop any of the clinical illnesses that define the full-
blown disease of AIDS for ten years or more. Physicians prefer to use the term AIDS for cases
where a person has reached the final, life-threatening stage of HIV infection.
II
2. AIDS was first identified in 1981 among homosexual men and intravenous drug users in New
York and California. Shortly after its detection in the United States, evidence of AIDS epidemics
grew among heterosexual men, women, and children in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS quickly
developed into a worldwide epidemic, affecting virtually every nation. By 2002 an estimated 38.6
million adults and 3.2 million children worldwide were living with HIV infection or AIDS. The
World Health Organization (WHO), a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN), estimates
that from 1981 to the end of 2002 about 20 million people died as a result of AIDS. About 4.5
million of those who died were children under the age of 15.

Activity 2: True/false questions. Answer the questions under here according to the
paragraphs above.

1. A fully blown patient of the disease AIDS may at least survive for ten years.
2. AIDS was first detected in the USA.
3. HIV infections are equally harmless in all people.
4. Physicians may use the term HIV and AIDS alternatively.
5. AIDS has affected almost all countries so far.

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 3. In the United States about 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year. More than 30
percent of these infections occur in women, and 60 percent occur in ethnic minorities. In 2001
more than 800,000 U.S. residents were infected with HIV, and more than 300,000 people were
living with full-blown AIDS. In Canada about 4,200 new HIV infections occur each year. Nearly
25 percent of these infections occur in women. In 2002 about 55,000 Canadians were living with
HIV infection and about 18,000 people were living with full-blown AIDS.
The incidence of new cases of HIV infections and AIDS deaths has significantly decreased in
Canada and the United States since 1995. This decrease is attributed to the availability of new
drug treatments and public health programs that target people most at risk for infection. But while
the overall rate of HIV infection seems to be on a downturn, certain populations appear to be at
greater risk for the disease. In the United States in 1987, Caucasians accounted for 60 percent of
AIDS cases and blacks and Hispanics only 39 percent. But by 2000 the trend had reversed: 26
percent of new cases were diagnosed in Caucasians and 73 percent in blacks and Hispanics.
Likewise the number of female AIDS patients in the United States has increased significantly in
recent years, from 7 percent of all AIDS cases in 1985 to 30 percent in 2000. In the United States,
African American and Hispanic women accounted for 82 percent of AIDS cases among women
in 2000.

4. In Western Europe the first cases of AIDS were detected in the early 1980s, and by the late
1990s, at least 30,000 new HIV infections occurred each year. In 2002 about 570,000 western
Europeans were HIV positive, and 25 percent of these cases were women. Before the
dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, Eastern Europe
reported few HIV cases. But since 1995, HIV infection has spread rapidly in cities of several
eastern European countries, including Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. The WHO estimates
that the total number of HIV infections in this region may have risen from less than 30,000 in
1995 to about 1 million in 2002.

Activity 3: reading for specific points:Fill in the table below the correct figure or number
according to the paragraphs above.

USA Canada Western Europe

1. Number of HIV infections
every year. _____
2. The number of full-blown
AIDS patients in 2001. ___
3. The percentage of female
AIDS patients in 2000. __
1. The number of full- 1. The number of HIV
blown AIDS patients in infections by the late
2002. __ 1990s. __
2. The number of new 2. The percentage of
infections every year. women positives by
____ 2002. __
3. The number of HIV 3. The number of the
infections in 2002. __ 2002 positive western
Europeans. __ _
4.

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Activity4: questions that need critical reading: Discuss the answers for the following
questions in detail.

1. What factors did contribute to the decrement of the incidence of new cases of HIV infections in
the USA and Canada as of 1995
2. Why do you think that the Post-Communist Eastern Europe experience rapid increase of HIV
infections?

5. AIDS is the final stage of a chronic infection with the human immunodeficiency virus.
There are two types of this virus: HIV-1, which is the primary cause of AIDS worldwide, and
HIV-2, found mostly in West Africa. On its surface, HIV carries a protein structure that
recognizes and binds only with a specific structure found on the outer surface of certain cells.
HIV attacks any cell that has this binding structure. However, white blood cells of the immune
system known as T cells, which orchestrate a wide variety of disease-fighting mechanisms, are
especially vulnerable to HIV attack. Particularly vulnerable are certain T cells known as CD4
cells. When HIV infects a CD4 cell, it commandeers the genetic tools within the cell to
manufacture new HIV virus. The newly formed HIV virus then leaves the cell, destroying the
CD4 cell in the process. No existing medical treatment can completely eradicate HIV from the
body once it has integrated into human cells. The loss of CD4 cells endangers health because
these immune cells help other types of immune cells respond to invading organisms. The average
healthy person has over 1,000 CD4 cells per micro litre of blood. In a person infected with HIV,
the virus steadily destroys CD4 cells over a period of years, diminishing the cells‘ protective
ability and weakening the immune system. When the density of CD4 cells drops to 200 cells per
micro liter of blood, the infected person becomes vulnerable to any of about 26 opportunistic
infections and rare cancers, which take advantage of the weakened immune defences to cause
disease.

6. Scientists have identified three ways that HIV infections spread: sexual intercourse with
an infected person, contact with contaminated blood, and transmission from an infected mother to
her child before or during birth or through breastfeeding.

7. HIV transmission occurs most commonly during intimate sexual contact with an infected
person, including genital, anal, and oral sex. The virus is present in the infected person‘s semen
or vaginal fluids. During sexual intercourse, the virus gains access to the bloodstream of the
uninfected person by passing through openings in the mucous membrane—the protective tissue
layer that lines the mouth, vagina, and rectum—and through breaks in the skin of the penis. In
the United States and Canada, HIV is most commonly transmitted during sex between
homosexual men, but the incidence of HIV transmission between heterosexual men and
women has rapidly increased. In most other parts of the world, HIV is most commonly
transmitted through heterosexual sex.

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Activity 5: Developing reference skills in reading. Answer the following questions by
taking information directly from the paragraphs above.

1. Mention the three ways of the transmission of the HIV virus from person to person.
2. What is the most common way of transmission of the HIV virus in the USA and Canada?
3. What is the most common way of transmission of the HIV virus in most other parts of the
world?
4. Mention the three ways of transmission of the HIV virus during an intimate sexual contact
with an infected person.
5. Which types of cells are the most vulnerable to the HIV virus?
6. Mention the number of the CD4 cells per micro-litre of blood for a normal healthy person and
for an infected person suffering with opportunistic infections and rare cancers respectively.

8. Direct contact with HIV-infected blood occurs when people who use heroin or other injected
drugs share hypodermic needles or syringes contaminated with infected blood. Sharing of
contaminated needles among intravenous drug users is the primary cause of HIV infection in
Eastern Europe, particularly in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Moldova. Epidemics of HIV
infection among drug users have also emerged in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and
Kazakhstan in Central Asia. Less frequently, HIV infection results when health professionals
accidentally stick themselves with needles containing HIV-infected blood or expose an open
cut to contaminated blood. Some cases of HIV transmission from transfusions of infected
blood, blood components, and organ donations were reported in the 1980s. Since 1985
government regulations in the United States and Canada have required that all donated blood
and body tissues be screened for the presence of HIV before being used in medical procedures.
As a result of these regulations, HIV transmission caused by contaminated blood transfusion or
organ donations is rare in North America. However, the problem continues to concern health
officials in sub-Saharan Africa. Less than half of the 46 nations in this region have blood-
screening policies. By some estimates only 25 percent of blood transfusions are screened for
the presence of HIV. WHO hopes to establish blood safety programs in more than 80 percent
of sub-Saharan countries by 2008.

9. HIV can be transmitted from an infected mother to her baby while the baby is still in the
woman‘s uterus or, more commonly, during childbirth. The virus can also be transmitted
through the mother‘s breast milk during breastfeeding. Mother-to-child transmission accounts
for 90 percent of all cases of AIDS in children. Mother-to-child transmission is particularly
prevalent in Africa, where the number of women infected with HIV is ten times the rate found
in other regions. Studies conducted in several cities in southern Africa in 1998 indicate that up
to 45 percent of pregnant women in these cities carry HIV.

10. The routes of HIV transmission are well documented by scientists, but health officials
continually grapple with the public‘s unfounded fears concerning the potential for HIV
transmission by other means. HIV differs from other infectious viruses in that it dies quickly if
exposed to the environment. No evidence has linked HIV transmission to casual contact with
an infected person, such as a handshake, hugging, or kissing, or even sharing dishes or
bathroom facilities. Studies have been unable to identify HIV transmission from modes
common to other infectious diseases, such as an insect bite or inhaling virus-infected droplets
from an infected person‘s sneeze or cough.

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 Activity 6: Questions for critical reading: Decide if the following questions are true or
false according to the paragraphs above.

1. Studies have been doubtful if the HIV virus is transmitted through casual contacts with an
infected person such as hugging or handshake.
2. An insect bite may transmit HIV virus from infected person to the uninfected one.
3. All countries in the world have government regulations that enforce the screening of blood
components and organ donations for the HIV virus before the use of these biological stuffs
for medical purposes.
4. There is a higher number of drug users in the Eastern Europe than the number in the
Western Europe.

Lesson 2: Developing Reading Tasks

Task 60: Designing reading tasks/lessons

Read the following text, modify, or supplement it if necessary and

develop a reading task or tasks (lesson) in anticipation of a target group
with the following specifications (profile).

Target group profile

Age: 14-20
Grade level: Grade 11-12
Gender: Mixed group
Level of English proficiency: very low
Level of vocabulary: poor
Cultural group: Ethiopians
Time size for the task 30 minutes
Lesson right before this task Reading
Lesson right after this task Writing

Possibilities to check

 Background information sheet/table/picture/etc/

 Clear , brief rubrics
 Worksheets

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 Clear layout/format
 Learning outcomes
 Piloting
 Eliciting comments from colleagues

Read the following text and answer the questions that follow

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

Selecting a Partner

1. Although practices vary from one culture to another, all societies have rules about
who is eligible to marry whom, which individuals are forbidden to marry one another, and
the process of selecting a mate. In most societies, the mate-selection process involves what
social scientists call a marriage market. The husband and wife come together out of a wide
range of possible partners. In many non-Western societies the parents, not the prospective
marriage partners, do the ―shopping.” In Western societies social rules have gradually
changed to permit more freedom of choice for the couple and a greater emphasis on love as
the basis for marriage.

2. Interracial Family Marriages between African Americans and whites make up less
than 1 percent of all marriages in the United States. Many states had laws against
miscegenation (interracial marriage) until 1967, when such laws were declared
unconstitutional.

3. In societies in which individuals choose their own partners, young people typically
date prior to marriage. Dating is the process of spending time with prospective partners to
become acquainted. Datesmay take place in groups or between just two individuals. When
dating becomes more serious it may be referred to as courtship. Courtship implies a deeper
level of commitment than dating does. During courtship the individuals specifically
contemplate marriage, rather than merely enjoy one another‘s company for the time being.

4. Courtship may lead to engagement, also known as betrothal—the formal agreement

to marry. Couples usually spend some period of time engaged before they actually marry.
A woman who is engaged is known as the man‘s fiancée, and the man is known as the
woman‘s fiancé (both can be pronounced as fee-AHN-say or as fee-ahn-SAY). Men
typically give an engagement ring to their fiancée as a symbol of the agreement to marry.

5. In the past, dating, courtship, and engagement were distinct stages in the selection of a
marital partner. Each stage represented an increasing level of commitment and intimacy.
Although this remains true to some degree, since the 1960s these stages have tended to
blend into one another. For example, modern dating and courtship often involve sexual
relations. Studies indicate that more than three-quarters of young people in the United
States have had sexual intercourse by the age of 19. Furthermore, the contemporary mate-
selection process frequently includes the practice of cohabitation—living together in an
unmarried sexual relationship. Cohabitation has a long history among poor people, but has
become popular among young, middle-class adults only since the 1960s. Cohabitation
often precedes marriage, but in some cases, people continue to cohabit without marrying.

6. In general, people tend to date and marry people with whom they have characteristics
in common. Thus, mate selection typically results in homogamous marriage, in which the
partners are similar in a variety of ways. Characteristics that couples tend to share include
race, ethnicity, religion, economic status, age, and the level of prestige of their parents.

7. In the United States, marital similarity has increased for some traits and decreased for
others in recent years. People seek partners who are similar in attributes that result from
individual achievement. For example, an individual is more likely to marry someone who

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has a similar amount of education. At the same time, Americans are less likely to require
similarity of factors present at a person‘s birth, such as religion and social class. However,
the tendency to marry someone of the same race persists. For instance, marriages between
African Americans and whites make up less than 1 percent of all marriages in the United
States. Until the Supreme Court of the United States ruled the practice unconstitutional in
the late 1960s, laws in some states prohibited certain types of interracial marriage, also
known as miscegenation.
8. Hinduism is the major religion in India. It is considered a social obligation to be
married within the religion. Most Hindu marriages are arranged in the traditional fashion
between members of the same caste.

© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation.

Section Summary

This section has discussed key issues you need to consider in analysing reading lessons. You
were also given reading texts out of which/based on which you may develop your own reading
lessons.

Being able to analyse or develop effective reading lesson is all a matter of making yourself
familiar with what is happening in the area of researching the teaching of reading and consistent
engagement in the practice of developing materials.

Unit Summary
Beginning with the definition of reading this Unit has attempted to give you both the theoretical
and practical instruments to teach reading skills in schools. Effective reading is an effective
engagement of a reader with the meaning of the reading text. This implies that reading is indeed
an active skill. For an effective reading to take place both non-visual information (prior
knowledge) and visual information (textual knowledge) play a very important role.

Answering (discussing) the questions in the following Box would help you capture the main
points highlighted in the preceding Unit.

Task 61

Discuss the following questions as they help you capture the main
points we discussed in this unit

1. What is the definition of reading in an academic context?

2. Is one‘s reading purpose always the same?
3. What types of texts are called environmental prints? Give some examples.

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

4. What is decoding?
5. What is fluency reading?
6. Distinguish text, discourse and context.
7. Compare and contrast fast and slow readers.
8. Discuss skimming, scanning, intensive, and extensive ways of reading.
9. What do you think is the top-down approach in reading a text?
10. What do you think is the bottom-up approach in reading a text?
11. Discuss reference (reading the lines), inference (reading between the line) and background
knowledge.

Reading Materials for the Unit

Breen, M. (1985). Authenticity in the language classroom.Applied

Linguistics, 6 (1), 60-70.
Grellet, F.(1983). Developing reading Skills. CUP: Cambridge.
Nuttal, C. (1996). Teaching reading Skills in a ForeignLanguage.
Heineman. Int.: Oxford.
Pye, D. and Simon, G. (1993). Reading (1,2,3,4) . CUP: Great Britain.
Smith, F. (1988). Reading. CUP: Cambridge.
Suarez, C. etal.(1998). Reading Tasks. Longman: Singapore.
Wallace, C. (1992). Reading. OUP: Hong Kong.

Unit Self-Assessment Questions

Dear student!

Below are different types of questions intended to help you assess your
level of understanding of the lessons in unit two. So, work on them
carefully.

I Can Yes No
Define academic reading and non-academic reading
Identify effective reading strategies for use
Differentiate reading purposes and reading abilities

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

Determine how to select an effective strategy for teaching reading skills

Develop a reading lesson based on the interaction approach of teaching
reading skills.
Conduct a micro-teaching in reading skills.

Task 62: Discuss the following questions in group.

Give brief and relevant answers (not more than three sentences for each) to
the following questions.
1. Skimming is one of the reading skills students need to develop. How can a teacher help
students to practice skimming a reading text?
2. What should a teacher do to help students to predict what a reading text is about and to
identify the gist of the text?
3. What is the difference between ‗reading the lines (reference)‘ and ‗reading between the
lines (inference)?‘
4. What are the characteristics of good teacher questions in conducting a reading class?

Task 63: Application question

Read the following text entitled “Here are three pieces of advice on
sentence or text variety” and prepare a reading lesson for the grade level
specified below. You need to have pre-reading, while-reading, and post-
reading questions. Limit your activities to the time given.

Age: 14-20
Grade level: Grade 12
Gender: Mixed group
Level of English proficiency: high
Level of vocabulary: very good
Cultural group: Ethiopians
Time size for the task 20 minutes
Lesson objective Enable learners understand the text
Lesson outcome learners will know major and minor ideas, and
text organisation.

Text
Here are three pieces of advice on sentence or text variety

First, don‘t overdo it. It is neither necessary nor wise to construct every sentence
differently or to pack too much material into individual sentence. Sentences, which become
too dense, are hard to read. Conversely, those not dense enough are monotonous and may

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seem immature. The main thing is to be sure you have some variety in sentence structure
within your paragraphs. Most of your sentences will probably be standard sentences
averaging about twenty words. But within a paragraph, individual sentences may range
from ten words or less to thirty or more, and may include balanced or periodic structures.
As the writer, you control the choice of length and structure. Knowing how to vary
sentences helps you to make intelligent choices.

Second, revision for variety is best done after the first draft has been written. You can then
read your paper aloud and hear whether the sentence structure is monotonous. You can
even see unvaried sentences by noticing that they all take about the same number of lines.

Third, a writer, like a pitcher, should have a change of pace. In general, long sentences
slow down the reading, and short ones speed it up. Short sentences are often effective as
topic sentences because they state a general idea simply, but longer sentences will often be
needed to develop that idea through the paragraph. Short sentences are excellent for
communicating a series of actions, emotions, or impressions; longer sentences are more
likely to be appropriate for analysis, or for explanation. Short sentences are closed to the
rhythms of speech and are therefore suitable when the style is conversational and the writer
is adopting an intimate tone. The more formal the style, the more a writer is likely to use
long and involved sentences. But all these statements are relative to the kind of material
being presented to a particular kind of reader. As in all writing, the choice comes back to
the writer‘s purpose

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

Unit 3: Teaching Listening Skills

Outlines of Contents
Introduction to the Unit
Unit learning outcomes
Teaching methods and activities
Unit assessment methods
Teaching resources
Section 1.1 Introduction to listening skills: meaning and context
Section 1.2 Listening purposes and ways of listening
Section 1.3: The teaching of listening skills: exploring approaches
Section 1.4: Analysing and developing listening lessons
Unit summary
Self-assessment questions
Reading materials

Introduction to the Unit

Dear student!

This unit deals with the teaching of listening skills in secondary schools. Listening skills are
sometimes remarked as the forgotten skills in secondary school language pedagogy. The reason is
that due emphasis has not been given to those skills as compared to other language skills. This
unit has made attempts to fill the gap in that respect.

