The process approach:

Understands the teaching of listening, speaking, reading, writing as complex cognitively and non-linear

Views language learning in terms of inter connected steps/stages

Considers all the language skills and sub-skills as integrated

Favours communicative interaction

Makes use of different strategies/activities that are categorised in pre-, while- and post- stages

Listening and Speaking

Receptive and Productive Skill

Crucial for Language development

Challenges faced by EFL learners

Ways to overcome these challenges

Importance of vocabulary and grammar

Scaffolding and Feedback

LISTENING

Teaching listening using the process approach

Pre- While- Post-

Brainstorming ‘Listening for gist’ tasks Sharing of opinions

Discussion on topic ‘Listening for Specific information’ tasks

Working out another ending

Discussion on title/pictures ‘Listening to check predictions’ tasks

Drawing

Pre-teaching of Vocabulary Inferential listening tasks Discussions/Debates

Predicting Information Poster

Reading on the topic Grammar tasks

Question 1

Think of a story for a listening task at Standard 4 level and suggest appropriate pre-, while- and post-listening activities

Introduction

Developing students’ listening skills is fundamental to their progress in acquiring the language. In the same way, giving them opportunity to develop their fluency, to try things out in the language without fear, to make mistakes and learn from them, is very important. However, listening classes are often difficult and even boring for students because the listening piece itself is not interesting for them or, because teachers expect them to hear everything and answer lots of questions. It becomes stressful, instead of enjoyable. In order not to face this difficulty teachers need to recreate the motivation that engages all the students in the topic and really make them want to listen.

Pre-Listening

Pre-listening activities play a very important role in helping students to learn how to listen in the foreign language. They help teachers find out about what students already know about the topic, and the prepare for the vocabulary and language structures in the text. Pre-listening activities also help students prepare for what they are going to hear, and helps mitigate the anxiety which comes from listening in a foreign language, by providing a clear context. Moreover, pre-listening activities can offer opportunities for class discussion and more interaction among students.

Activity 1 : Brainstorming and discussion on topic

Show eye-catching images, maps, or diagrams to help students guess the theme(s) of the listening text.

Give students the topic of the listening and elicit words from them. With students’ help draw semantic webs on the board with the words, focusing on the relationships between the words, the topic, and sub-topics that might come up in the listening.

Activity 2 : Teach Vocabulary

Pre-learning vocabulary

When we listen in our first language we can usually concentrate on the overall meaning because we know the meaning of the vocabulary. For students, large numbers of unknown words will often hinder listening, and certainly lower confidence. Select some vocabulary for the students to study before listening, perhaps matching words to definitions, followed by a simple practice activity such as filling the gaps in sentences.

While listening

Activity 1 : Listening for the gist

It is very important to give students practice in this area, because in real-life, they will not be able to listen to something several times. Therefore, it will be impossible for them to catch all the details, so they need to be comfortable with some ambiguity in listening and realize that they can still learn even when they do not understand every single word. Listening for the gist is similar to the concept of skimming a passage in reading. The key is to ask students one or two questions that focus on the main idea or the tone or mood of the whole passage. Notice that students can answer the gist questions even though they do not understand every word or phrase in the passage. If the passage is recorded well, students will be able to guess the answer simply from the tone of voices of the speakers.

Activity 2 : Listen and act

There is a whole method of teaching called Total Physical Response, which concentrates on learning language by listening and responding physically to commands or directions. There are many variations of how this can be carried out in a classroom. With beginners, it is easy to start with simple commands such as “Stand up.” “Sit down.” “Walk to the door.” “Open the door.” “Close the door.” “Point to the window.” “Hold up your pencil box.” “Put your left hand on your head.” “Put your right hand on your left ear.” etc. At intermediate levels, the commands can become more complex. For example, “Pretend you're walking through mud.” “Pretend you're walking through sand.” “Pretend you're washing your face.” “Pretend you're tying your shoes.” “Pretend you're eating watermelon.”

Activity 3 : Listen and draw

This is similar to acting out physically, but in this type, the students are drawing pictures, diagrams, etc. on paper. This type of activity works very well as an information gap activity between pairs of students. One student draws a simple picture and then tells his/her partner how to draw it. Neither partner can look at each other's drawing during the task. After they have completed the task, they can compare their pictures to see how similar they are. Usually, this produces amusing variations. One way to simplify the task is to work only with geometric shapes. Of course, the vocabulary would need to be pre-taught if the students do not know it.

