Assessment for learning

Grammar and Assessment for TESOL

Experiential learning

• Look at the File in Brightspace called ‘Conversations in a

Travel Agent’s’
• Put the sentences in the correct order.
Experiential learning

• Use the file marked ‘Key’ to check your answers.

• Variations
• See if any students can memorise the conversation and
perform it in the group.
• Invite students to make up similar conversations in a Travel
Agent's using the task sheet as an example.
• Introduce a problem: the recommended holiday is too
expensive; the customer wants some extra services etc
• Introduce the possibility of the customer returning or
telephoning the next day to make some changes. The
students are then free to prepare or improvise another
related conversation.
• Introduce a third person to accompany the customer and
have them agree or disagree.
• Make a video and upload it to YouTube.
Experiential learning

• What was the focus of the lesson?

• How did you know how to put the sentences together?
Aims

• Consider discourse
• Consider how discourse relates to English Language
teaching
Discourse

• Discourse is one of the four systems of language, the

others being vocabulary, grammar and phonology.
• Discourse can be thought of as any piece of extended
language, written or spoken, that has unity and meaning
and purpose. One possible way of understanding
'extended' is as language that is more than one
sentence.
Discourse

• Areas of written and spoken discourse looked at in

language classrooms include various features of
cohesion and coherence, discourse markers,
paralinguistic features (body language), conventions and
ways of taking turns.
Discourse

• Language functions – purpose you wish to achieve when

you say or write something.
• E.g. ‘I apologise’
• E.g. ‘D’you fancy coming round for a meal?’
• Many functional exponents (patterns or phrases) are
lexical phrases.
Functions

• List as many different functions as you can think of.

• Why could it be important to teach learners language
functions?
Discourse

• Cohesion
• Coherence
• Conversational discourse
• What do these terms refer to?
Discourse

• Cohesion – how we connect ideas and sentences

together.
• Lexical cohesion – using words and groups of words
throughout a text to bind a topic together.
• Grammatical cohesion – uses pronouns, articles, tense
agreement, among other devices, for the same purpose.
Discourse

• Coherence – when a text has internal logic.

• She opened it and took a large spoonful. She held up the
tin. Ignoring the children’s shocked faces, she put the
spoon into her mouth. It was marked ‘Dog food’.
• What does ‘it’ refer to in this sentence?
Conversational discourse

• Turn-taking.
• Avoid long silences.
• Listen when someone else is speaking.
• Discourse markers e.g. ‘Yes, but…’ ‘uh uh.’
Add an example of each

As I was Saying… (to bring the conversation back to a former

point)
Anyway… (to move on to another point or to close a
conversation)
Here’s the thing/The thing is… (to raise an important issue)
I’m glad you brought that up because… (to add onto a point
just raised)
At the end of the day... (to conclude an argument)
Written discourse markers

• On the other hand… (to move to an opposing viewpoint).

• In the case of… (to introduce an example).
• In addition to… (to raise a new point or example).
• From another perspective… (to introduce an opposing or
different viewpoint).
• In the final analysis…. (to conclude).
Ways to teach discourse

• Raise awareness.
• Have students look for discourse markers in readings.
• Have students match discourse markers to their
meanings.
• Delete markers from extended prose. Have students
make substitutions.
• Jumbled words.
Ways to teach discourse

• Give out a list.

• Write some dialogue.
• Perform the dialogue.
• Assign writing with markers.
• Have students edit each other’s work.
Discourse markers

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the ideas for

teaching discourse markers listed above?
Discourse-based teaching

• Discourse-based teaching can be used to teach English.

• Discuss what you would expect to be the key features of
this approach.
Discourse

• https://www.tefl.net/elt/articles/teacher/discourse-based-t
eaching/
• Read this article about discourse-based teaching and
find out which of your ideas were correct.
Discourse

• Read the text again.

• Which of the listed advantages do you think is the most
important?
References

• Harmer, J (2010) How to teach English, Pearson

Longman. Harlow, Essex