The unit like other previous units has got four sections. Section one presents the general
background area about listening skills comprising the definition and the surrounding difficulties
in understanding listening skills. The section attempts to make clear comparisons between
reading skills and listening skills as the two areas are usually dealt together for pedagogical
reasons. The second section gets deeper into the various purposes of listening skills and the
various strategies learners bring into listening texts in EFL classes or outside.

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Based on these background insights the third section explores as many approaches as possible in
effectively teaching the listening skills in secondary schools in our own context. This section
unlocks the common problems the Ethiopian students usually face in comprehending listening
texts both in classroom and outside classroom contexts. The final section provides you with
opportunities and skills in analyzing already developed listening skills and in developing your
own context-based classroom friendly listening tasks for your own students in secondary schools.

Moreover, it is in the final section as in the previous units, that you will get the opportunity to
undertake micro-teachings by developing your own listening skills lessons and teaching strategies
as well.

Unit learning Outcomes

At the end of this unit you will be able to:

1. Recognise the nature of listening skills and their similarities with the reading skills;
2. Distinguish the difference between intensive and extensive listening materials for use;
3. Identify the various listening purposes and listening texts;
4. Demonstrate the roles of teachers in conducting listening lessons in EFL classes;
5. Analyse different listening lessons based on set criteria for analysis;
6. Develop listening lessons that have pre, while and post listening activities;
7. Integrate the listening skills in teaching with other skills as well; and
8. Design or develop listening skills lessons for secondary school students and conduct
micro-teachings to experiment those lessons.

Teaching Methods and Activities

The contents and concepts in this unit will be taught by discussion and task-based teaching
methods. Listening texts will be related to the topic schema of the trainees so that they will
appreciate the diversity of strategies they will employ to understand the listening texts. Learners
will be given much opportunity in the classroom tocritically analyze sample listening lessons, and
then design and evaluate their own listening lessons. Finally micro-teaching will follow all the
classroom discussions.

Student‟s Activities
Student teachers will be engaged in discussions of issues related to teaching the listening skills.
The engagement is in the form of pair, triad, and small group work. Sometimes, the whole class
will be engaged in a propblem-solvbing activity organised and supported by the instructor. They
will also demonstrate their understanding of a particular teaching technique of listening skills by
developing a mini-lesson in the classroom for a microteaching and then by conducting a
micro/peer teaching in the classroom.

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

Where necessary, they will undertake project works on how best they can teach a particular
listening skill task or activity by making a library or desk-based research around their faculty or
college. The student teachers will also be required to exhibit their continous work performance by
filing individual classroom activities and project assignemnts into their portfolio. Further, they
can be required to display in public and explain their complete portfolio (defend portfolio)
towards the end of the unit.

Instructor‟s Activities
The instructor delivers important lectures on some theoretical aspects of the teaching of the
listening skills. However, much of the time of the course will be used by the instructor to
organize and facilitate many of the teaching and learning activities indicated in the various
sections of the unit. The instructor negotiates and monitors debates and presentations, couches
micro-teachings and classroom lesson developments or designs. The instructor also sets
classroom and outside classroom assignments in consultation with the students. S/he arranges
time for possible oral and written feedback. S/he assesses the students‘ performance in the
various individual and group works set in the unit.

Assessment Methods
Oral and written assessments will be made through classroom questions and answers. Peer
feedback will be given on pair and group listening tasks. Students will be required to attempt
listening comprehension questions. They will also be asked to offer presentations on specific
teaching techniques of listening skills. They will be engaged in discussions, reflecting on their
understanding of issues related to teaching listening skills raised in classroom lessons. They will
be required to undertake a micro-teaching to demonstrate their understanding of teaching
techniques or any other topics raised in the teaching of the listening skills.

Instructional Resources (Materials and Equipment)

Printed talk-scripts, student worksheets and/or answer grids will be used to conduct the
listening tasks in the classrooms. Recorded audio-materials will also be used. Visual
background and contextual information will be provided to the students using video tapes
and whiteboard screens for display of the images. If accessible, a language laboratory can be
used to run listening texts.

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

Section 1.1 Introduction to Listening Skills: Meaning and

Context

Introduction

This section presents you with the definition of effective listening skills. It explores the difference
between hearing and listening and makes an argument that effective listening abilities involve
active engagement into what is being listened to.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this section you will be able to:

1. Recognise the nature of listening skills and their similarities with the reading skills;
2. Distinguish the difference between intensive and extensive listening skills and materials for use;
3. Identify the elements of good listening skill; and,
4. Differentiate the levels of listing.

Lesson 1: The Meaning of Listening

Task 64: Comparing and contrasting listening skills with reading skills

Look at the following Table and fill it out with the necessary details
required by comparing and contrasting the listening skills and the reading
skills from your experiences so far and from your own readings as well.
Make the comparisons in your group in writing in the Table itself.

Reading skills Listening skills

Similarities 1..................................................................................................
2..................................................................................................
3..................................................................................................
4................................................................................................
5.................................................................................................

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

Differences 1........................................... 1.....................................................

2........................................... 2......................................................
3.............................................. 3......................................................
4............................................. 4.......................................................

Task 65: General ideas about listening skills: Your thoughts

Prior to your reading of the following texts, please discuss the following
questions in pairs and then in your groups.

General discussion points

1. Listening has to be considered as part of general oral work only; including dialogues
and role plays, listening in its own is secondary in teaching.
2. Listening has to take space in language pedagogy in its own right.
3. Relevance of recorded materials in terms of sound quality, speed of delivery, accent,
and authenticity should be considered in selecting materials for teaching listening
skills.
4. Availability of video material for listening is a key requirement for teaching listening
skills.
5. Listening has to be dealt with other skills integratively.
6. Some say that ―listening is a forgotten skill‖. Do you agree?
7. What are the four elements of good listening outlined below in the text?
8. Is listening just hearing?

The Meaning of Listening

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Listening skills are essential in the workplace, the family and the community at large.
Careers in communications, management, planning, sales, and fund raising, to name a
few, rely on good listening skills. Listening, however, is more than just being able to hear
and understand what someone else says. Listening skills involve etiquette, asking for
clarification, showing empathy and providing an appropriate response.
Listening is a receptive aural skill that is used most frequently in communication.
Language learning, more or less, depends on listening. Many scholars advocate that
listening and understanding what others communicate is almost half of the
communication process needed for interpersonal relationship. If you ask a group of
students to give a one word description of listening, some would say hearing; however,
hearing is physical. Listening is following and understanding the sound---it is hearing
with a purpose. Good listening is built on three basic skills: attitude, attention, and
adjustment. These skills are known collectively as listening.
Mary Underwood (1989:1) noted that listening is the activity of paying attention to and
trying to get meaning from something we hear. Howat and Dakin viewed it in the
following way “Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying.
This involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his
vocabulary, and grasping his meaning. An able listener is capable of doing these four
things simultaneously.”

Listening is more complex than merely hearing. It is a process that consists of four stages:
sensing and attending, understanding and interpreting, remembering, and responding. ... The
stages occur in sequence but we are generally unaware of them."

(Sheila Steinberg, an Introduction to Communication Studies, Juta and Company Ltd.,

2007)

Lesson 2: Developing Skills and Context for Good Listening

Task 66: Discuss the following quotation and make your arguments to your
classmates in speaking

. "The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and
talk the less." (Zeno of Citium)

Task 67: Listening and speaking: which one is more important to you?

In the following Table, make a comparison and contrast between listening

and speaking.

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 UNIT 3: TEACHING THE LISTENING SKILLS

Similarities differences Remark

(your
opinion)

Speaking 1 1

2 2

3 3

Listening 1 1

2 2

3 3

There are four elements of good listening:

1. Attention--the focused perception of both visual and verbal stimuli

2. Hearing--the physiological act of 'opening the gates to your ears
3. Understanding--assigning meaning to the messages received
4. Remembering--the storing of meaningful information

In addition to the four elements, there are also four levels of listening: acknowledging,
sympathizing, paraphrasing, and empathizing. The four levels of listening range from passive to
interactive when considered separately. However, the most effective listeners are able to project
all four levels at the same time.

That is, they demonstrate that they are paying attention and making an effort to understand and
evaluate what it is they are hearing, and they complete the process by demonstrating through their
responses their level of comprehension and interest in what the speaker is saying. Moreover,
effective listeners demonstrate body language, respect, comprehension, and response while
interacting in listening skills.

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Body Language

Good listening skills include using body language that empowers the speaker. You
should make eye contact with the speaker. In a large auditorium or in a classroom, this
means keeping your eyes looking at the speaker, not down or gazing at some daydream.
Keep your hands down, not folded across your chest. Sit up and look alert.

Respect

People who have good listening skills show respect to the speaker by not interrupting
him/her while he/she is talking. Even if the speaker stutters or is slow to speak or select
his words, being patient and restraining yourself from finishing his/her sentences is a
mark of a good listener.
Comprehension

Good listening skills depend on good comprehension. Demonstrate that you understand
by restating what you think you have heard. Then ask if you, in fact, did hear correctly.
Ask questions that request specific clarification on points that you are unsure about. Be
cognizant of the length of time that you speak, making sure not to dominate or usurp the
conversation.
Response
Good listening skills are measured by the response of the listener. First, the response
should validate the speaker with etiquette and empathy. Next, it should show that the
listener understands the message. When the message has been adequately delivered and
received, the result should be an action or statement that demonstrates that there has
been a transaction between the speaker and the listener.

Underwood (1989) stresses on the importance of context for the occurrence of comprehension

• Recent work on the process of listening suggests … that comprehension can only occur
when the listener can place what he/she hears in a context.
• Brown and Yule say that the listener has to place language in a context of situation in order
to work out what the speaker means.
• Simon Garrod states that this context ‗has to be taken into account at all stages of
comprehension‘.
• This suggests that the act of comprehension requires listeners to place the words in context
at the same time as they process the sounds.

Underwood (1989: 5-7) claims that it is worth establishing the following listening situations
which largely feature on the students‘ lives as they find a variety of listening activities more
motivating.

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These listening situations include:

• Listening to live conversations in which one takes a part. This is usually referred to as
‗eaves dropping‘.
• Listening to announcements (at airports, railway stations, etc)
• Listening to the news, the weather forecast, etc on the radio
• Watching the news, the weather forecast, etc on TV
• Listening to the radio for entertainment
• Watching TV for entertainment
• Watching a live performance of play
• Watching a film in a cinema
• Listening to records (of songs etc)
• Following a lesson
• Attending a lecture
• Listening on telephone
• Following instructions (e.g., by a sports coach)
• Listening to someone giving a public address

Task 68: Reflection on elements of good listing skills and the listening
situations

Sit in pairs and discuss the following questions. Finally, deliver a talk
(your opinion) on one of the questions you discussed to the class.

 From the listening situations Mary Underwood discusses, which ones do apply to you?
 Do you have any other listening situation of your own other than those listed above.
Which listening situation is the most important one for you?
 How does body language facilitate comprehension in listening?
 In your culture and community, which one is encouraged more, listening or speaking, to
listen to or to speak to?
 From the discussions we have had so far, can we conclude by saying that listening is an
active skill. If so, why then people contend to say that listening is part of the receptive
skills? Explain giving evidences.
 What are the six elements of skills that active listening ivolves? (see summary below}

Section Summary

Dear student!

The preceding section discussed in detail the meaning of listening skills. It explained the elements
in good listening skills. It emphasized that active listening involves six skills: paying attention,
holding judgment, reflecting, clarifying, summarizing, and sharing. Each skill contributes to the

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active listening mind-set, and each skill includes various techniques or behaviours. These skills
are not mutually exclusive. For example, paying attention isn't something you stop doing when
you start holding judgment. Nor are the skills consistently weighed in importance. In one
conversation, clarifying may take much effort and time; in another conversation, gaining clarity
and understanding may be quick and easy.‖ (Michael H. Hoppe, Active Listening: Improve Your
Ability to Listen and Lead, Centre for Creative Leadership, 2006).

The next section presents the reasons why we listen to texts or spoken media. Moreover, it
provides you with the strategies that may enable you to make an effective listening and in turn to
teach your students strategies for developing effective listening skills.

Section 1.2 Listening Purposes and Ways of Effective Listening

Introduction

This section attempts to present listening purposes. The way we listen to a text depends on our
listening purpose. Thus, the section also discusses ways of effective listening.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this section you will be able to:

1. Identify the various listening purposes and listening texts.

2. Exhibit effective listening strategies and abilities.
3. Demonstrate the roles of teachers in conducting listening lessons in EFL classes.
4. Identify the difficulties EFL learners face in listening to English texts.
5. Recognise the different micro-listening skills and the role they play in teaching the
listening skills.
.

Lesson 1: Listening Purposes, Context and Text

Task 69: Identifying purposes for listening/brainstorming

Discuss the following questions and finally compile all your answers and
include them in your portfolio.

1. What kinds of English do you think that high school students in Ethiopia do listen to?
2. To whom do they listen?
3. For what purposes? Make a list.

Why do we listen to a listening text or material/s?

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We usually listen to a listening text or material for one or many of the following reasons or for
any other reason not mentioned below:

1. General information (understanding of the main points)

2. Specific information (understanding of the particular items)
3. Cultural interest (generally informing about the target language culture)
4. Information about people's attitudes and opinions
5. The organization of ideas
6. Sequence of events
7. Structural items (their use and meaning)
8. Functional items (their form and use)

Importance or purposes of listening

 In listening activities, we listen for a purpose.

 There is an association between expectation, purpose, and comprehension; therefore

A purpose should be given to our learners!!!!!

Task 70: difficulties learners face in listening to academic English

Work individually. Study the following difficulties speakers of English

often face in listening to academic English. Summarise in your own
words the main difficulties for each student. Which of these are in your
opinion the most serious problems for high school Ethiopian students?
Give examples from your own experience. Discuss your answers with
you group.

a. ―when I‘m reading English, if there is something I don‘t understand, I can go back and re-
read it carefully. But when I‘m listening to the teacher, I can‘t do that. She speaks so fast that I
spend all my time trying to identify the words correctly and understand them. So I don‘t have
enough time left for remembering or interpreting what she says, or for writing good notes.‖

b. ―The longer I have to listen, the more tired I get, the more confused and frustrated I get and the
less I understand. In the end I stop concentrating altogether.‖

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C. ―I find it impossible to identify all the words correctly when I listen to a teacher talking to the
class. There are lots of words that I would normally understand in writing, but when I hear them
in a stream of speech, it‘s very difficult to tell where one word finishes and another begins.
Sometimes it‘s difficult to recognize words I know because of the way they are pronounced‖

D .‖I don‘t bother to listen, unless I find the topic interesting. I know the teacher will explain the
important points to us in Amharic afterwards anyway. And he‘ll give us notes to copy and learn
in English too.‖

E.‖The English that our teachers use is just too complicated for me to follow. I try to understand
everything, but they use so many words I don‘t understand. They just don‘t consider our level.‖

F. ―when I‘m listening to a lecture, I often find it difficult to follow the argument. The teachers
don‘t give us any guidance about what to listen for, or how their lectures are organized. So I find
it difficult to pick out the most important points and to see how the ideas are organized.‖

Task 71: Potential problems related to overall listening skills

Mary Underwood (1989) identifies the potential problems that learners

encounter when learning to listen as follows:

• Lack of control over the speech at which speakers speak

• not being able to get things repeated
• the listener‘s limited vocabulary
• failure to recognize the ‗signals‘
• problems of interpretations
• inability to concentrate
• established learning habits

NOW:

1. Which one of these problems do you think are more serious to you?
2. Can these problems be controlled or avoided at all?
3. Could you please add to the list Underwood made above?

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Task 72: Which of the following skills do high school students need
/need not to develop in order to listen effectively to English? Can you
suggest any others?

A. Understanding everything --- to achieve 100% comprehension.

B. Listening with a specific purpose whenever they listen (e.g. Listen to understand the
overall idea, or listen for a specific piece of information etc.).

C. Understanding the general topic and be able to work out the central ideas from a stream of
continuous speech.

D. Interpreting how listening texts is organized and understand the logical relationships
between ideas in speech.

E. Picking out all the sounds and words that are heard.

F. Making use of background knowledge (e.g. Of subject matter, context, etc.).

G. Making inferences about meanings that are not stated, but are implied.

H. Making predictions about what is going to be said before it is said.

I. Interpreting the meanings of all new words and phrases as they hear them.

j. Listening in a relaxed way.

K. Working out an acceptable interpretation of the meaning the speaker intended to

convey.

L. Understanding the literal meaning of all the speaker‘s words.

M. Writing a good set of notes on each lecture they hear.

N. Being able to ask for help e.g. for clarification, if they do not understand.

Lesson 2: Problems related to the context of the listening text and micro-
listening skills students need to develop

Task 73: Analysing context-bound problems

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Read the following pieces of texts and answer the question set below in
group.

1. Can listening skills problems be related only to the learner or the student?
2. What possible problems do you expect to rise with the text we are listening to or to
the overall context where the listening text is prepared?
3. What do you think should speakers do if they would like us listen to them very well
with good level of comprehension?
4. Where do you think lack of purpose for listening come from?
5. What problems do you usually expect from recorded audio-visual materials for
listening?
6. What problems do you usually expect from live listening materials such as a news
broadcast from the CNN?
7. What materials could be good sources of listening materials?

We may encounter the following difficulties by the speaker whom we listen

to:

• Voice volume too low to be heard.

• Making the message too complex, either by including too many unnecessary details or too
many issues.
• Getting lost, forgetting your point or the purpose of the interaction.
• Body language or nonverbal elements contradicting or interfering with the verbal message,
such as smiling when anger or hurt is being expressed.
• Payingtoo much attention to how the other person is taking the message, or how the person
might react.

Task 74: Breaking listening skills into micro-listening skills: sound

pedagogical means to teach listening skills

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Please sit in pairs and discuss the following questions.

1. What is a macro language skill?

2. What are micro-language skills?
3. What do you think are the micro-listening skills?
4. What means can a teacher use in the classroom to develop his/her students‘ micro-
listening skills?
5. Do you clearly understand what Willis listed below as enabling or micro-listening
skills?
6. Have you ever been aware of those skills in your study of the listening skills in high
schools?

Micro-skills of listening

Willis (1981: 134) lists a series of micro-skills of listening, which she calls enabling skills. They
are:

• Predicting what people are going to talk about

• Guessing at unknown words or phrases without panic
• Using one's own knowledge of the subject to help one understand a text
• Identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information
• Retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)
• Recognizing discourse markers, e.g., well; oh, another thing is; now, finally; etc.
recognizing cohesive devices, e.g., such as, and, which, including linking words, pronouns,
references, etc.
• Understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc., which gives clues to
meaning and social setting.