Post – reading

The post-listening stage is where the teacher can determine how well the students have understood what they listened to, but it is important to design the tasks well. One important point to keep in mind is whether we are testing the students' listening comprehension or their memory as we mentioned in the “Principles for teaching listening” section. If the listening text is too long or complicated, students can forget what they have heard even in their native language. It is also possible for our students to remember and repeat things they heard, even if they did not understand them. But, it is more common for people to understand more than they can remember. Even in our own language, we remember the

gist of the conversation, but we cannot remember exactly what words were said. In fact, in real life, it is more natural to select and interpret what we hear rather than repeat everything we have heard.

Activity 1 : Multiple choice questions

The most typical type of post-listening task is the multiple-choice comprehension question. While this type of task may prepare students to take traditional multiple-choice tests, it does little to help them develop good listening habits and strategies. The teacher needs to decide what balance is best for the students, preparing them for traditional multiple-choice tests or preparing them to function in English in the real world.

Activity 2 : Open ended questions

Instead of multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions can be asked. Some types might lend themselves nicely to discussion in small groups. The answers to some questions can be found in the passage, but other types of questions might be asking about the attitude of the speaker. Was the person angry, upset, happy, excited? Another type of question is an inference question, where the answer is not stated explicitly, but can only be inferred from the text.

Activity 3 :Note taking and gap filling

This is a good example of how while-listening and post-listening are combined. First the students listen to a fairly long text (depending on the level). The students take notes while they are listening. When the listening is finished, the students are given two or three minutes to tidy up the notes. Then the teacher gives the students an incomplete summary of the text that the students have listened to. The students complete the summary based on their notes. They do not have to use the original words from the text. This is a good activity where students reconstruct meaning from what they hear.

Activity 4: Dictogloss

Dictogloss is a recently discovered listening activity, which requires the use of comprehensive listening skills. It has four stages:1) Preparation. The teacher prepares the students by briefly talking about the topic and key words

or asking general questions about the text they are going to hear. The teacher should also make sure students know what to do exactly.

2) Dictation. The teacher dictates the text twice. For the first time, students just listen and focus on the meaning. For the second time, the students take extensive notes. The teacher should make sure that the dictation speed is almost at the speed of normal speech.

3) Reconstruction. Based on their notes, the students work in pairs or groups and reconstruct the text they have heard.

4) Analysis and correction. The students compare their version of the text with the original, sentence by sentence.

4. Justification of the use of activities

The advantage of doing these types of listening activities is that it personalizes the lesson so the students are more interested in listening, especially if a game element is involved where the class can be divided into teams. Competition inevitably increases the students' motivation. This type of activity also integrates listening with the other skills, especially speaking, but also some limited writing; therefore it helps prepare students for listening situations in real life where often several skills need to be used simultaneously.

SPEAKING

Teaching speaking using the process approach

Pre- While- Post-

Pre-teach Vocabulary Extension activities

Introduce the target language Structure/ modelling

Pair talk/group discussion Writing

Listening to an audio item Games to practise language structure Discussion on Performance

Clip viewing

Storytelling Role-playing/simulation

Reading and researching Writing and practising Dialogues /conversations /speeches/monologues

Storytelling/debates/ speech delivery

Question 3

Think about a scene in a story that standard 5 pupils can enact and suggest pre-, while- and post-speaking activities for the role-play.

1. Pre-speaking

Pre-storytelling activities are important because they introduce the topic, they motivate the students to

read or listen to a story, they provoke initial interest in the topic, students start to think about it, they

prepare their minds and show what they know about it. These activities help teacher anticipate

problems in terms of language and concepts and give space to pre-teach complicated language.

Activity 1 Clip viewing

Adopting videos for language skill practice, teachers certainly need to consider effective teaching techniques to apply. This study, therefore, suggests techniques to use videos as language input for

EFL speaking classes. First of all, visual, verbal, and contextual clues in the media make up rich modality of learning that could facilitate activation of students’ background knowledge during pre-activity. Furthermore, as an input prior to the skill production, language elements such as grammar, language functions, or vocabularies could be emphasized for the students to notice.

Activity 2 Pre-teach vocabulary

One of the most effective methods of helping children learn new vocabulary words is to teach unfamiliar words used in a text prior to the reading experience. Adults (either alone or with the child(ren)) should preview reading materials to determine which words are unfamiliar. Then these words should be defined and discussed. It is important for the adult to not only tell the child(ren) what the word means, but also to discuss its meaning. This allows the child(ren) to develop an understanding of the word’s connotations as well as its denotation. Also, discussion provides the adult with feedback about how well the child(ren) understands the word.