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Task 75: How can a teacher help learners to learn to listen?

By „learning to listen‟ Underwood meant that we want our students to

attend to what they hear, to process it, to understand it, to interpret it, to
evaluate it, to respond to it and we want them to become involved and
become active listeners.

1. What do you understand by this statement from Underwood?

2. What are the key points in the above statement?
3. From this statement, can we make a prediction about the roles of a good listening
skills teacher?
4. On the contrary, can we make a prediction about the poor listening skills teacher‘s
role in teaching?

Section Summary

Dear students!

Indeed we make listening to a given text for various reasons. As the preceding section describes it
very well, students may have several reasons for listening to a text. Underwood has summarised
those possible purposes for listening texts as listening for:

1. General information (understanding of the main points)

2. Specific information (understanding of the particular items)
3. Cultural interest (generally informing about the target language culture)
4. Information about people's attitudes and opinions
5. The organization of ideas
6. Sequence of events
7. Structural items (their use and meaning)
8. Functional items (their form and use)

The next section presents in detail procedures we might use in teaching the listening skills to
secondary school students. Moreover, the section outlines difficulties secondary school students
face in listening to texts effectively.

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Section 1.3: The Teaching of Listening Skills: Exploring

Approaches

Introduction

Like any other language skills, listening skills can be taught in more effective ways than the
traditional way of teaching listening skills. This section explores those effective approaches and
strategies that you may use to teach listening skills for secondary school students.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this section you will be able to:

1. Demonstrate the roles of teachers in conducting listening lessons in EFL classes.

2. Implement different effective listening strategies for teaching listening skills in secondary
schools
3. Develop skills that are essential for you to develop listening comprehension lessons
4. Sequence listening lessons in a manner that makes them pedagogically useful
5. Integrate the teaching of listening skills with other skills.

Lesson 1: The Role of the Teacher and the Materials

Task 76: Your thoughts

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Sit in pairs and discuss the following ideas and concepts.

1. Listening skills are difficult both to learn and teach.

2. To what extent do you think that a teacher can play a role in teaching listening skills to
his/her students?
3. What do you think are outside distractions for students in classrooms of listening? See
the following reading.
4. What are stereotypes? How do they affect listeners?
5. According to the following text, what do aggressive students do as far as listening is
concerned?
6. Then, finally what is the implication of the following text to be a good listener or a
good listening skills teacher?

Now, read the following text about complaints in teaching the listening
skills.

Problems in Teaching Listening Skills

In many ways, the problems that plague a teacher attempting to impart listening skills are the very
problems that make for a bad listener. The very act of teaching listening skills assumes a
deficiency in the students learning those skills. Oftentimes, students that desperately need to learn
listening skills become defensive at the suggestion that they are not already good listeners.

Unfortunately, this defensiveness often leads to insurmountable obstacles for the instruction of
good listening skills.
A lack of empathy can be defined in two related ways. On the one hand, it represents
unwillingness on the part of the student to even acknowledge the position and the lesson
of the instructor. On the other hand, it represents unwillingness on the part of the
student to critically investigate and engage the lesson of the teacher through careful and
directed research. Ultimately, a lack of empathy in students creates a problem in
teaching listening skills by making students shut down and consider the instructional
material worthless or a waste of time.
Upon shutting down and disregarding an instructor, students often become more
susceptible to outside distractions. Whether it's staring out a window, texting someone
with a cell phone or even holding side conversations, distraction makes it impossible for
a student to adequately and appropriately engage in any material the instructor is
teaching. Distracted students create problems in teaching listening skills by paying
attention to things other than the teacher's lesson.
Perhaps, worse than the unaccepting or distracted student is the outwardly aggressive
and contradictory student. Most often students that outwardly and aggressively
contradict or belittle an instructor do so because they assume either their correctness or

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the instructor's incorrectness. Assumptions create problems in teaching listening skills

by making students set in their ways and unreceptive to material or suggestions with
which they do not already agree.
Often built up from previously held assumptions, students who wrongly stereotype the
beliefs of others -- particularly the instructor -- are not likely to ever accurately learn
good listening skills. Students just like most everybody else, form stereotypes because of
limited experience. When these stereotypes are negative -- "my instructor is mean," "all
people from group x are criminals" -- they often cause people to avoid future experiences
that could counteract their stereotype. That is, if they wrongly stereotype their professor
as mean, they are not likely to have many future interactions with their professor that
could change their opinion of that professor. Stereotypes create problems in teaching
listening skills by limiting the receptivity of students, in similar ways to assumptions.

Task 77: The roles of teachers in developing their students‟ listening

skills

Sit in a group and discuss the following questions. Finally submit the
result of your discussion in writing (just one page) to your instructor.

1. Mention the main reasons (purposes) for teaching listening.

2. How do we present a listening activity in class?
3. What are intensive and extensive listening materials?
4. What do you think are the roles of the teacher in teaching listening skills?
5. What kinds of materials can be used in teaching listening skills in class?
6. What are authentic materials?

Materials for extensive and intensive listening

Students can improve their listening skills-and gain valuable language input-through a
combination of extensive and intensive listening material and procedures.

Listening of both kinds is especially important since it provides the perfect opportunity to hear
voices other than the teacher‘s, enables students to acquire good speaking habits as a result of the
spoken English they absorb, and helps to improve their own pronunciation.

Materials for extensive listening

Just as we can claim that extensive reading helps students to acquire vocabulary and grammar and
that, furthermore, it makes students better readers, so extensive listening (where a teacher
encourages students to choose for themselves what they listen to and to do so for pleasure and
general language improvement) can also have a dramatic effect on a student‘s language learning.

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Extensive listening will usually take place outside the classroom, in the student‘s home, car, or on
personal stereos as they travel from one place to another. The motivational power of such an
activity increases dramatically when students make their own choices about what they are going
to listen to.

Material for extensive listening can be found from a number of sources. A lot of simplified
readers are now published with an audio version on tape. These provide ideal listening material.
Many students will enjoy reading and listening at the same time using both the reader and tape.
Students can also have their own copies of course book tapes, or tapes which accompany other
books written especially at their level. They can also listen to tapes of authentic material,
provided that it is comprehensible.

In order for extensive listening to work effectively with a group of students-or with groups of
students- we will need to make a collection of appropriate tapes clearly marked for level, topic,
and genre. These can be kept- like simplified readers- in a permanent collection (such as in a self-
access centre, or in some other location), or be kept in a box or some other container which
students have borrowed with tapes; where possible we should involve students in the task of
record-keeping.

The keenest students will want to listen to English tapes outside the classroom anyway, and will
need little encouragement to do so. Many others, however, will profit from having the teacher
give them reasons to make use of the resources available. We need to explain the benefits of
listening extensively, and come to some kind of agreement about how much and what kind of
listening they should do. We can recommend certain tapes, and get other students to talk about
the ones which they have enjoyed the most.

In order to encourage extensive listening we can have students perform a number of tasks. They
can record their responses to what they have heard in a personal journal, or fill in report forms
which we have prepared asking them to list the topic, asses the level of difficulty, and summarise
the contents of a tape. We can have them write comments on cards which are kept in a separate
‗comments‘ box, add their responses to a large class ‗listening‘ poster, or write comments on a
student web site. The purpose of these or any other tasks is to give students more and more
reasons to listen. If they can then share their information with colleagues they will feel they have
contributed to the progress of the whole group. The motivational power of such feelings should
not be underestimated.

Task 78: More on extensive listening

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Following your reading of the above text, please answer the following
questions individually and in writing short sentences. Finally show your
answers to your friends and get their feedback.

1. What is an extensive listening?

2. Explain the importance of extensive listening for other language skills?
3. What are simplified readers? Are they available in your school?
4. What are comprehensible tapes?
5. What makes extensive listening materials interesting for students do you
think?
6. Do you have self-access centre in your school?
7. Are there course book tapes in your school?
8. List the kinds of tasks students might be given as part of improving their
extensive listening tasks.

Using taped material for intensive listening

Many teachers use taped materials, and increasingly material on disk, when they want their
students to practice listening skills. This has a number of advantages and disadvantages:

 Advantages: taped material allows students to hear a variety of different voices apart
from just their own teacher‘s. It gives them an opportunity to ‗meet‘ a range of different
characters, especially where real people are talking. But even when tapes contain written
dialogues or extracts from plays, they offer a wide variety of situations and voices.
o Taped material is extremely portable and readily available. Tapes are extremely
cheap compared to other materials. And machines to play them are relatively
inexpensive.

For all these reasons most course books include tapes, and many teachers rely on tapes to provide
a significant source of language input.

 Disadvantages: in big classrooms with poor acoustics, the audibility of taped and disk
material often give cause for concern. It is often difficult to ensure that all the students in
a room can hear equally well.

Another problem with classroom tapes is that everyone has to listen at the same speed, a speed
dictated by the tape, not by the listeners. Although this replicates the situation of radio, it is less
satisfactory when students have to take information from the tape. This is because they cannot,
themselves, interact with the taped speakers in any way. Nor can they see the speaking taking
place.

Finally, having a group of people sit around listening to a tape recorder or disk player is not an
entirely natural occupation.

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Despite the disadvantages, however, we still want to use taped material at various stages in a
sequence of lessons for the advantages mentioned above. In order to counteract some of the
potential problems described above, we need to check tape and machine quality before we take
them into class. Where possible we need to change the position of the playback machine or the
students to offset poor acoustics. If this is feasible, take other measures such as using materials to
deaden echoes which interfere with good sound quality.

If it is possible we can have a number of machines for students to listen to tapes or disks at their
own speed, or we can take the group into the language laboratory. In order to show students what
speaking looks like we can use videotapes. As an alternative to tapes we can also encourage
interaction by providing ‗live‘ listening.

An issue that also needs to be addressed is how often we are going to play the tapes or disks we
ask students to listen to. The methodologist Penny Ur points out that in real-life discourse is
rarely ‗replayed‘ and suggests, therefore, that one of our tasks is to encourage students to get as
much information as is necessary/ appropriate from a single hearing (Ur 1996: 108).

It is certainly true that extracting general or specific information from one listening is an
important skill; so that the kind of task we give students to the first time they hear a tape is
absolutely critical in gradually training them to listen effectively. However, we may also want to
consider the fact that in face-to-face conversation we do frequently have a chance to ask for
clarification and repletion.

More importantly perhaps, as Penny Ur herself acknowledges, this ‗one listening‘ scenario
conflicts with our wish to satisfy our student‘ desire to hear things over and over again.

If students are to get the maximum benefit from a listening then, we should replay the tape two
or more times, since with each listening they may feel more secure, and with each listening
(where we are helping appropriately) they will understand more than they did previously. As the
researcher John Field suggests, students get far more benefit from a lot of listening (where we are
helping appropriately) they will understand more than they did previously.

Students get far more benefit from a lot of listening than they do from a long pre-listening phase
followed by only one or two exposures to the listening text (Field 1998a). So even when we set
prediction and gist tasks for first listening, we can return to the tape again for detailed
comprehension, test interpretation, or language analysis. Or we might play the tape again simply
because our students want us to, whatever the reason, however, we do not want to waste time on
useless repetition.

Task 79: More on intensive listening

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Read the above text once again. Assign one of your group members to
act as an expert on intensive listening. The rest of the group members
will interview him/her by asking the following questions and writing
down the answers given.

1. What is an intensive listening

2. How does a teacher make his/her students practice intensive listening?
3. What are the advantages and the disadvantages of using recorded /taped materials?
4. What is Penny Ur‘s argument about one listening scenario?

Intensive listening: „live‟ listening

A popular way of ensuring a genuine communication is live listening where the teacher and /or
visitors to the class talk to the students. This has obvious advantages since students can interrupt
speakers and ask for clarification. They can, by their expression and demeanor, indicate if the
speaker is going too slowly or too fast. Above all they can see who they are listening to.

Live listening can take the following forms:

 Reading aloud: an enjoyable activity when done with conviction and style is the teacher
reading aloud to a class. This allows them to hear a clear spoken version of written text,
and can be extremely enjoyable if the teacher is prepared to make a big thing of it.

The teacher can also read/ act out dialogues either by playing two parts or by inviting a
colleague into the classroom.

 Story-telling: teachers are ideally placed to tell stories which, in turn, provide excellent
listening material. At any stage of the story, the students can be asked to predict what is
coming next, or be asked to describe people in the story or pass comment on it in some
other way.

 Interviews: one of the most motivating listening activities is the live interview, especially
where the students themselves dream up the questions. In such situations, students really
listen for answers they themselves have asked for, rather than adopting other people‘s
questions. Where possible we should have strangers visit our class to be interviewed, but
we can also be the subject of interviews ourselves.

 Conversations: if we can persuade a colleague to come to our class we can hold

conversations with them- about English or any other subject. Students then have the
chance to watch the interaction as well as listen to it. We can also extend story-telling
possibilities by role-playing.

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Live listening is not a substitute for audiotapes or disks- either in the classroom, language
laboratory, or self –access centre- but it does offer an extra dimension to the listening
experience over a series of lessons.

Task 80: Teachers‟ task in teaching listening skills

Sit in a group of four and discuss the following questions.

 Can you define the following roles of a teacher in teaching listening skills
a. Organizer
b. Machine operator
c. Feedback organizer
d. Prompter

Intensive listening: the roles of the teacher

As with all activities, for listening we need to be active in creating student engagement
through the way we set up tasks. We need to build up students‘ confidence by helping
them listen better rather than by testing their listening abilities. In particular we need to
focus on the following roles:

 Organizer: we need to tell students exactly what their listening purpose is and
give them clear instructions about how to achieve it. One of our chief
responsibilities will be to build their confidence through offering tasks that are
achievable and texts that are comprehensible.

 Machine operator: when we use tape or disk material we need to be as

efficient as possible in the way we use the tape player. This means knowing
where the segment we wish to use is on the tape or disk, and knowing, through
the use of playback machine counter, how to get back there. Above all it means
trying the material out before taking it into class so that we do not waste time
making things work when we can stop the extract for particular questions and
exercises, but, once in class, we should be prepared to respond to the students‘
need in the way we stop and start the machine.

If we involve our students in live listening we need to observe them with great
care to see how easily they can understand us. We can then adjust the way we use
the ‗machine‘ (in this case ourselves or a visitor) accordingly.

 Feedback organizer: when our students have completed the task, we should
lead a feedback session to check that they have completed the task successfully.

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We may start by having them compare their answers in pairs and then ask for
answers form the class in general or from pairs in particular. Students often
appreciate giving paired answers like this since, by sharing their knowledge, they
are also sharing their responsibility for the answers. Because listening can be a
tense experience, encouraging this kind of cooperation is highly desirable.

It is important to be supportive when organizing feedback after listening if we

are to counter any negative expectations students might have and if we wish to
sustain their motivation.

 Prompter: when students have listened to a tape or a disk for comprehension

purpose we can have them listen to it again for them to notice a variety of
language and spoken features. Sometimes we can offer them script dictations
(where some words in a transcript are blanked out) to provoke their awareness of
certain language items.

Lesson 2: Exploring Different Listening Strategies in Teaching Listening

Skills

Task 81: Micro-listening strategies teachers need to develop in their

learners

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Do the following points or strategies help a listener for an effective

listening? Please discuss in groups.

 Listening for gist

 Predicting what people will say next?
 Guessing about the speaker
 The use of prior knowledge
 Listening for specific information
 Recognize word and sentence boundaries
 Recognize the vocabulary being used
 Recognize paralinguistic features (stress, pitch, tone, etc.)
 Processing meaning (short-term and long-term memories, etc.)
 Identify redundant materials
 Good anticipation
 Understanding he structural organization of a text
 Ignoring unknown words or irrelevant details
 Understand implied meaning
 The use of visual support material
 The quality of production
 The importance and the nature of feedback

How to teach reflective listening skills

Task82: Look at the picture below and discuss the following questions in
groups.

1. What does reflective listening skill mean?

2. What does the picture below tell us about active listening?
3. What strategies might we use to get our students engaged in what they are to listen to?
4. Does the success in listening skills depend on the manners of those interlocutors?
5. How does a listener illustrate his/her understanding of the comprehension of a listening
material?

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Reflective listening is a method of active listening wherein the listener illustrates comprehension
by repeating, or parroting, what they have been told. Reflective listening is designed to improve
communication through empathy and paraphrasing, and helps listeners gain greater clarity of
instructions, feelings or desires. Useful in both professional and personal life, reflective listening
skills aid problem solving and build lines of communication. To instruct students or employees
on reflective listening, teachers can utilize activities, games and demonstrations.

Task 83: Strategies for keeping students active in listening skills

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Sit in groups, read the instructions for teaching reflective skills

(presented below) and discuss the questions set about the instruction.

1. What strategies are used in the instructions for teaching effective listening skills?
2. Can a secondary school teacher apply those strategies/instructions so easily to
teaching a secondary school students
3. Do you think that class size in secondary schools affects the application of these
instructions for teaching listening skills?
4. Has any one of your teachers in secondary schools ever used one of these
instructions?

Instructions for teaching reflective skills

1. Read examples of conversation to students, and have them paraphrase the

conversation in their own words. For example, if training sales employees,
read sample comments from a customer in need. The student then rewords
the comment, illustrating that they understand the customer complaint.
2. Engage in role play by having students act out examples of body language that
bad listeners employ. This game is silly and appeals more to children, and is
an effective way to teach good listening body language by illuminating what
not to do.
3. Take advantage of conflict to demonstrate real-life applications of reflective
listening. Students who argue can come to understand each other's
perspectives when they are required to listen to and repeat the things that
angered each other. Instruct the students to use what they have heard to
suggest resolutions for conflict.
4. Sit two students back to back, and give one a picture and the other a blank
piece of paper and pen. Have the student with the picture describe the picture
they are holding, while their partner draws a replica of the picture. The
partner must use their listening skills to understand and reproduce the
picture. At the end of the exercise, compare pictures and discuss what was
said and how it was interpreted

Lesson 3: Procedures in Listening Lessons Development, Lesson

Sequences

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Task 84: Your thoughts

Please fill out the following Table with the required details. Then discuss in
groups.

Stage Purpose Skills ( micro-skills) Types of activities (

to be developed in typology)
learners
Pre-listening tasks

While-listening tasks

Post-listening tasks

Stages in Listening Lessons

1. Pre-listening

• Tell your students they shouldn‘t worry that they have to understand every word they
hear. Not every word is important!
• Where possible, make sure students know what they are listening for before you start
listening. Explain they should focus only on the information they need.
• If possible, check for any words that your students may not know. Pre-teach these so they
do not interfere with understanding.
• Brainstorm students‘ ideas on the topic they are going to listen to. This will help focus
them.
• Don‘t choose a listening that is too long. If necessary, stop the recording at certain points
and review what students have understood so far.

• Students need assistance to activate what they already know about the ideas they are going
to hear.
• Simply being told the topic is not enough.
• Learners in advance should have some idea about the kind of text they are going to hear.
• Thus the mere instruction ‗listen to the passage …‘ is less useful than something like ‗you
are going to hear a husband and wife discussing their plans for the summer…‘

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• The later instruction activates learners‘ relevant Schemata: their own previous knowledge
and concepts of facts, scenes, events, etc and enables them to use this previous knowledge
to build anticipatory ‗scaffolding‘ that will help them understand the text.
• Build necessary background (prior knowledge).This could be background information
about the speaker, topic of the item, purpose of the presentation, and vocabulary items that
need to be taught.
• Set purpose for listening
• Establish what is already known about the topic
 students can brainstorm, discuss, read, view film and photo, etc

• Students should be encouraged to know whether their purpose isto understand, remember
or evaluate, or to be entertained and the like.

 Mary Underwood (1989) indicates ‗pre-listening work can consist of a whole

range of activities of which she listed the following types of examples.

• the teacher giving background information

• students reading something relevant
• the students looking at pictures
• discussion of the topic/situation
• a question and answer lesson
• written exercises
• following instruction for while listening activity
• consideration of how the while listening will be done

Task 85: Factors that affect the choice of pre-listening activities

Sit in pairs and discuss those factors in the Box below, factors that affect
the choice of pre-listening activities.

1. The time and material available

2. The ability of the class
3. The interests of the class and the teacher
4. The place in which the work is being carried out
5. The nature and content of the listening text itself
6. The use of authentic or realistic activities
7. The use of clear instructions

2. While listening

• As a general principle, try to play the recording once for overall comprehension. Then play
the recording again for specific details.

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• Tell students to note any dates, people or places they hear.

• Divide students into groups and give each group a different listening task (e.g. different
questions). Then swap their answers and have students listen again and check their
classmates‘ answers.
• Don‘t be afraid to repeat the recording… especially the parts students have most trouble
understanding.
• The stage for the actual comprehension message during the while listening phase, students
usually respond to a listening text.
• While-listening activities can be defined as all tasks that students are asked to do during the
time of listening.

Underwood (1889:45) regarding the purpose of while-listening activities put ―As far as listening
comprehension (i.e., listening for meaning is concerned, the purpose of while-listening activities
is to help learners develop the skill of eliciting messages from spoken language… other reasons,
the main one being to learn to recognize how it sounds (the pronunciation of words, the stress, the
rhythm, the intonation) so that they can use what they hear as a model for their own speech.

While-listening exercise/activities according to Underwood should:

 Guide the students to handle the information and messages from the listening text.
 Interesting and challenging.
 Be at the right level of difficulty.

Task 86: Activities students might do during the while listening

phase

Could you please select a listening material/text and develop parallel

activities, if possible, to the types of activities given in the Box
below. Show the activities you developed to your instructor and get
feedback.

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1. Comparing the listening passage with the pre-listening phase

2. Obeying instructions; where students are given certain instructions and show their
understanding by a physical response (they draw, write, tick, underline etc.)
3. Filling in gaps; while listening to a dialogue students hear only the utterances of one of
the speakers and are asked to write down those of the others
4. Detecting differences or mistakes from a listening passage; students respond only when
they encounter something different or contrary to what they already knew about the
topic or the speakers
5. Ticking off items (bingo); where students listen a list of words and categorize (tick off)
them as they hear
6. Information transfer; where students have to fill grids, forms, lists, maps, plans etc.
7. Sequencing; where students are asked to give the right order of a series of pictures
8. Information search; that is listening for specific items, e.g. answer a particular question
from the pre-listening stage
9. Filling in blanks of a transcript of a passage with the words missing (e.g. lyrics of a
song)
10. Matching the items which have the same or opposite meaning as those the students
hear, or matching the pictures with the descriptions heard

3. Post-listening

We can use post listening activities to check comprehension, evaluate listening skills and use of
listening strategies. The post listening stage comprises all the exercises which are done after
listening to the text

These activities may be the extension of those carried out at pre- and while listening work.
Post listening activities are longer than while-listening activities; at this stage you may:

• Tell students to compare their notes and discuss what they understood in pairs or small
groups.
• Encourage students to respond to what they heard. For example, where possible ask
questions like Do you agree? And encourage debate.
• Tell pairs to write a summary of the main points. Then have them compare their summaries
and check if they covered all the main points.
• Put students into groups and tell them to make a list of comprehension questions to ask
each other.
• Make activities intrinsically
• Tell students to make a list in their notebooks of any new vocabulary they feel is useful.

Task 87: Activities students might do during the post listening phase

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Could you please select a listening material/text and develop parallel

activities, if possible, to the types of activities given in the Box below.
Show the activities you developed to your instructor and get feedback.

1. More interesting activities than comprehension questions like problem solving and
decision making, interpreting, role play and written work as Underwood suggested.
2. Summarizing, students are given several possible summary sentences and are asked to
say which of them fit a recording. Summarizing can also be done by elaborating the
notes made by students themselves during the while-listening activities or by depending
on their memory;
3. Jigsaw listening, this term was firs coined by Marion Geddes and Gill Sturbridge in the
late 1970s to describe a listening exercise during which different groups of students
listen to different but connected passages and then the groups exchange information in
order to complete a story to perform a certain task (Underwood 1989:87);
4. Writing letters, telegrams, postcards, messages etc. as a follow-up to listening activities;
5. Speaking in a form of debates, interviews, discussions, role-plays, simulations,
dramatization etc. as a follow-up exercise.

Listening Lesson Sequences

Listening can occur at a number of points in a teaching sequence. Sometimes it forms the
jumping -off points for the activities which follow. Sometimes it may be the first stage of
‗listening and acting out‘ sequence where students role- play the situation they have heard on the
tape. Sometimes live listening may be precluding to a piece of writing which is the main focus of
a lesson. Other lessons, however, have listening training as their central focus.

However much we have planned a lesson, we need to be flexible in what we do. Nowhere is this
more acute than in the provision of live listening, where we may, on the spur of the moment, feel
the need to tell a story, or act out some role. Sometimes this will be for content reasons-because a
topic comes up and sometimes it may be a way of refocusing our students‘ attention.

Most listening sequences involve a mixture of language skills- though one, in particular,
is often the main focus of the sequence. Frequently students listen for gist on first hearing
before moving on to different task skills; at other times they may listen for specific
information straight away. In general we should aim to use listening material for as many
purposes as possible- both for practicing a variety of skills and as source material for
other activities-before students finally become tired with it.

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Task 88: Examples of listening sequences/Example One

Read the example listening lesson below (Example One) and discuss the
questions set in the Box and report your answers to the class orally.

1. Do you think the example activity would be interesting for secondary schools
students in Ethiopia?
2. Are the sequences mentioned in the example lesson very clear and applicable
for our own context?
3. Which grade levels do you think that this lesson can be best used?
4. What is live listening?
5. What is the opposite of live listening?
6. Do you think that native speakers are available for use around your areas?
7. Do you think that it is useful to use native speakers? Why?
8. List or spell out the kinds of activities students are expected to do in the lesson
example.
9. List or spell out the kinds of activities teachers are expected to do in the lesson
example.
10. List the kinds of materials or teaching aids that are expected to be used in this
example lesson.

Example 1: interviewing a stranger

In the following examples the listening activity is specified. The skills which are involved are
detailed, and the way that the listening text can be used within a lesson is explained.

Example1: interviewing a stranger Activity: live listening

Skills: predicting, listening for specific
information, listening for detailed information
Age of learners: any
Level: secondary senior years (cycle two)

Where possible, teachers can bring strangers into the class to talk to the students or be
interviewed by them . Although students will be especially interested in them if they are native
speakers of the language, there is no reason why they should not include any competent English
speakers.

The teacher briefs the visitor about the students‘ language level, pointing out that they should be
sensitive about the level of language they use, but not speak to the students in a very unnatural

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way. They should probably not go off into lengthy explanations, and they may want to consider
speaking especially clearly.

The teachers take the visitor into the classroom without telling the students who or what the
visitor is. In pairs and groups they try to guess as much as they can about the visitor. Based on
their guesses about who has come into the room, they write questions that they wish to ask.

The visitor is now interviewed with the questions the students have written. As the interview
proceeds, the teacher encourages them to seek clarification where things are said that they do not
understand. The teacher will also prompt the students to ask ‗follow-up‘ questions; so that if a
student asks where are you from and the visitor says Scotland he or she is then asked where in
Scotland? Or what‘s Scotland like?

During the interview the students make notes. When the interviewee has gone these notes
form the basis of a written follow-up, the students can write a short biographical piece
about the person, or write the encounter up as a profile page from a magazine. They can
discuss the interview with their teacher, asking for help with any points they are still
unclear about. They can role-play similar interviews amongst themselves.

Pre-recorded interview in course books and other materials are also extremely useful for
giving students the interviewer‘s questions first so that they can predict what the
interviewee will say.

Task 89: Examples of listening sequences

Read the example listening lesson below (Example Two) and discuss the
questions set in the Box and report your answers to the class orally.

1. Do you think the example activity would be interesting for secondary schools students in
Ethiopia?
2. Are the sequences mentioned in the example lesson very clear and applicable for our own
context?
3. Which grade levels do you think that this lesson can be best used?
4. Please use your mobile phones and make phone conversations that are parallel to the ones in
the example.
6. List or spell out the kinds of activities students are expected to do in the lesson example.
7. List or spell out the kinds of activities teachers are expected to do in the lesson example.
8. List the kinds of materials or teaching aids that are expected to be used in this example
lesson.
9. Will it be easier for teachers to prepare/record listening texts?
10. Please role play the phone conversations in the example.
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Example 2: Taking Messages

Example 2: telephone messages Activity: taking messages

Skills: predicting, listening for
specific information
Age: 17-18
Level: secondary junior years (cycle
one)

Although most textbooks have taped material to accompany their various lessons there is
no reason why teachers should not record their own tapes with the help of colleagues and
other competent speakers of the language provided that they take care to use a decent
microphone and to record the voices as naturally as possible. This will allow them
freedom to create material which is relevant to their own students‘ special needs.

This sequence shows the kind of thing that teachers might have their colleagues help
them with – they can get them to play the parts of the occupant of the house and the three
callers.

The sequences starts when the teacher asks students the kind of short messages people
might leave for members of their family if and when they take phone calls while they are
out. The messages are often quite simple, for example:

Tim-phone
Richard Clare- Paul says he’ll be at
theCrown at nine o’clock.

Naomi……. Helen called

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Students are told that they are going to hear three phone conversations in which the callers leave
messages for people who are not in. They are told that Mrs. Galloway has three daughters, Lyn
(19), Eryn (17), and Kate (13). They are all out at the cinema. But three of their friends ring up
and leave messages. All the students have to do is to write messages which Mrs. Galloway leaves
for her daughters.

This is what the students hear:

Mrs. Galloway: Hello.

Adam: Hello. Is Lyn there?
Mrs. Galloway: No. she‘s out at the moment. Who is that?
Adam: This is Adam. Do you know when she‘ll be back?
Mrs. Galloway: About ten, I think. Can I give her a message?
Adam: No……er yes. Can you tell her Adam rang?
Mrs. Galloway: Sure, Adam.
Adam: Thanks. Bye.

Mrs. Galloway: Hello.

Ruth: Can I speak to Eryn?
Mrs. Galloway: Is that Ruth?
Ruth: Yes. Hello Mrs. Galloway. Is Eryn there?
Mrs. Galloway: No, Ruth, sorry. She is at the cinema with her sisters.

Ruth: Oh. Well could you ask her to bring my copy of Romeo and Juliet to
college tomorrow?
Mrs. Galloway: Your copy?
Ruth: Yes. She borrowed it.
Mrs. Galloway: So you want her to take it in tomorrow? To college?
Ruth: Yes. That is it. Thanks. Bye.
Mrs. Galloway: Oh… bye.

Mrs. Galloway: Hello.

Jane Metcalfe: Can I speak to Kate?
Mrs. Galloway: I‘m afraid she‘s not here. Can I take a message?
Jane Metcalfe: Yes please. This is Jane Metcalfe, the drama teacher.
Can you tell Kate that the next rehearsal is at three-thirty on Friday?
Mrs. Galloway: The next rehearsal?
Jane Metcalfe: Yes, for the school play.
Mrs. Galloway: Kate‘s in a play?
Jane Metcalfe: Yes. Didn‘t she tell you?
Mrs. Galloway: No…. I mean yes, of course she did.
Jane Metcalfe: Ok, then. We‘ll see her on Friday afternoon.

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Mrs. Galloway: Er…yes!

When they have written messages for the three girls they compare their versions with each other
to see if they have written the same thing, they listen to the tape again to clear up any problems
they might have had.

This sequence naturally lends itself to a progression where students ―ring‘ each other to leave
messages. Perhaps they do this after they look at the language of the three phone calls so that they
can use phrases like I‘m afraid she‘s not here/ can I take a message?

Message taking from phone calls is a genuinely communicative act. Where possible students will
be involved in the phone calls themselves, if possible taking messages from someone speaking
from another room, or from another booth in a language laboratory, or at least working in pairs to
role-play calls.

Task 90: Examples of listening sequences

Read the example listening lesson below (Example Three) and discuss the
questions set in the Box and report your answers to the class orally.

1. Do you think the example activity would be interesting for secondary schools students in
Ethiopia?
2. Are the sequences mentioned in the example lesson very clear and applicable for our own
context?
3. Which grade levels do you think that this lesson can be best used?
6. List or spell out the kinds of activities students are expected to do in the lesson example/
7. List or spell out the kinds of activities teachers are expected to do in the lesson example.
8. List the kinds of materials or teaching aids that are expected to be used in this example
lesson.
9. Develop the full script of this example lesson anticipating activities and languages students
are going to use in the entire lesson.
10. Play out the conversation you developed for your classmates.

Example 3: We had a nice time but

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Example 3: we had a nice time Activity : analyzing conversations

But Skills: predicting, listening for detailed
information, listening for text construction
Age: young adult and above
Level : intermediate

In this example lesson, students are working on a topic called ‗Regrets‘. The lesson starts with the
teacher leading a discussion about the kinds of things that can go wrong on holiday, and helps the
students to come up with sentences like you might be ill or perhaps you‘ll miss your flight, etc. if
any of the students have a holiday ‗horror story‘ they can tell it to their partner, their group, or to
the class.

The students are told that they are going to listen to three people talking about things going wrong
on holiday. They might be given photographs of classmates on holidays to look at and try to
predict what the problem is likely to be in each case. They can discuss this in pairs and groups
thinking of all the possibilities they can.

Lesson 4: Learners, Text Difficulty and Text Grading

Task 91: Text difficulty

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Sit in pairs and discuss the questions below.

1. What are some of the features of authentic spoken language (text)?

2. How do learners cop up with the following problems in listening?
 Speed of delivery
 Limited vocabulary
 Lack of contextual knowledge
 Attention span
 Motivation problems
 Apparently one sided communication
 L1-L2 differences
3. 1 Vocabulary level
4. 10.2 Language or grammar complexity
5. 10.3 Size of the text
6. 10.4 Familiarities of topics
7. 10.5 Text organization
8. 10.6 Grading the task or activity

Task 92: Grading listening text/listening lessons or materials

Sit in groups and discuss the question set below. Let one of you
report your answers to the whole class orally.

How do we approach the following issues?

1. Vocabulary level
2. Grammatical complexity
3. Length of the listening text
4. The organization of information
5. Topic familiarity
6. Student‘s interest
7. Type of content( density of information)
8. Degree of explicitness of information

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Section Summary

If we should intend to improve our students listening skills there many strategies we might use.
This section has outlined some of them. For example we might help our students to adopt a
positive attitude. They might also be helped to be responsive and shut out distractions while
listening. They might listen for the speaker's purpose, Look for the signals of what is to come,
Look for summaries of what has gone before, evaluate the supporting materials, and Look for
non-verbal clues.

Moreover students might Look at the speaker directly, Put aside distracting thoughts, Avoid
being distracted by environmental factors, listen‖ to the speaker‘s body language, refrain from
side conversations when listening in a group setting, Use their own body language and gestures
to convey their attention, nod occasionally, Smile and use other facial expressions, Note their
posture and make sure it is open and inviting, and Encourage the speaker to continue with small
verbal comments like yes and uh huh.

Section 1.4: Analysing and Developing Listening Lessons

Introduction

This section gives you an opportunity to analyse or evaluate already developed listening lessons
from the various sources. It also gives you the chance to develop your own listening lessons
where you can demonstrate your understanding of the essential points in developing listening
lessons.

Finally in the section you are required to undertake a micro-teaching byyourself.

Learning outcomes

Learning Outcome

At the end of this section, you will be able to:

1. analyze different listening skills lessons based on set standards/criteria;

2. develop acceptable listening lessons for secondary school students in Ethiopia
3. conduct a listening micro-teaching for your classmates.

Lesson 1: Analysing Model Listening Lessons

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Task 93: Guidelines for analysing listening skills lessons

Read and study the model listening materials below with their texts.
Then evaluate each set of lesson using the guideline questions
presented here.

a. Did the teacher briefly set the scene for the activity by explaining the topic, helping students
guess or predict what they may hear about, etc.?

b. Did the teacher encourage the students to bring their own prior knowledge of the topic to
the lesson?

c. Did the teacher provide the students with a clear explanation of the task of an appropriate
level of difficulty / simplicity before listening, so that students knew why they were going to
listen and what they were going to listen for?

d. Was there sufficient visual support for the students to carry out the task successfully? I.e.
did the teacher provide a chart to be filed in, pictures to be sequenced, written questions to be
answered to support what students hear?

e. Did the teacher give time to ensure that students had absorbed the task and that they were
relaxed before the listening began?

f. Did the listening task focus on getting students to identify the main ideas (as opposed to
unimportant details)?

g. Was the listening text graded to the right level for the students? In particular:
 Was the vocabulary appropriately graded?
 Was the grammar easy enough to follow?
 Was the text of a manageable length, or was it too long?
 Was the way the text was organized clear and simple to follow?
 Would the topic be familiar to Grades 9-10 students?
 Would the topic be interesting for high school students of Grade 9-10?
 Was the content straightforward enough for students to follow?

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Again, below are presented four listening skills lessons/listening

comprehension lessons. Please read each set of lesson very carefully.
Analyse it individually and present your reaction to the class. You may
choose one of these set of lessons and analyse it in an essay form and
present it to your instructor. To do this you may need your instructor‟s
help.

During the analysis and evaluation you make please base yourself on the
following checklist for evaluation or analysis of a listening lesson.