Hangman This is another children’s game that can be adapted for speaking and vocabulary. Most kids know this game, which needs little introduction, but for those who may have forgotten their childhood pastimes.

While Speaking

Activity 1 – Role Play

In role-play activities, students are assigned different roles which they may have outside the classroom environment, in real life. These are in some way an imitation of real life situations. Students are expected to use appropriate language according to the context in which role-play takes place. Before the activity starts, the teacher must clearly explain the situation to the learners so they know what specific events are supposed to happen in the activity. Then explain the goal of role-play, that is what the product of the activity will be. After that, each student is cast in his/her role to brainstorming is required in order to form a background knowledge of the probable vocabulary, grammar, and idioms used in the activity. All these things are done taking into consideration the level of learners.

Activity 2 - Storytelling / debates / Speech delivery

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters

and setting a story has to have. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as an opening. In this way, not only will the teacher address students’ speaking ability, but also get the attention of the class.

Post Speaking Activity

Extension activities / writing / Discussions on performance

Post-speaking activities a rethinking process is at work. The learners are encouraged to reflect on the activities which were just done and on their own performance, bring language they have acquired into more focus, further focus on the ideas they have just come up with, and produce spoken language integrated with the other skills, that is not merely oral production, but a combination of two or more skills simultaneously. They aim to promote critical thinking in learners which paves the more language development.

Justification of activities

Use of Audio Visual

READING

Understanding reading competencies

- Linguistic competence

- Discourse competence

- Sociolinguistic competence

- Strategic competence

Aims of teaching reading

- Reading for Fluency

- Reading for Specific Information

- Reading for Comprehension/understanding

- Reading for Specific Purposes

- Reading using different strategies to develop different reading styles

- Reading for Pleasure

Teaching Reading using the process approach

Pre While Post

Brainstorming Reading for gist tasks Writing/rewriting tasks

Previewing parts of text Reading for specific information tasks

Speaking tasks

Predicting Read/fill graphic organizers Creative tasks

Discussion Using realia, picture, anecdotes

Read to check predictions Vocabulary tasks

Pre-teach vocabulary Grammar tasks

ACTIVITY 4 – SUGGEST:

- One Reading task to obtain the gist of a leaflet.

- One Reading task to obtain specific information from a leaflet.

- One Creative task to be done after reading a leaflet.

1. Pre-reading

Activity 1 Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an activity used to generate ideas in small groups. The purpose is to generate as many ideas as possible within a specified time-period. These ideas are not evaluated until the end and a wide range of ideas is often produced. Each idea produced does not need to be usable. Instead, initial ideas can be be viewed as a starting point for more workable ideas. The principle of brainstorming is that you need lots of ideas to get good ideas.

Activity 2 Introduce Unfamiliar Vocabulary

Vocabulary deficiencies are often associated with difficulty in comprehending. Before children can comprehend what they are reading, they must know what the individual words mean, particularly words basic to the meaning of the reading passage. To eliminate vocabulary difficulties, help students understand unfamiliar words before they read them. Teachers should search the reading selection for words likely to give trouble. These words can be written on the chalkboard, pointed out in the reading selection, and then explained. After explaining what the words mean, the teacher can give additional help by reading sentences in which the student will encounter the words. In some cases, it may be necessary to go a step further and have students use the words in other ways, such as making up sentences using key words, breaking words into meaningful parts, creating new words based on inflectional endings, affixes and roots, or simply keeping a word bank of key vocabulary.

While-Reading Activity

Gist Task

There are 2 types of reading that you want the students to practise .....

skimming - to get the general idea of the text (reading for gist) scanning - to get specific information from the text (reading for detail)

The first time the students read a text, they will be doing it for gist. Before they start reading, do the following:

give the students 2 or 3 general questions which will check their overall comprehension of the

text

give them a specific timescale, so they know that they have to read it fairly quickly without

stopping to check the detail

give them the text ONLY when they have to read it, otherwise they will start to read it while you

are talking to them

some possible questions can include ..... the students drawing illustrations of the story, the

teacher preparing illustrations which the students have to put in the correct order, choosing an

appropriate title, choosing the correct summary, simply answering straight forward questions

First Reading

The students need to read through the text in the allocated time given. As an alternative to getting the students to read through the text, you can do the following:

read the text to them (this will help mix up the skills in the lesson by adding listening)

give the students the text, but leave out every 10th word (or 9th, or 8th, depending which works better - make sure it's not too difficult), which the students have to fill in as they go along. Obviously check they have the correct answers before getting them to read the text for the second time.