1. What purpose is the reading material used for?

2. Is it of real interest for the level of students in question?
3. Is it authentic?
4. Is it well presented accompanied by purposeful activities?
5. What type of material is it? Journal article? Profile? Tale?
6. Do you think the learners would enjoy the material and the tasks? Why?
7. Does it have pre-, while, and post reading questions?
8. Are the questions in each set appropriate for the category they belong to?
9. Does the material help develop vocabulary? How?
10. Is the reading text used for consolidating language items?
11. Is the material linked to other skills?
12. What kinds of comprehension questions are asked? Literal? Discourse-based?
Inference?
13. Is the text complete, or there are gaps?
14. Does the material facilitate comprehension, e.g. by setting the scene, providing
background information, giving pre-reading questions, etc.?
15. Does the material address the learners‘ affective factors?
16. What is the place of vocabulary in the text?

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LISTENING COMPREHENSION: TEXT ONE

Topic: Ozone

The listening text

Pre-listening

Today‘s lecture is about Ozone. Write in the Box above whatever you know about Ozone.

While-listening

Now what is ozone? … Ozone is a gas, which is spread thinly in the earth‘s stratosphere, from
about 10 kilometres to 50 kilometres above ground level … And it is essential to all forms of life.
… This is because molecules of ozone filter out ultraviolet or UV radiation from the sun … and
in doing so they protect plants and animals from harmful UV rays … in fact it is quite possible
that certain forms of life could not exist on earth before the ozone layer was formed.

So … high in the stratosphere, ozone has an important and beneficial part to play. But nearer the
ground, ozone becomes a problem … so now let us turn to the most serious negative effect that
ozone can have near the ground … Basically it is the high concentration of ozone in polluted
cities all over the world that is of concern … Ozone is one of the key elements in smog … which
is a combination of exhaust gases from cars, pollution from factories, still air, warmth and clear
sun shine …. All these together result in a kind of thick, smoky fog which can envelop a city ….
And it contains a highly poisonous form of ozone … The poisonous smog that envelops Mexico
city is a very obvious example of this … what happens is that sunlight encourages a chemical
reaction which changes oxygen in the air to ozone … and even small amounts of this ozone can
irritate your eyes, it can give you headaches or even effect your breathing …. Higher

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concentrations of ozone can damage plants and harm animals too …. So that‘s the bad side of
ozone.

But as I said first of all, ozone is also a friend to us … so in what sense is ozone a friend to us?
…. Well, it‘s to do with ultraviolet rays. Ozone molecules are attacked and broken down by UV
radiation from the sun high up in the stratosphere … and as the ozone molecules are broken
down, the UV rays are absorbed …so the molecules of ozone actually prevent a good deal of the
UV radiation is prevented from reaching people and plants on earth … of course, that‘s good
news for plants, because crops such as teff, barley, and wheat give poorer yields if too much
radiation reaches them …. And it is also good news for human beings, because high levels of
radiation can cause skin cancers …. And these may be capable of spreading to other parts of the
body if they are not properly treated.

Post-listening

(T. asks a number of comprehension questions. Students attempt to answer each time.)
Now, class, I am going to ask you some questions to see what you have understood. First … who
can explain what ozone is? …. Why is it important? … Who can explain the main negative effect
that ozone can have? … What is smog? … How is it caused? … Who can explain the relationship
between ultraviolet radiation and ozone in the stratosphere? … Why is this important to plants
and human beings?

(Taken from Atkins and et al. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 1)

LISTENING COMPREHENSION: TEXT TWO

Topic: Weather forecast about Ethiopia

Morning Afternoon

Eastern lowlands

Highlands

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South and west

Listening text

Pre-listening

Today you are going to listen to a weather forecast. …. What do you understand by the word
―weather‖? (Students tell.) Which words can we use to describe the weather? … let‘s make a list
on the board. ( T. helps students to compile a list and adds any key words they don‘t suggest.)

e.g. Hot warm cool cold wet rainy

humid dry
Dusty cloudy clear sky showers
heavy rain
Calm windy

Now, I‘m going to tell you the weather forecast for three parts of Ethiopia. …. What do you
think a weather ―forecast‖ is? …. Is it telling you about the weather now or what the weather will
be like in the future? (Students answer). Good.

….. You can see that there are spaces for you to fill in. …. So, as I speak, I want you to write
down the weather forecast for the eastern lowlands, the highlands and the south and the west, for
tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon. … Do you all understand what to do? …. Are you
ready? …. Now listen carefully.

While-listening

Here is the weather forecast for tomorrow. …. In the eastern lowlands the morning will start off
cool and calm, with clear blue skies. …. However, by noon the temperatures will be much
warmer and in the afternoon it will be very hot. …. It may be very windy and dusty in some
areas. (Pause)

In the highlands, the day will start off rather miserable. … it will be cloudy and damp and rather
cold. … However, by noon this cold, cloudy weather will disappear and in the afternoon there
will be bright, sunny weather and it will be

(Taken from Atkins and et al. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 1)

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LISTENING COMPREHENSION: TEXT THREE

Topic: Telling students about yourself

Teacher Friend

Home town or area

Family

My life so far

My interests

My plans

(Taken from Atkins and et al. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 1)

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Lesson 2: Developing Listening Tasks

Task 94: designing listening tasks/lessons

Read the following two texts, modify, or supplement them if necessary

and develop listening task or tasks (lesson) in anticipation of a target
group with the following specifications (profile).

Target group profile

Age: 14-20
Grade level: Mixed group
Level of English proficiency: very low
Level of vocabulary: poor
Cultural group: Ethiopians
Time size for the task 30 minutes
Lesson right before this task Speaking
Lesson right after this task Writing

Possibilities to check

 Background information sheet/table/picture/etc/

 Clear , brief rubrics
 Worksheets
 Clear layout/format
 Learning outcomes
 Piloting
 Eliciting comments from colleagues

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Text 1

.............................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................

Text 2

.............................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................

Text 3

.............................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................................
...................................................................................

Section Summary

As students go up the ladder of secondary schools they need to have listening lessons they can
understand. This means grading activities becomes an indispensible task for the listening teacher.
This section has tried to give you some understanding about analysing and grading listening texts
and listening lessons in general.

Unit Summary

Listening skills are tied to speaking and pronunciation skills. Most likely if a student can
correctly pronounce something and speak it in a natural and common way; she will
understand it when she hears it spoken. When/if you have the opportunity to teach
pronunciation and listening together, you will see many similarities in the content that
you are covering. Ideally, the two areas should be taught together. This unit has tried to
make a strong link between speaking and pronunciation.

Once again you will be teaching students about reductions, linking, stress, and rhythm in
natural speech. But you will also – as in teaching reading (listening and reading are
“receptive skills”) – be teaching students to listen for main ideas and details. And like

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pre-reading – you also set the stage with pre-listening activities to set the context for
listening.

Teaching listening skills is rewarding as students can often make good gains rather
quickly if taught with proper instruction. I hope you had gained many exciting thoughts
about the teaching of listening skills in this unit! Use them in your classrooms!

Reading Materials for the Unit

Anderson, A. & Lynch, T. (1988). Listening. Oxford.
Atkins and et al. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 1)
Brown, G. (1991). Listening to Spoken English. Longman.
Rixon, S. (1986). Teaching Listening Skills. Macmillan.
Rost, M. (1990). Listening in language learning. Longman.
Underwood, M. (1989). Teaching Listening. Longman.
Ur, P. (1984). Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge.
White, G. (1998). Listening. Cambridge
Best source: Underwood, Mary. 1993. Teaching Listening. Long

Unit Self-Assessment Questions

Dear student!

You have studied the third unit in this Module. Below there are some of the
most important points drawn from the Unit you have been studying. Please
put a tick (  ) mark in front of the point you have understood well in the
box under “Yes” and (  ) in the box under “No” for points you have not
understood well yet. And if the (  ) marks are more than those (  ), it
means you are left with a lot to understand the unit and you have not yet
achieved the objectives indicated at the beginning of the unit.

I Can Yes No
Identify the meaning of effective or active listening.
Understand the goals of teaching listening skills to secondary school
students
Select effective teaching strategies for listening skills.
Develop an effective listening skills lesson based on the context of my own
classrooms
Conduct a listening skills micro-teaching.

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Unit 4: Teaching Grammar

Outline of Contents
Introduction to the Unit
Unit learning outcomes
Teaching methods and activities
Unit assessment
Teaching resources
Section 1.1 The goals of grammar instruction
Section 1.2 Traditional versus communicative ways of grammar teaching
Section 1.3: Error correction: accuracy versus fluency
Section 1.4: Analyzing, developing and micro-teaching grammar lessons
Unit summary
Self assessment questions
Reading materials

 Introduction to the Unit

Dear student!

Grammar is central to the teaching and learning of languages. It is also one of the more difficult
aspects of language to teach well.

Many people, including language teachers, hear the word "grammar" and think of a fixed set of
word forms and rules of usage. They associate "good" grammar with the prestige forms of the
language, such as those used in writing and in formal oral presentations, and "bad" or "no"
grammar with the language used in everyday conversation or used by speakers of non-prestige
forms.

Language teachers who adopt this definition focus on grammar as a set of forms and rules. They
teach grammar by explaining the forms and rules and then drilling students on them. This results
in bored, disaffected students who can produce correct forms on exercises and tests, but
consistently make errors when they try to use the language in context.

Other language teachers, influenced by recent theoretical work on the difference between
language learning and language acquisition, tend not to teach grammar at all. Believing that
children acquire their first language without overt grammar instruction, they expect students to
learn their second language the same way. They assume that students will absorb grammar rules
as they hear, read, and use the language in communication activities. This approach does not
allow students to use one of the major tools they have as learners: their active understanding of
what grammar is and how it works in the language they already know.

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The communicative competence model balances these extremes. The model recognizes that overt
grammar instruction helps students acquire the language more efficiently, but it incorporates
grammar teaching and learning into the larger context of teaching students to use the language.
Instructors using this model teach students the grammar they need to know to accomplish defined
communication tasks.

This unit presents you with four important sections that all deal with the teaching of grammar
skills. The first unit is devoted to the very basics of grammar such as the definitions of grammar
and the overall beliefs students and teachers have towards the teaching of grammar. It also
discusses the reasons why we teach grammar in secondary schools. The second section deals with
the approaches and strategies of grammar teaching. This section explores both traditional and
communicative ways of teaching grammar. The third section introduces you to the principles of
error correction in relation to grammar. The last section discusses how to analyze, develop and
micro-teach grammar lessons.

As grammar is the very foundation of English language, I wish you all have an exciting time in
studying this unit as a whole.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of learning this unit, you will be able to:

1. recognize the notion of the term ―Grammar‖ in the various contexts of

teaching;
2. differentiate different goals of teaching grammar in the various contexts;
3. recognize ways or techniques of teaching grammar in all possible teaching
context/scenarios;
4. demonstrate ways to teach grammar in a communicative classroom;
5. develop different effective techniques for teaching grammar;
6. Develop effective grammar lessons; and
7. Micro-teach grammar lessons in order to exhibit ways and develop
confidence to teach grammar in a communicative classroom.

Teaching Methods and Activities

A communicative approach of teaching grammar will be employed where discussion and
learner engagement is the most important feature in the classroom. Presentation, lecture,
individual, pair and group work, and micro-teaching will be employed.

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Student‟s Activities
Students will participate and take notes from teacher-led lectures. They will ask oral
questions during lectures and answer oral questions from the teacher. They will be
engaged in individual presentations, pair and group works. They will undertake project
works, class and homework, and problem-solving activities.

Instructor‟s Activities
The instructor will facilitate pair and group works, presentations and problem-solving
activities. The instructor will sometimes deliver lectures. He/she will supervise
classroom lesson designs and micro-teachings. He/she provides both oral and written
feedbacks. He/she will motivate students and encourages them to actively participate in
issue-based discussions regarding grammar teaching in the classroom.

Assessment Methods
Classroom and homework assignments will be given. While discussions proceed in the
classroom, the instructor will ask both oral and written questions for checking the
conceptual understanding of students. Students may be required to stage presentations to
demonstrate their understandings of a particular teaching methodology or technique.
Sometimes students may be required to write essays to demonstrate their understanding
of key issues in the teaching of grammar for one of the grades in Ethiopian high schools.

Instructional Resources (Materials and Equipment)

In teaching this unit, worksheets, flipcharts, and wall papers may be used.

Section 1.1: The goals of Grammar Instruction

 Introduction

This section presents you with the reasons for teaching grammar in secondary schools. It
also provides you with definitions for grammar which might be useful for deciding what
kind of grammar to teach your secondary school students.

Learning outcomes

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At the end of learning this section, you will be able to:

1. recognize the notion of the term ―Grammar‖ in the various contexts of
teaching; and,
2. differentiate different goals of teaching grammar in the various contexts.

Lesson 1: The meaning of grammar (structural, functional and

communicative views of grammar)

Task 95: Exploring the notion of grammar

Sit in pairs, read the various definitions of grammar presented below the
Box, and discuss the following question set in the Box:

1. Which definition does best reflect your understanding of grammar?

2. Which definition reflects the traditional views of looking grammar?
3. Which definitions reflect more of functional and communicative views of
grammar?
4. What can we conclude from these definitions of grammar about grammar
teaching?
5. Can we have only one definition of grammar?
6. What is formal grammar?
7. What is informal grammar

Definitions of Grammar

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1. The study of the classes of words, their inflections, and their functions and
relations in the sentence b: a study of what is to be preferred and what avoided
in inflection and syntax
2. The characteristic system of inflections and syntax of a language b: a system
of rules that defines the grammatical structure of a language
3. A grammar textbook b: speech or writing evaluated according to its
conformity to grammatical rules
4. The principles or rules of an art, science, or technique <a grammar of the
theater>; also: a set of such principles or rules

Task 96: What do teachers and students say about grammar?

What can you understand by the following sayings given in the Box?

1. English grammar can be hard to master.

2. comparing English and Japanese grammar
3. comparing the grammars of English and Japanese
4. Him and I went‖ is bad grammar.
5. I know some German, but my grammar isn't very good

Lesson 2: The goals of Teaching Grammar in Secondary Schools

Task 97: Why do we teach grammar?

Read the notes below and discuss in group the questions set in the box:

1. Why do we need to teach grammar in high schools in Ethiopia?

2. What is overt grammar teaching
3. What is covert grammar teaching?
4. Explain the declarative knowledge of grammar?
5. Do you remember how your teachers in high school taught you grammar?

The goal of grammar instruction is to enable students to carry out their communication
purposes. This goal has three implications:

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 Students need overt instruction that connects grammar points with larger
communication contexts.
 Students do not need to master every aspect of each grammar point, only those
that are relevant to the immediate communication task.
 Error correction is not always the instructor's first responsibility.

Overt Grammar Instruction

Adult students appreciate and benefit from direct instruction that allows them to apply
critical thinking skills to language learning. Instructors can take advantage of this by
providing explanations that give students a descriptive understanding (declarative
knowledge) of each point of grammar.

 Teach the grammar point in the target language or the students' first language or
both. The goal is to facilitate understanding.
 Limit the time you devote to grammar explanations to 10 minutes, especially for
lower level students whose ability to sustain attention can be limited.
 Present grammar points in written and oral ways to address the needs of students
with different learning styles.
 An important part of grammar instruction is providing examples. Teachers need to
plan their examples carefully around two basic principles:
 Be sure the examples are accurate and appropriate. They must present the
language appropriately, be culturally appropriate for the setting in which they are
used, and be to the point of the lesson.
 Use the examples as teaching tools. Focus examples on a particular theme or topic
so that students have more contact with specific information and vocabulary.

Task 98: Knowing the structure or knowing how to use the language?

Match in the Box below structures with language functions!

The importance of any new structure is really not the word order but what a speaker or
writer does with it to convey meaning. Thus a good way of arranging new language item
is according to the functions or purposes they perform rather than the structures used.
This means that instead of teaching the present perfect tense, one could teach:

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a. Making enquires ―Have you had anything to eat yet?‖

b. Describing experiences ― I‘ve never been to Asmara.‖
c. Describing recent events ―John has just had an accident.‖

In this way the meaning and the use are more clearly taught. Note that one function can
be expressed by a range of different structures.
For example:
Function Structures

Warning Don‘t….
You mustn‘t…
If you …I will…
Never…
I advice you not to …

Teaching through functions can make the meaning and use of a structure much clearer.
Take the well known example of the structure ―this/ that is….‖ Which is usually taught
very early in a grammar course. In a structural course this will often be taught as a
demonstrative sentence.
E.g. This is a book. That is a window.

Pointing and demonstration will make the meaning of ―this‖ and ―that‖ clear. However,
we would never actually use the language in this way in the real world. Everyone knows
it‘s a window and a book before the teacher speaks. Thus, no function or real purpose for
using the language is involved because no real information is being given.

If, however, a teacher presents the meaning of new language through language functions
then the language aim might be ―introducing people‖. In this case the actual language
taught could be:

―That‘s Ato Geberew over there. Let me introduce you‖

―Ato Geberew, this is my mother. Mother, this is Ato Geberew‖

Notice how the actual sentences are useful. Students are learning not only the meaning of
this and that but also how to introduce people.
How does this affect English language teaching and learning?

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Teaching language through functions will give the lesson a different emphasis and
students will be more aware of why they are practicing a certain new structure. As far as
teaching materials are concerned, it does not really matter whether a course book is
organized so as to just teach structures or to teach functions. The teacher should in fact
teach both. But if a course only aims at teaching structures then the teacher will need to
think of particular functions that these structures are used for.

Savignon describes a language function as ―the use to which language is put, the purpose
of an utterance rather than the particular grammatical form an utterance takes‖ (Savignon,
1983). By using this idea to structure teaching, the instructional focus becomes less about
form and more about the meaning of an utterance. In this way, students use the language
in order to fulfill a specific purpose, therefore, making their speech more meaningful.

Task 99: Matching structures to functions

Below is a list of structures and examples. Work in groups. Match each

structure to an appropriate function from the list below. Write the function
in the space provided in the Box.

.
Structure function example
Going to _____________ I‘m going to study engineering
Will _____________ the population will rise to 55
million by 1995.
Will ______________ I‘ll clean the room for you.
Simple past ________________ Tsegaye scored in the first half of
the match
Can _______________ can I borrow ten birr, please?
Can ________________ you can go home now
Imperatives _________________ first place the seeds in a pan.
Then pour boiling
water over them.
Relative clauses ________________ a microscope is an instrument that
is used for
magnifying cells.
Simple present ___________________ the lake looks very calm.

Classifying inviting
Persuading describing a past event
Depressing opinion or certainty requesting
Defining giving permission

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Describing an appearance describing a process

Promising describing a plan
(Slightly adapted from Atkins and et al. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 1)

Section Summary

One of the main goals of language teachers is to provide students with the tools to be
effective communicators in the TL. Often when students are assigned projects and
assignments (like the weather report in Anna‘s case study) their lack of practical tools to
produce the actual language becomes evident.

In these cases, students might very well have the necessary resources to accomplish the
task, but teachers might need to consider a communicative approach to teaching the
language, focusing on the functions of language, to properly equip students to complete
assigned tasks. In this section we will explore functions of language and how they can be
taught in the SL classroom. It is this understanding of the teaching of grammar that the
preceding section has focused on.

Section 1. 2. Traditional Versus Communicative Ways of

Grammar Teaching
 Introduction

In the history of language teaching we usually talk of two dominant approaches to the
teaching of grammar. These are traditional or usually termed as structural teaching of
grammar and functional or communicative teaching of grammar. This section gives you a
wider perspective as to how to use them in your teaching of grammar in schools.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of learning this section, you will be able to:

1. recognize ways or techniques of teaching grammar in all possible teaching
context/scenarios; and ,
2. demonstrate ways to teach grammar in a communicative classroom.

Lesson 1: The Relevance of Grammar Instruction

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Task 100: Your thoughts: how to teach grammar

Sit in group and discuss the following questions. Report your answers
orally to the whole class when you finish your discussion.

1. What do you think is the traditional model of teaching grammar?

2. What do you think is the communicative model of teaching grammar?
3. Which model do you think is more appropriate to teaching secondary school students?
4. What do you think k the terms accuracy and fluency refer in relation to grammar
teaching?
5. Is it good to teach grammar in context? How?

In the communicative competence model, the purpose of learning grammar is to learn the
language of which the grammar is a part. Instructors therefore teach grammar forms and
structures in relation to meaning and use for the specific communication tasks that
students need to complete.

Compare the traditional model and the communicative competence model for teaching
the English past tense:

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Traditional: grammar for grammar's sake

 Teach the regular -ed form with its two pronunciation variants
 Teach the doubling rule for verbs that end in d (for example, wed-wedded)
 Hand out a list of irregular verbs that students must memorize
 Do pattern practice drills for -ed
 Do substitution drills for irregular verbs

Communicative competence: grammar for communication's sake

 Distribute two short narratives about recent experiences or events, each one to
half of the class
 Teach the regular -ed form, using verbs that occur in the texts as examples.
Teach the pronunciation and doubling rules if those forms occur in the texts.
 Teach the irregular verbs that occur in the texts.
 Students read the narratives, ask questions about points they don't understand.
 Students work in pairs in which one member has read Story A and the other
Story B. Students interview one another; using the information from the
interview, they then write up or orally repeat the story they have not read.

Task 101: Discrete item grammar exercise/focus on accuracy

1. How common are exercises like the following in secondary school English language
textbooks?
2. Can you edit those sentences given below for correctness in grammar or structure?
3. What is the overall goal of the exercise?

Edit the sentences that are not grammatical below.

1. Mathematics and physics is very difficult subjects (singular and plural subjects)
2. Politics are dirty game. (Singular and plural subjects)
3. The president accompanied by his bodyguards have left for Egypt (subject verb
agreement)
4. The presidents accompanied by a bodyguard has left for the Sudan.
5. I am glad, I am young, handsome, and never been married.( parallelism)
6. You have to show respection to your elders. (Nouns and adjectives)
7. He lost his confidential in the examination.
8. Radio and TV have a great affect on public taste.
9. I have ever been in Italy.( tense)
11. My father does not mind my mother come late at night.
12. The flight did not arrive yet.( tense)
13. Egg and bacon are nice breakfast.
14. Bread and milk were our usual Sunday night supper on the farm.
15. Bill or Bob have to get up early and call the rest of us.
16. Everyone on the two teams are to have reported to the gymnasium.

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17. Nobody are going to ask me to take the exam.

18. He is more neat than his brother.
19. Giving is always the more nobler task than taking.( degrees of comparison)
20. To drive well a person needs many practice.
21. My father is afraid to learn any of us to drive. (Phrasal verbs)
22. One of the boys who have passed the exam have gone abroad.
23. One of the boys have gone abroad.
24. The fire has spreaded

Lesson 1: Controlled (Exercises and Drills)

As a language component, grammar plays a significant role in language pedagogy

particularly in EFL context as Celce-Murcia (1991: 459) points out that grammar
teaching is part of language instruction. Therefore, some linguists have taken grammar
instruction into account in English syllabuses in order to improve students‘ accuracy in
English.

So far, as the Grammar Translation Method applies, teachers have laid their grammar
instruction on traditional grammar that gives more emphasis on forms instead of
meanings and use. Some linguists argue the effectiveness of this type of instruction since
it does not contribute to students‘ communicative competence with accuracy (e.g.
Andrews et al. 2004: 39).

Task 102: Controlled and half-controlled grammar activities/lock-step

activities

Below you can find five traditional exercises or drills (set in separate boxes
and marked as exercises) that are used for teaching grammar. Read and
workout each exercise. Then answer/discuss in groups the questions set
below in the box about each exercise or drill presented.

1. What is the aim or purpose of the drill or exercise?

2. What grammar element is the exercise planning to teach?
3. For which grade level can we use the exercise?
4. Which notion or view of grammar does the exercise reflect? Structural? Functional?
Or, Communicative view?
5. How long does it take to do the exercise do you think?
6. Do you think students would enjoy the exercise? Why?
7. Can there be any way of making the exercise more enjoyable and more effective?
8. Is it easy for a teacher to use the exercise for classroom teaching of grammar?
9. Does the exercise present grammar in context?
10. Does the exercise give more opportunity for the students to practice the grammar itme
in question?

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Activity 1

Present continuous (I am doing)

Study this example situation:
Ann is in her car. She is on her way to work.
She is driving to work.
This means: she is driving now, at the time of speaking.
The action is not finished.
Am/is/are-ing is the present continuous:

I am (=I’m) Driving
Working
He/she/it is (=he‘s etc.) Doing
We/you/they are (=we‘re etc.) etc.

I am doing something = I‘m in the middle of doing something: I‘ve started doing it and I
haven‘t finished yet.
Often the action is happening at the time of speaking:
Please don’t make so much noise. I’m working. (not ‘I work’)
‘Where ’Margaret?’ ‘She’s having a bath.’ (not ‘she has bathe’)
Let’s go out now. It isn’t raining any more. (not ‘it doesn’t rain’)
(at a party) Hello, Jane. Are you enjoying the party? ( not ‘do you enjoy’)
I’m tiered. I’m going to bed now. Good night!

But the action is not necessarily happening at the time of speaking.

Some more examples:
Catherine wants to work in Italy, so she is learning Italian. (but perhaps she isn’t learning
Italian exactly at the time of speaking)
Some friends of mine are building their own house. They hope it will be finished before
next summer.

We use the present continuous when we talk about things happening in a period around
now (for example, today / this week / this evening etc.):
‘You’re working hard today.’ ‘Yes, I’ve a lot to do.’ (not ‘you work hard today’)
‘Is Susan working this week?’ ‘No she’s on holiday.’

We use the present continues when we talk about changes happening around now
The population of the world is rising very fast. (not’ rises’)
Is you English getting better? (not ‘does your English get better)

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Exercises 1: completes the sentences with one of the following verbs in the correct
form:
Come get happen look make start stay try
1. ‗You 're working hard today.‘ ‗Yes, I‘ve a lot to do.‘
2. I for Christine. Do you know where she is?
3. If dark. Shall I turn on the light?
4. They haven‘t got anywhere to live at the moment. They
with friends until they found somewhere.
5. ‗Are you ready, Ann?‘ ‗Yes, I . .‘
6. Have you got an umbrella? It to rain.
7. You a lot of noise. Could you be quite? I
concentrate.
8. Why are you all these people here? What ?

Exercise 2: Use the words in brackets to complete the questions.

1.‘ is Colin working this week? ‗No, he‘s on holiday.‘ (Colin/work)
2, why at me like that? What‘s the matter? (You/look)
3. ‗Jenny is a student at university.‘ ‗Is she? What ?
4. to the radio or can I turn it off? (Anybody/listen)
5. How is your English? Better? (It/get)

Exercise three: Put the verb into the correct form. Sometimes you need the negative
(I‘m not doing etc.).
1. I‘m tired. I ‗m going (go) to bed now. Good night!
2. We can go out now. It isn‘t raining (rain) any more.
3. ‗How is your new job?‘ ‗Not so good at the moment. I
(enjoy) it very much.‘
4. Catherine phoned me last night. She‘s on holiday in France. She
(have) a great time and doesn‘t want to come back.
5. I want to lose weight, so this week I (eat) lunch.
6. Angela has just started evening classes. She (learn) German.
7. I think Paul and Ann have had an argument. They (speak) to each
other.

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Activity 2

Present simple (I am/I do)

Study this examples situation:
Alex is a bus driver, but now he is in bed asleep.
So: he is not driving a bus. (He is asleep.) But he
drives a bus. (He is a bus driver.) Drive(s)
/work(s)/do(es)etc. is the present simple:

I/you/we/they drive/work/do etc.

He/she/it drives/works/does
etc.

we use the present simple to talk about things in general. We are not thinking only about
now. We use it to say that something happens all the time or repeatedly, or that
something is true in general. It is not important whether the action is happening at the
time of speaking:
Nurses look after patients in hospitals.
I usually go away at weekends.
The earth goes round the sun.

Remember that we say: he/she/it –s. don‘t forget the s:

‘What do you do?’(=what’s your job?) ‘I work in a shop.’
He’s so lazy. He doesn’t do anything to help me. (Not ‘He doesn’t anything?)

We use the present simple when we say how often we do things:

I get up at 8 o’clock every morning. (not ‘I’m getting’)
How often do you go to the dentist? (Not ‘How often are you going?’)
Ann doesn’t drink tea very often.
In summer john usually plays tennis one or twice a week.

I promise / I apologies etc.

Some times we do things by saying something. For example, when you promise to do
something, you can say ‗I promise …‘; when you suggest something, you can say ‗I
suggest ….‘. We use the present simple (promise/suggest etc.) in sentences like this:
I promise I won’t be late. (not ‘ I’m promising’)
What do you suggest I do?’ ‘I suggest that you …’

In the same way we say: I apologize …. / I advise.... / I insist …. / I agree … / I refuse ….

Etc.
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Exercises: Complete the sentences using one of the following:

Cause(s) close(s) drink(s) open(s) take (s) place

1 Ann speaks Germany very well.

2 I never coffee.
3 the swimming pool at 9 o’clock and at 18:30 every day.
4 bad driving many accidents.
5 my parents in a very small flat.
The Olympic Games every four years.

Exercise: Put the verb into the correct form.

1. Jane doesn‘t drink (not/drink) tea very often.

2. What time (martin/come) from? ‗He‘s Scottish‘.
3. ‗where (martin/come) from?‘ He‘s Scottish.‘
4. ‗what (you/do)?‘ ‗I‘ m an electrical engineer.‘
5. It (take) me an hour to get to work. How long
(it/take) you?
6. I (play) the piano but I (not/play) very
well.

Activity 3

The present continuous and present simple (I am doing and I do)

Study the explanations and compares the examples:

Present continuous (I am doing)

Use the continuous for something that is happening at or around the time of speaking.
The action is not finished.
I am doing
Present simple (I do)
Use the simple for things in general or things that happens repeatedly.
I do
Exercise: Are the underlined verbs right or wrong? Correct the verbs that are wrong.

1. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. RIGHT

2. The water boils. Can you turn it off? WRONG: is boiling
3. Look! That man tries to open the door of your car.
4. Can you hear those people? What do they talk about?
5. The moon goes round the earth.
6. I must go now. It gets late.
7. I usually go to work by car.
8. ‗Hurry up! It‘s time to leave.‘ ‗Ok, I come.‘

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9. I hear you‘ve got a new job. How do you get on?

Exercise: put the verb in the correct form, present continuous or present simple.

1. Let‘s go out. It isn‘t raining (not/rain) now.

2. Julia is very good at languages. She speaks (speak) for language very well.
3. Hurry up! Everybody (wait) for you.
4. ‗ (you/listen) to the radio?‘ ‗No, you can turn it off.‘
5. ‗ (you/listen) to the radio every day?‘ ‗No, just occasionally.‘
6. The River Nile (flow) into the Mediterranean.
7. Look at the river. It (flow) very fast today – much faster than usual.
8. We usually (grow) vegetables in our garden but this year we
(not/grow) any.
9. ‗How is your English?‘ ‗Not bad. It (improve) slowly.‘
10 Ron is in London at the moment. He (stay) at the Park Hotel. He
(always/stay) there when he‘s in London.

Exercise: Finish B‘s sentences. Use always –ing

1. A: I‘m afraid I‘ve lost my key again.
B: Not again! You‘re always losing your key.
2. A: The car has broken down again.
B: That car is useless! It
3. A: Look! You‘ve made the same mistake again.
B: Oh no, not again! I
4. A: Oh, I‘ve left the lights on again.
B: Typical! You

The following verbs are not normally used in continuous tenses:

like love hate Want need
prefer know realize suppose mean
understand believe remember Belong contain
consist depend seem

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Activity 4

Just/already/yet
Exercise: Read the situations and write sentences with just, already or yet.
After lunch you go to see a friend at her house. She says ‘Would you like something to
eat?’ You say: No, thank you. I’ve just had lunch. (have/lunch)
Joe goes out. Five minutes letter, the phone rings and the caller say ‘can I speak to Joe?’
You say: I’m afraid (go out)
You are eating in a restaurant. The waiter thinks you have finished and starts to take
your plate away. You say: Wait a minute! (not/finish)
You are going to a restaurant this evening. You phone to reserve a table. Later your
friend says ‘Shall I phone to reserve a table?’ You say: No, it. (do)
You know that a friend of yours is looking for a job. Perhaps she has been successful. Ask
her. You say: ? (find)
Ann went to the bank, but a few minutes ago she returned. Somebody asks ‘Is Ann still
at the bank?’ You say: No, (come back)

Activity 5

Present perfect (I have done)

Study this example conversation:
Dave: have you travelled a lot, Jane?
Jane: Yes, I‘ve been to lots of places.
Dave: Really? Have you ever been to china?
Jane: Yes, I‘ve been to china twice.
Dave: What about India?
Jane: No, I haven‘t been to India.
When we talk about a period of time that continues from the past until now
we use the present perfect (has been / have travelled etc.). Here, Dave and Jane
are talking about the places Jane has visited in her life (which is a period that
continues until now).

Have you ever eaten caviar? (in your life)

We‘ve never had a car.
‗Have you read Hamlet?‘ ‗No, I haven‘t read any of Shakespeare‘s plays.‘
Susan really loves that film. She‘s seen it eight times!
What a boring film! It‘s the most boring film I‘ve ever seen.

In the following examples too the speakers are talking about a period that continues until
now (recently/in the last few days / so far / since breakfast etc.):
Have you heard from George recently?
I‘ve met a lot of people in the last few days.

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Everything is going well. We haven‘t had any problems so far.

I‘m hungry. I haven‘t eaten anything since breakfast. (= from breakfast until now)
It‘s nice to see you again. We haven‘t seen each other for a long time.

We use the present perfect with today / this morning / this evening etc. when these
periods are not finished at the time of speaking (see also Unit 14B):
I’ve drunk four cups of coffee today. (perhaps I’ll drink more before today is finished)
Have you had a holiday this year (yet)?
I haven’t seen Tom this morning. Have you?]
Ron hasn’t worked very hard this term.
Bill is phoning his girlfriend again. That’s the third time he’s phoned her this evening.

Exercises : You are asking some body questions about things he or she has done. Make
questions from the words in brackets.

(Ever / ride / horse?) Have you ever ridden a horse?

(Ever / be / Ohio?)
(Ever / run / marathon?)
(Ever / speak / famous person?)
(Always / live / in this town?)
(Most beautiful place / ever / visit?) What

Task 103: Further reflection on the above activities

1. Which of the above activities or exercises are totally controlled and which ones are
relatively free or guided?
2. What do you understand by controlled grammar activities?
3. What do you understand by guided grammar activities?
4. Can you think of a different guided situation whereby we might teach the grammar
element mentioned in Activity 1, above?
5. As students‘ grade levels increase and as students continue to have more grammar
knowledge, then the kind of grammar activities they do tend to become more of guided or
free activity. Do you agree to this idea? Why?
6. Which exercises present grammar deductively and which inductively?

Task 104: Introducing new grammar/ grammar input to the class

To what extent do you agree to each of the following statements, based on

your own experience?
:

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I think new language items are best practiced:

1. Mainly orally.
2. Mainly in writing
3. When the tasks students carry out focus mainly on correctness
4. When the tasks students carry out focus mainly on the ideas they want to
communicate
5. When the teacher‘s aim is to develop students‘ confidence in using whatever
English they know, even if this means students make errors.
6. When the teacher drills the students and corrects all the errors they make.
7. When the teacher provides a balance of activities, some aiming at improving
accuracy, others aimed at developing confidence in using English to express
meanings.
8. When the teacher explain the rules and students apply these in answering
grammar exercises.
9. When students work under the teacher, individually or as a whole class.
10. When students work in pairs or groups

Task 105: Some more concepts about teaching grammar

Discuss the difference between the following pairs of items/concepts.

1. Use and usage

2. Accuracy and fluency
3. Formal and informal grammar
4. Deductive and inductive presentation of a grammar lesson
5. Guided activities and free activities
6. Grammar and meaning, grammar and discourse , and grammar and context

Lesson 2: Communicative Grammar Activities

The concept of communicative language teaching has grown out of the notion that solely
teaching grammar is not enough to prepare students for using the language
independently.

David Wilkins, a theorist closely linked with communicative language teaching, suggests
that language teaching should be organized into notional (relating to meaning) and
functional (relating to communication) syllabi.

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He suggests that the concept of communicative functions may be the most important
aspect of this framework. Other contributors to this theory, such as Jan van Ek, build on
Wilkins‘ terms and ideas, but interpret them somewhat differently. In place of
communicative function, they substitute language function, referring to what people do
through language.

You may refer back to unit One of this module for further understanding about
communicative language teaching in general.

Task 106: Your thoughts: finding out our views of grammar teaching

Sit in pairs and discuss the following questions. Report the results of your
discussion orally to the rest of the class through your group speaker.

1. How is grammar traditionally understood?

2. How does one‘s belief of grammar affect one‘s teaching of grammar and thus
designing material for grammar?
3. How can we contextualize a grammar lesson? Is it better to use imaginary situations
than real situations for contextualization?
4. What do you think are the main stages in presenting a grammar lesson?
5. What are informal grammar, standard grammar, and formal grammar?

Task 107: Stages and techniques in presenting a grammar lesson

communicatively

How would you introduce or present a new language structures to your

Grade 9 students? Which of the following techniques in the Box would you
use? Are there any you would omit? Are there any stages you would add?

Now you are going to work in groups. Your instructor will assign you to
study one of the following examples of introducing a new language item.
You must prepare a 5-10 minute micro-lesson based on the example you
study. One member of your group will then teach the presentation you have
prepared. You may of course improve the presentation shown below, in
order to make your lesson as natural and realistic as possible, but be ready
to explain how and why you changed it!
1. Say a sentence containing the structure and get students to repeat it.
2. Give an explanation of the meaning and explain how the structure is formed.
3. Present the new language in a situation using a number of sentence examples related
together.
4. Ask some questions to check understanding of the meaning.
5. Elicit some examples of the structures in your situation from students.
6. Present the new language using an example sentence.

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The four stages in introducing a new grammatical input

1. Contextualizing
Revising any previously learned vocabulary or structures necessary for the new lesson.
Establishing the context by presenting the new language item in a situation, using a
number of examples.
2. Concept checking
Asking a few questions to check understanding. Short answers. Students are not
required to use the structure in their answers necessarily.
3. Eliciting
Eliciting examples of the largest structure in context. Getting the students to try to
produce the largest structure meaningfully.
4. Grammar focus
Getting students to repeat sample sentences to familiarize students with word order
and pronunciation. Focus on other difficulties of form and/or short, simple
grammatical explanation of meaning as necessary

Follow the CCEG (Contextualization, Concept checking, Elicitation and

Grammar Focus) acronym to recall the steps of the presentation of a new
language input.

Task 108: The four recommended stages in introducing new grammar

input

Go through the following grammar lesson and find /or indicate the parts of
the lesson that go with the concepts/stages of contextualization, concept
checking, elicitation and grammar focus or noticing. What do you
understand by each concept?

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Activity 1: Introducing comparatives using real students

T. Faud, Almaz and Tsegaye, please come to the front. Class, look at the heights of these
students. Do they all look the same or are they different?
S. Different.
T. That’s right. Faud is short, but Almaz and Tsegaye are…..
S. tall.
T. Yes. We can say Almaz and Tsegaye are taller than Faud. Almaz and Tsegaye are taller
than Faud. And we can say Tsegaye is taller than Almaz. Is Almaz taller than Tsegaye?
S. No.
T. All right. We can say Tsegaye is taller than Almaz. Can you see any other difference?
S. Faud is fat.
T. Yes. Faud is fat. Can we say that Almaz is fatter than Faud?
S. No
T. Can we say that Faud is fatter than Almaz?
S. Yes
T. Good. Faud is fatter than Almaz. And Faud is fatter than Tsegaye. Now who can tell us
about Almaz and Tsegaye. Are they both tall?
T. No. Tsegaye is taller than Almaz. What about Faud and ALmaz? Are they both fat?
S. No. Faud is fatter than Almaz.

(Taken from Atkins and et al. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 1)

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Activity 2: Introducing the use of “May and might” using limited context
I. Below there are lots of uses of the modal auxiliaries May and Might. Underline each
one and state what meaning each one has.
a) ‗We may go to Columbus, Ohio for our holidays.‘ John always said to people who
asked him about holidays. ‗But, we may not.‘ People were always confused.
b) Son. I‘d like to take Joanne to the beach today. May I borrow the car, mum?
Mother. You only passed your test two weeks ago…
Son. Well, I did pass it…
Mother. It‘s a long way to go. You might get tired. You haven‘t driven that far before.
Son. I won‘t. I‗ll drive carefully. Please…
Mother. Then don‘t be back late.
Son. Of course not- may I borrow the care then?
Mother. Yes….. You may
c) a. It‘s a good film.
b. Yes – and it‘ll be crowded- we may not get in.
a. We might, if we get there early.
b. But I want to finish this essay first- May I?
a. No, you may not – do that tomorrow. Let‘s go to see the film now.

II. Look at number I, above, again and replace may and might with other forms, such as
can and could, whatever possible.

III. What would you say in the following situations? Use the common expressions that
are familiar to you.
A) You had planned to go to a theatre with a friend. The friend telephones at the last
minute to say he can‘t come because he has to do some important work. You are very
disappointed.
B) Someone asks if it is true that a famous actor will be visiting the town. It is probably
true, but you are not interested.
(Slightly adapted from Woods and et al. (1992). Using Basic English Grammar: form
and Function.)

Activity 3: Introducing the use of conditional (impossible meaning) using

examples.

CONDITIONAL:
IMPOSIIBLE
Form
If you had $10, you could go.
If he were here, he would explain it.
HOW TO FORM IT

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If part Main part

If + past simple Past modal + main verb (stem without to)

If you had $10, you could go.

If he were here, he would explain it.
Warning box
With the past form of the verb be, were is usually used instead of was,
especially following I, he or she:

I. Complete the following sentences.

a) If John………….(be) in Venice, he could see the carnival now.
b) If it………………(rain), we…………..(go) to the cinema.
c) If you_______(have) a video, you could r3ecord the film.
d) If Anna hadn’t got married, she ______( enter) for the Miss World competition.
e) Is Sammy _______ (go) to the gym regularly, he would have won the Mr. Hot Bod
competition.
f) If you________ (have) and invitation, you could go to the party.
g) If you _________ (drive), we could hire a car for the holiday.
h) If you were younger, you________ (enjoy) rock music.
i) If Mavis_____(be) rich , she would travel by Concorde.
j) If it was a funny film, I _________ (go and see) it.
II. Match the clauses on the left with the appropriate clauses on the right.

If I was a rich man, You wouldn‘t go.

If Japan were nearer,
If you read ‗The Times‘,
If pigs could fly,
If the wind blew strongly,
I I crashed his car,
If he had millions of dollars,
If she had talent,
If she really loved you,
If you thought about it,
(Adapted from Woods and et al. (1992). Using Basic English Grammar: form
and Function.)
She‘d forgive you.
She‘d be a big star.
He‘d make a great film.
They would look very funny.
The windows would break.
My dad would be very angry.
You‘d be better informed.
I‘d go there more often.
I‘d help the poor.

Task 109: Matching structures with situations for presenting language

items in context

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Below are a number of structures that you might need to teach. Match them
with the different situations listed under A and B below. You may match
one structure with several situations, or one situation with several
structures.

A. Structures you might need to teach

 Pas perfect tense: ―after I had done X, I did Y‖

 Conditional sentences: ―if I had…. I would…‖ for imagined situations
 Comparatives and superlatives
 Too…… for … to … e.g. ―…too heavy for me to lift.‖
 Possessive pronouns, e.g. ―it‘s mine, yours, etc… mine is…‖
 Going to do something—for future plans
 Simple past of irregular verbs
 Conditional sentences:‖ if you…. You will/won‘t…‖
 ―Too much… too many… not enough…‖
 Present passive, e.g. ―X is caused by Y‖
 Imperatives: e.g. ―Go to the office!‖

B. Immediate classroom situations

1. Ages, heights and weights etc of various students

2. Writing on/ cleaning the blackboard; opening/ closing the door; standing
up/sitting down etc.
3. Trying to touch the ceiling… and other difficult actions.
4. Advising students to work hard, complete homework etc.
5. Showing pupils shoes or jackets or coats or other belongings
6. Giving orders to pupils

C. Imaginary or real life situations outside the classroom

1. Going shopping /returning from shopping

2. A sequence of events: one event happening after another
3. Dreaming about being given some money.
4. Describing your plans for your vegetable garden for next year
5. Giving street directions to your home, possibly with a map.
6. Describing a party you went to
7. Describing advantages/ disadvantages of various means of transport
8. Describing diseases
9. Describing a football match or other recent event of interest

Task 110: The notion of communicative grammar

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Read the ideas presented in the Box below and make your comments.
Which of the ideas are you in favour of? And why?

1. The main features of communicative grammar are accuracy, meaning plus form,
contextualization, and integration of the grammar item with other skills.
2. Grammar may be presented through concise definition, detailed description,
examples, context, demonstration, acting, mime, synonyms, antonyms, and
translation.
3. Grammar varies depending on meaning which may be of notional meaning,
propositional meaning, contextual meaning, and pragmatic meaning.

Task 111: Examples of communicative grammar activities/tasks to be

used in class

Study the communicative grammar activities presented below and discuss

the questions set in the Box on each activity presented.

1. What do you think is a communicative grammar activity or task?

2. What grammar element/s is the task planning to teach?
3. Does the task or activity use role plays, visual aids or games?
4. What do you think makes the activity communicative?
5. To what extent is the activity communicative?
6. Does the activity give sufficient context to help students practice the structure of the
language?
7. Can the activity be called more of accuracy focused or fluency focused?
8. Does the activity make a balance between accuracy and fluency?
9. Do you think the students would enjoy the activity or task?
10. At what grade level can the activity be used best?
11. Can the activity really help promote grammar acquisition in students?
12. How many stages does the presentation of the lesson have?
13. Can you describe the stages based on the previous task you have done in this section?

Activity 4: Introducing modals of obligation and permission using a short

paragraph or text)

Introducing modals of obligation and permission using a short paragraph or text)

(Students read the following paragraph in their book silently. Then the teacher reads it
aloud to them.)

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Your temperature has gone down now, so you are getting better. That‘s good! You
can eat whatever you like now, but you mustn‘t drink any alcohol yet. You must
wear plenty of warm clothes for at least the next three days because you must keep
warm. You can go out for short walks if you like, but you mustn‘t do anything
energetic.

T. Who do you think said these things?

S. Doctor.
T. Good. A doctor. To whom?
S. Sick person.
T. Yes, all right. To a sick person. Perhaps it is a lady. To a patient. …. Where?... where
did the doctor said these things?
S. Hospital or clinic.
T. Good. In a hospital or clinic. Now the doctor is telling the patient some of the things
she can do, some of the things she must do and some of the things she must not do. For
example the doctor says she can eat whatever she likes. Is there anything else she can do?
Can she go out for walks?
S. Yes.
T. Yes, she can go out for walks. Can she drink alcohol?
S. Drink alcohol...no.
T. Good. She must not drink alcohol. Is there anything else she must not do?
S. Energetic…. Do anything energetic.
T. Ok. She must not do anything energetic. Who can tell me one of the things the doctor
says she must do?
S. Keep warm.
T. That is right. She must keep warm. …. And she must….?
S. She must wear plenty of cloths.
T. Ok. So must she stay in bed?
S. No, she can go out for walks.
T. Good. What about eating? She must not eat anything. Is that right?
S. No, she can eat whatever she likes.
T. Ok. And she is allowed to drink alcohol now, isn‘t she?
S. No, she must not drink alcohol.
(Adapted from Atkins and et al. (1996). Skills Development Methodology Part 1)

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Activity 5: Teaching grammar in a wider context

Lesson: Grammar
Item: The present perfect continuous tense
Skill integrated: Reading
Procedures:
 Students will be asked to read the passage. The focus will be on 'meaning'.
 Students will be asked to respond to the questions in which the grammar item in
question is used.
 Grammatical explanation as to the “form” and “use of the language item will be
provided.
 Sentences from the passage will be used for illustration.
 Students will work on a controlled exercise
 Students will be given chance to express their own meaning using the language
item/half-guided activity.

Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.
When the weather is cold, it‘s not very much fun to wait for a bus. These people have
been standing on the corner for fifteen minutes. They have been watching the traffic,
looking for the bus, and hoping it will come soon. They have been talking about the bus,
complaining about the weather. Most of them feel cold. One smart man has been drinking
coffee to stay warm.
Traveling on buses decreases pollution, but people often would rather drive their cars.
Many people aren‘t used to the bus schedules, and they don‘t like to wait.
On the other hand, many people have been taking the bus every day for many years.
They‘re used to it. They say the bus has been coming on time every day, and they‘ve
never been late to work. In addition, they haven‘t needed a parking place in all that time.
Buses are very convenient when you‘re used to them.
Source: Wilox, P 1996. Changing Times changing Tenses Washington D.C U.S
information Agency.
Questions
1. How long have the people been standing on the corner?
2. What have they been doing? (Given five answers)
3. Why has one man been drinking coffee?
4. What are some good reasons for taking buses?
5. What are some reasons for driving cars?
6. What are some problems with buses?
7. What are some problems with cars?
Grammar focus
Form: Present perfect continuous tense is formed by using has/have + been + present
participle.
E.g. These people have been standing on the corner for fifteen minutes.
One smart man has been drinking coffee to stay warm.

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N.B. Other examples from the text will also be used

Use: This tense is used to express an action which began in the past and is still
continuing.
Past Now Future
X X X X X
Note: X indicates action
Note: Students should be made aware that this is only one of the uses of the present
perfect tense.

Conversation Practice
Pair work
Using an item from each box ask and answer questions.
Note: The teacher should demonstrate the activity with one student.
Example:
Speaker 1: What has the teacher been doing?
Speaker 2: He has been explaining about the use of the present perfect continuous tense.
A B
 ticking
 The teacher  waving their branches
 The students of this class  explaining about the use of the present
 The clock hanging in our classroom perfect continuous tense.
 The trees in the school  attending a class.
(Adapted from a grammar lesson Alem Abraha developed as a requirement of a Masters
course in TEFL programme, 2007)

Task 6: The advantages of pair and group work in a communicative classroom

A. List down what you think are the advantages and the disadvantages
of pair and group works in a communicative classroom, in teaching
for example, grammar lessons.

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Advantages Problems

1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4

B. Do you think that the following sitting arrangement of students is

helpful in a communicative classroom? Why? Is it possible for you in
secondary school classrooms to create interactive sitting
arrangements for your students? How?

Section Summary

Given the fact that many of our grammar lessons tend to be traditional or structure
focused, more communicative grammar instruction are necessary to fill in the gap. By
integrating grammar instruction and contexts of the grammatical forms, students are
expected to gain a better understanding of the forms and use them in communication
tasks. However, a question arises on how to integrate these: through other language
courses or a separate grammar course. Several educators argue that by integrating
grammar instruction into a communicative language course, it saves time because the
grammatical form taught will only be the one related to the task and it improves students‘
communicative competence as well as their accuracy.

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It is believed that EFL students, particularly those at the intermediate and advanced
levels, still require a separate functional/communicative grammar course to help them
gain a better understanding of grammatical forms so that they will be able to use them in
communication tasks with accuracy. This concept was stressed in the preceding section.
The next section deals with how to make corrections of errors and providing students
with feedback.

Section 1.3: Error Correction: Accuracy Versus Fluency

 Introduction

This section focuses on a systematic, step-by step approach to empower teachers of

English to analyze grammatical errors in secondary school students‘ writing. It draws on
students‘ essays for demonstrating practically observed problems in error correction. It
aims to provide a practical guide in developing teachers' skills in identifying and
classifying students' errors, and in explaining grammatical rules.

Ultimately, it is hoped teachers will be better able to help students understand their errors
in grammar and the grammar rules involved.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of learning this section, you will be able to:

1. recognize the main principles and theories in error correction and language
acquisition
2. Apply effective ways of making error corrections in student’s grammar

Lesson 1: Teacher and Student/Peer Feedback

Task 112: Error Correction

Before you read the notes presented below the Box discuss the questions
in pairs and report your answers to the class orally.

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1. What do you understand by the word ―error‖?

2. What do you understand by the word ―mistake‖?
3. What is the goal of error correction?
4. What is feedback?
5. When do we say that a teacher gives to students positive feedback or negative
feedback?
6. Do you think that your classmates‘ or peers‘ feedback is useful for your learning
grammar?
7. Have you ever made self corrections of your own grammatical errors? How?
8. When do we say that errors and mistakes occur?
9. Which skills of language are quite often associated with making errors and mistakes?

Negative feedback refers to implicit evidence about language rules provided through modeling
target structures, reformulation of incorrect structures (recasts), requests for repetition,
clarification (negotiation of meaning), etc

At all proficiency levels, learners produce language that is not exactly the language used by
native speakers. Some of the differences are grammatical, while others involve vocabulary
selection and mistakes in the selection of language appropriate for different contexts.

In responding to student communication, teachers need to be careful not to focus on error

correction to the detriment of communication and confidence building. Teachers need to let
students know when they are making errors so that they can work on improving. Teachers also
need to build students' confidence in their ability to use the language by focusing on the content
of their communication rather than the grammatical form.

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Always remember these pieces of advice!!

Teachers can use error correction to support language acquisition, and avoid using it in ways
that undermine students' desire to communicate in the language, by taking cues from context.

 When students are doing structured output activities that focus on development
of new language skills, use error correction to guide them.

Example:

Student (in class): I buy a new car yesterday.

Teacher: You bought a new car yesterday. Remember, the past tense of buy is bought.

 When students are engaged in communicative activities, correct errors only if

they interfere with comprehensibility. Respond using correct forms, but
without stressing them.

Example:

Student (greeting teacher): I buy a new car yesterday!

Teacher: You bought a new car? That's exciting! What kind?

Task 113: Correcting grammatical errors in students‟ essays

Read the following extract taken from a secondary school student‟s essay
(photocopied as it is) and make possible corrections of grammatical errors
on the essay. Classify the kinds of errors in terms of parts of speech in
grammar.

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The student‘s essay

Task 114: Further reflections on the student‟s essay above

Discuss the following questions in groups and report your answers in

writing to the whole class.

1. What do you think are the background causes for the student to have committed those
errors in grammar?
2. If you were to write a similar essay on the same topic, would you commit the same
number of errors? Why?
3. To what extent do you think the errors committed affect the message the student
wished to communicate in the essay?
4. How do you think can the teacher correct those errors and communicate the feedback
to the student? Can you advise the teacher on how to do it?
5. Do you think it is good to encourage the student to make corrections (discover) of his
errors by himself? Why?

Lesson 2: Techniques of Error Correction: Accuracy-based

Errors are indispensable to learners since the making of errors can be regarded as 'a
device the learner uses in order to learn' (Selinker 1992:150). Research has provided
empirical evidence pointing to emphasis on learners' errors as an effective means of
improving grammatical accuracy (White et al, 1991; Carroll and Swain, 1993; Trahey
and White, 1993).

Indeed, as Carter (1997:35) notes, 'Knowing more about how grammar works is to
understand more about how grammar is used and misused'. There is a need for students to
recognize the significance of errors which occur in their writing, to fully grasp and
understand the nature of the errors made. This requires English language teachers to be

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better equipped, more sensitive and aware of the difficulties students face with regard to
grammar.

Task 115: What is accuracy in grammar?

Read the following statements in the Box and discuss what they mean to
you about grammar (structural accuracy) and content of a given pieces of
writing or text.

1. When it comes down to the bones of a piece, it is the content that is primarily
important as it is the content and the story that drives the piece along at its suitable
pace.
2. A certain degree of grammatical correctness is needed in order for the piece to make
sense and work as a continual exercise.
3. For somebody writing for their own amusement and hobby I would say that the
content is more important than the grammar as nobody likes to sit their thinking about
whether their apostrophes are in the correct place.
4. For pieces of work that are being marked or judged (such as school assignments) I
would argue that grammar is possibly more important than content, purely because
you are often being marked or judged on your technical ability as a writer, not your
story telling prowess.
5. For pieces of work that are being considered for publication, it is undoubtedly the
content that is more important. The piece has to be able to grab people's attention and
create a money making product for it even to be considered. If that spark is there,
publishing houses will have people able to edit and address grammatical mistakes.
6. I think that grammar and content are a bit like chickens and eggs, you can never tell
which one is more important or which came first, but both are integral to the existence
on the other.

Accuracy in grammar usually refers to grammatical range and grammatical accuracy. The
main purpose of the correct use of grammar, punctuation and spelling is ensuring the
receiver that the information they read is accurate. Additionally to this when given a task
to do your employer expects you do it perfectly.

When a document has inaccuracies, readers tend to distrust everything, including the
statistics, opinions, and facts. This would be relayed back to your employer who would
themselves lose confidence in your ability. For progression in your company you need to
ensure you carry out all tasks are done to a certain standard.

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When you use correct grammar, you make it easier for people to understand your ideas.
Correct spelling helps people know what word you are using.

You might use the following check list to assess your students‘ grammatical accuracy.

Grammatical range
Simple, compound and complex sentences
* Did the student use a range of sentence structures?

* Did the student use a variety of conjunctions?

Grammatical accuracy
Verb tense
* Did the student use the correct tense?
Modal verbs
* Did the student use modal verbs appropriately?
Articles
* Did the student use correct articles?
Comparatives and superlatives
* Did the student use comparatives and superlatives correctly?
Conditionals
* Did the student use conditionals correctly?
* Are there any other grammar problems?

(Slightly adapted from the online teaching of grammar)

Task 116: An Approach for Error Identification and Analysis

Take the following 3-step approach (an approach that will enable you to
identify and analyze your students‟ errors) and analyze the errors you
might find in the sample secondary school student easy presented to you
below the checklist.

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Where is the problem? - Identification of error

Write out sentence containing the error. Underline/Highlight word/phrase/clause
which shows the error.

 Eg He are hungry.

Use caret ^ to indicate omissions (if any).

 Eg He hit ^ car (omission of article 'a').

2. What is the type of problem? - Definition and classification of error

a) State type of error
(eg Part of speech : eg Verb, Article, Noun, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition).

b) Classify error type

(eg Omission, Over-generalisation, Wrong combination).

 Eg. He are hungry.

Error identified Definition of error type Classification of error type

He are hungry. Verb Wrong combination of subject and verb.

3. How can you explain the problem? - Explanation of rule and exemplification
a) State the grammar rule which has been violated.
(eg. Singular subject 'He' must take a singular verb 'is'.)

b) Give correct form to show contrast with inappropriate/deviated form.

 He is hungry.

c) Give Examples Showing the Rule in Action

 She is tired.

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Sample essay for applying the above model of error correction

Sample essay photocopied

Section Summary

At all proficiency levels, learners produce language that is not exactly the language used
by native speakers. Some of the differences are grammatical, while others involve
vocabulary selection and mistakes in the selection of language appropriate for different
contexts.

In responding to student communication, teachers need to be careful not to focus on error

correction to the detriment of communication and confidence building. Teachers need to
let students know when they are making errors so that they can work on improving.
Teachers also need to build students' confidence in their ability to use the language by
focusing on the content of their communication rather than the grammatical form.

Teachers can use error correction to support language acquisition, and avoid using it in
ways that undermine students' desire to communicate in the language, by taking cues
from context.

Section 1.4: Analyzing, Developing and Micro-teaching Grammar

Lessons
 Introduction
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This section focuses on practical aspects of grammar teaching: materials analysis,

development and microteaching. It is indeed good to be very aware of the current theories
in the areas of grammar teaching but more important to be also conversant with skills
such as developing lessons for grammar for our students. This section provides you with
grammar lessons to analyze and gives you also the opportunity to develop your own
grammar lessons. Finally you will have a chance to micro-teach the grammar lessons you
developed for your peers.

Learning outcomes

At the end of learning this section, you will be able to:

1. develop effective grammar lessons; and
2. micro-teach grammar lessons in order to exhibit ways and develop confidence
to teach grammar in a communicative classroom.

Lesson 1: Analyzing/Evaluating Grammar Lessons

Task 117: Self evaluating grammar lessons: guidelines

In the Box below you can find a sort of guidelines for self evaluating your
own grammar lesson. Please discuss what each point in the guideline does
mean to you?

1. What were the strengths of this lesson?

2. Were you able to make a positive impact on student learning?
3. How effective were your formal and informal assessment procedures for the lesson?.
4. As a result of this lesson, which students will need extra help or accelerated learning?
5. What behavior management systems did you employ to keep the students focused on
learning?
6. How will you change or improve your teaching performance for the next lesson?

Task 118: Brainstorming/evaluation checklist/criteria

Study the following two lessons and answer the questions set in the Box
below.

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1. How are grammar items sequenced and presented in the lesson?

2. How are grammatical inputs integrated with contextual factors, such as social factors,
semantic factors, and discourse factors?
3. How is the grammar lesson integrated with other skills?
4. Are charts, dialogues, written and spoken texts used sufficiently for the presentation
of the grammar items?
5. Is a careful and economical use of terminology used to help learners cop up with the
grammar item being presented

Grammar Lesson 1

Grade 11 Time allotted: 30‘

Objectives:
At the end of this lesson the students will be able to:
1. produce at least five sentences about what they did in their summer vacation
2. identify the forms of the verbs in simple past and past continuous
3. tell the functions if the above tenses

Friends talking about their summer vacation

In the following dialogue, high school friends are talking about their summer vacation.
Practice the dialogue with your friend and do the exercises that follow it.

Ayele: How was the vacation? I mean how did you spend it?
Robera: Oh! I really had tiresome vacation. I did lots of things. I visited relatives. I
helped my father in the shop. I gave tutorial classes for my younger brothers. I
read fiction… How about you?
Ayele: I wasn‘t that much busy. I was watching films while my father was working on
the farm. I was reading news paper while my friends were giving tutorial classes…
Robera: I see. By the way, what were you doing when you heard about your
matriculation result?
Ayele: I was working on the farm together with my dad when I heard the news. How
about you?
Robera: I was chewing chat when my sister rushed in to tell me my result. How about
You, Semira?
Semira: I was going to cinema when my dad telephoned me about my result. It was
really unforgettable moment for me. My sister hugged and kissed me.
Ayele: What were you doing the whole day the day you heard about your result?
Semira: I was calling my friends and my relatives the whole day.
Robera: I was wandering here and there together with my friends. We
were drinking tea in almost all the nearby cafeterias that day.

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Exercise 1
What did Robera do during his summer vacation?
What was Ayele doing when he heard about his matriculation result? How about Robera
and Semira?
Write at least four sentences about what you did during last summer vacation and tell to
your friends.
Tell what you were doing when you heard about your result.

Exercise 2
1. List down the verbs in the above dialogue and in the sentences you have produced.
a) did, was, visited, helped, gave
b) was watching, was working
2. What kinds of actions do the verbs in the two groups above help to express? What
grammatical names do we give them?
Exercise 3
Complete the following sentences by using the correct form of the verbs in the
parentheses. Use either the simple past or past continuous forms.

1. The students ________________(shout) when the teacher ____________(enter) the

Classrooms.
2. Roman _____________ (visit) Abba Jifar Palace last summer.
3. I ______________(read) fiction while my brother _______________(play) basket ball
last Sunday.
My family ____________ (come) to Addis when I _________(is) six.
The rain ___________ (start) to rain while the farmers ___________ (harvest) their
crops.
Note for the teacher
In this lesson the students are expected to identify the function and forms of the verbs in
simple past tense and past continuous tense. So the teacher is expected to help the
students practice the dialogue in groups of three. Then tell the students to group the verbs
in thee dialogue and in the sentences the students themselves produced in to two
categories as indicated in the example. Then explain the different functions of the verbs
in the past and past continuous tenses.
Past tense is used to express
Activities done at specific time in the past
E.g. I visited Dinsho National park when I was high school student.
An activity which is done right after another activity in the past
e.g. I telephoned my father as soon as I had heard about my matriculation result.
2. Past continuous tense is used to express:
a) Two parallel actions that took place simultaneously in the past
E.g. I was washing clothe while my sister was cooking in the kitchen.
b) An activity which took place for some time in the past before it is interrupted by
Another action.
E.g. I was reading fiction when my sister told me about my matriculation result.
The teacher is also expected to give feedback on the students‘ exercises

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Exercise 2
1. a) did, was, visited, helped, gave… (Simple past forms)
b) was watching, was working…(past continuous forms
2. Look at the shorn notes above
Exercise 3
Were shouting... entered
Visited
Was reading… was playing
Came … was
Started… were harvesting

Grammar Lesson 2

Task 119: Further reflections on the above grammar lessons

Study again the above grammar lesson and discuss the following
questions about each lesson presented.

1. Was the presentation interesting and memorable?

2. Did it make the meaning clear? (I.e. was the context clear?)
3. Were the sentences simple enough for a high school class?
4. Was the presentation short enough? ( 5 minutes approximately)
5. Did the teacher ask questions check whether the students understood the new
language?
6. Did the teacher present the new language in a natural way?
7. Did the teacher use lots of examples of the item in the presentation?
8. Did the teacher ask questions to check whether the students understood the new
language?
9. Did the teacher involve students in trying to use the new language by eliciting some
example from them/
10. Do you think the presentation could lead students to make lots of other sentences
using the item later in the lesson?
11. Could this presentation be successfully used in a town school? In a rural school?
12. Was there anything else you liked about the presentation?
13. Were there any things you didn‘t like/ can you see any disadvantages to this kind of
presentation?

Lesson 2: Developing Grammar Lesson

Task 120: Basic guidelines/principles

Discuss the following questions.

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1. What procedures might you use to teach the grammar content of a curriculum that
introduces specified grammatical forms in sequence?
2. What procedures might you use to teach the grammar content of a curriculum that
introduces specified topics or notions?

Many courses and textbooks, especially those designed for lower proficiency levels, use a
specified sequence of grammatical topics as their organizing principle. When this is the
case, classroom activities need to reflect the grammar point that is being introduced or
reviewed. By contrast, when a course curriculum follows a topic sequence, grammar
points can be addressed as they come up.

In both cases, instructors can use the Larsen-Freeman pie chart as a guide for developing
activities.

For curricula that introduce grammatical forms in a specified sequence, instructors need
to develop activities that relate form to meaning and use.

 Describe the grammar point, including form, meaning, and use, and give
examples (structured input)
 Ask students to practice the grammar point in communicative drills (structured
output)
 Have students do a communicative task that provides opportunities to use the
grammar point (communicative output)

For curricula that follow a sequence of topics, instructors need to develop activities that
relate the topical discourse (use) to meaning and form.

 Provide oral or written input (audiotape, reading selection) that addresses the
topic (structured input)
 Review the point of grammar, using examples from the material (structured input)
 Ask students to practice the grammar point in communicative drills that focus on
the topic (structured output)
 Have students do a communicative task on the topic (communicative output)
 When instructors have the opportunity to develop part or the entire course curriculum,
they can develop a series of contexts based on the real world tasks that students will need
to perform using the language, and then teach grammar and vocabulary in relation to
those contexts.
 For example, students who plan to travel will need to understand public address
announcements in airports and train stations. Instructors can use audio-taped simulations
to provide input; teach the grammatical forms that typically occur in such
announcements; and then have students practice by asking and answering questions about
what was announced.

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Task 121: Using a checklist and grammar brief to develop/design a

grammar lesson

Choose one of the following grammar items and prepare a grammar lesson
of about 30 minutes for grade 11 students.

 Comparative degrees
 Conditional sentences: unrealistic condition
 Modal auxiliaries: may/might

The lesson you prepare is expected to highlight the following desirable qualities of a
grammar lesson

1. Communicativeness
2. Meaning-focused
3. Well-contextualized
4. Leading from fluency to accuracy in its presentation
5. Simple in technical terminologies
6. Focused in terms of grammar item in question
7. Incorporating self-check evaluation questions or activities
8. Brief/short
9. Preferably integrating other skills as well

Task 122: Some useful instruction for designing grammar lessons/lesson

plans
1. Set goals for your lesson. Decide what element of grammar the lesson will
cover and set several objectives for your students to accomplish during
the lesson. Consider what your students already know about grammar
when writing your goals and objectives.
2. Write an introduction for the grammar lesson. Your introduction must
show your ESL students why the grammar skills you are teaching are
important for them to master. Include examples of the specific grammar
element being used correctly.
3. Begin your lesson plan by including a few minutes when you will model
the correct use of the grammar skill you will be teaching. Give several
written and spoken examples for your students.

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4. Create activities your students can complete to learn the grammar skill you
are teaching. Try to use activities that will work with a variety of learning
styles.
5. Include time for your students to practice the grammar skill you will be
teaching. Divide them into pairs to practice using the skill verbally. Let
them practice the skill in writing, too.
Task 123: Getting ready to micro-teach any grammar lesson

Unit Summary
Teaching grammar plays a central role in every ESL / EFL teacher's classroom. The
important question that needs to be answered is: how do I teach grammar? In other
words, how do I help students learn the grammar they need. This question is deceptively
easy. At first look, you might think that teaching grammar is just a matter of explaining
grammar rules to students.

However, teaching grammar effectively is a much more complicated matter. There are a
number of questions that first need to be addressed for each class. This unit has
sufficiently dealt with many of these questions. The Unit has also tried to relate grammar
teaching to day to day communications. The communicative way of teaching grammar
was thus stressed.
.
Reading Materials for the Unit
Atkins & et.al. 1995. Skills Development Methodology Part I/II. Department of Foreign
Languages and Literature, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa.
Harmer. J. 1998. How to Teach English. Longman
Harmer, J. 1987.Teaching and Learning Grammar. Longman
Harmer. J. 1991. The Practice of English language Teaching. Longman.
Edward Woods& Nicole McLeod. 1992. Using Basic English Grammar: Form and
Function. Prentice Hall International (UK).

Rutherford, W. 1987. Second language Grammar: learning and Teaching.

Longman

Unit Self-Assessment Questions

Dear student!

You have studied the last unit in this Module. Below there are some of the
most important points drawn from the Unit you have been studying. Please
put a tick (  ) mark in front of the point you have understood well in the

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box under “Yes” and (  ) in the box under “No” for points you have not
understood well yet.

And if the (  ) marks are more than those (  ), it means you are left with a
lot to understand the unit and you have not yet achieved the objectives
indicated at the beginning of the unit. This tells you to go back and read the
unit you passed through.

I Can Yes No
Identify the notion of grammar in different contexts
Understand the goals of grammar teaching in secondary schools
Determine how to sleekest effective approaches and strategies for the
teaching of grammar in schools
Develop an effective grammar lesson based on the context of my own
classrooms
Conduct a grammar micro-teaching under the communicative context of
grammar teaching
Identify the notion of grammar in different contexts

Task: 124: Conceptual questions

Answer the following questions in short notes of one paragraph for each. If
you doubt some of your answers please refer back to the unit or the
reference books given in the unit.

1. Explain the difference between accuracy and fluency

2. What is the main difference between the traditional and the communicative ways of
teaching grammar?
3. Give some classroom techniques for teaching grammar communicatively to secondary
school students.
4. Explain the difference between errors and mistakes?
5. What should be the aim of teaching grammar skills for secondary school students?

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Module Summary

Dear student!

In this Module you have studies how to teach reading skills, listening skills and grammar
language inputs. Prior to your studying how to teach those skills, you have also studied the
background of the development of English language teaching in unit one. I expect that you
have very well understood the points discussed and the effective teaching strategies
recommended for you to use in secondary schools in your teaching.

To help you further consolidate the salient issues raised in this module I have tried to
summarize below the key points discussed in all the units of this Module.

I hope you have enjoyed this Module! And get ready to continue with the second module
of the course.

The following points were the key points discussed in detail in this module‖

 The rise of English language as a lingua franca, as a language of a wider communication at

global scale.
 The importance of understanding characteristics of a profession and the fact that Teaching
English as a foreign language has recently become an established profession.‘
 The goals of teaching English as a foreign language
 The rising importance English language is assuming in Ethiopian community and
especially in higher education sector
 The characteristics of language acquisition and language learning and their similarities and
differences
 The importance for a secondary school English language teacher to identify the English
;language learning styles and strategies of his/her students to make appropriate selection of
teaching strategies
 The availability of a number of language teaching approaches and methods for a teacher to
choose from
 The fact that there cannot be always one best teaching approaches or strategy for teaching
English language
 The increasing importance the communicative language teaching (CLT) has gained in
teaching English as a foreign language
 The importance of realizing that there are a number of reading purposes and the fact that
our selection of reading strategies varies based on our reading purpose
 The definition of context and the role of background knowledge in reading comprehension
and the ways we might use to help learners apply background knowledge in their reading
activities
 The distinction between academic and non-academic reading and the concepts of intensive
and extensive reading
 The use of pre-,while, and post reading activities to improve students reading skills
 The meaning of active listening and the ways that might be used to promote active
listening strategies in learners of secondary schools
 The goals of teaching grammar in Ethiopian secondary schools.

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 The effectiveness of teaching grammar in the context of communicative teaching of

grammar
 The use of effective strategies in teaching grammatical accuracy and fluency and how to
make error corrections.

Bibliography
Wallace, Catherine. 1992. Reading. OUP:Hong Kong
Suarez, C. etal.1998. Reading Tasks. Longman: Singapore
Pye, Diana and Simon Greenall. 1993. Reading (1,2,3,4). CUP: Great Britain
Smith, Frank. 1988. Reading. CUP: Cambridge
Nuttal, Christine.1989, 1996. Teaching reading Skills in a ForeignLanguage.
Heineman. Int.: Oxford
Grellet, Fracoise.1983. Developing reading Skills. CUP: Cambridge
Postcards word search (January,2004) English Language Forum
Postcards from America(January,2004) English Language Forum
Joseph B. 1981. English Language Arts. Amsco School Publications, Inc

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