Reading for Detail

The students now need to read the text for a second time, but this time looking for more specific detail and information. Give the students the questions in written form (either written on a hand out, or written on the board). Once again, give them a specific timescale, which should be longer this time. Questions can come in the following form:

normal questions

true/false questions multiple choice questions cut up the article and get the students to put it back in the correct order (if you want to do this,

you have to leave out the gist reading) information share - give different parts of the article to different students, and get them to

feedback the information they have (for this one you also have to leave out gist reading) giving titles to each paragraph of the text, or matching headings to the paragraphs

For more advanced classes, you can also get them to underline some of the words that they don't know as they read through it again. You can then go through these words with them once you have completed the reading task - however, don't feel obliged to go through ALL the words if there are too many. You can restrict the number by telling the students they can each ask about one word, or two or three (depending on the size of the class).

Second Reading

The students read through the text again in the time allocated.

Feedback

Get feedback from the class the same way as before. how to te

Post – Reading activity

Speaking Activity

After the reading, it's a fine idea to give the students some form of activity to do, which is directly linked to the text. Here are some ideas:

personalisation - the students have to discuss their own experiences relative to the article e.g. when talking about Emotional Intelligence, the students have to quiz and assess each other

roleplay - the students have to act out scenarios which could have happened in the text, or as a result of the text e.g. if discussing Cheap Travel, the students have to roleplay a trip to a Travel Agent

discussion/debate - get the students to resolve problems presented in the text e.g. if discussing pollution in the sea, what are their long term proposals to eradicate the problem

Extension Task

The text can also be used as a springboard for further activities apart from reading and speaking:

go through more vocabulary from the text (but don't overwhelm the students with too many words)

give the students words which they need to collocate with the new vocabulary (you can get some ideas at www.just-the-word.com, orwww.prowritingaid.com). You as the teacher can give them the collocations (give the collocations randomly, and the students have to match them to the correct word), or for homework, the students have to find collocations

teach the students new idioms with a words/themes that are somehow linked to the article grammar - get the students to identify a praticular grammar point in the text, which you then use

to teach/revise/review a grammar point writing - the students need to write a letter as a response to the text, or summarise the text in

their own words, possibly write a conclusion to the text, they could write a story using their new vocabulary and idioms etc etc

pronunciation - get the students to read portions of the text out loud

for homework the students can do further research on a particular topic e.g. they have to choose a current movie to go and watch with theirr 12 year old cousin, or choose a last minute holiday deal to go on with their friends. If you do this, give the students specific websites to search on, so they don't waste too much time using the search engines.

Justification of the use of activities

WRITING

Teaching Writing

Specificities of writing as a communicative skill

Teaching Spelling

Importance of knowing Writing Conventions

Developmental Stages in Writing (emergent, beginning, developing, fluent)

Product v/s process approach

Writing Stages in the Process Approach

- Generate ideas that are relevant to the topic and purpose of writing

- Organise the points in a coherent manner

- Produce a draft

- Review the draft in order to ensure that the message is being conveyed in an effective manner

- Edit and proofread

Understanding writing: Process and integration of skills

Pre-writing

• - Brainstorming

• - Picture discussion

• - Vocabulary support

• - Grammar support

• - Video viewing

• - Reading

Activity 1 Group Brainstorming

Brainstorming, also called listing, is a process of generating a lot of information within a short time by building on the association of previous terms you have mentioned.

Jot down all the possible terms that emerge from the general topic you are thinking about. This procedure works especially well if you work in a team. All team members can generate ideas, with one member acting as scribe. Don't worry about editing or throwing out what might not be a good idea. Simply write down a lot of possibilities.

Group the items that you have listed according to arrangements that make sense to you. Give each group a label. Now you have a topic with possible points of development. Write a sentence about the label you have given the group of ideas.

Clustering

Clustering is also called mind mapping or idea mapping. It is a strategy that allows you to explore the relationships between ideas.

Put the subject in the center of a page. Circle or underline it. As you think of other ideas, link the new ideas to the central circle with lines. As you think of ideas that relate to the new ideas, add to those in the same way.

The result will look like a web on your page. Locate clusters of interest to you, and use the terms you attached to the key ideas as departure points for your paper.

Clustering is especially useful in determining the relationship between ideas. You will be able to distinguish how the ideas fit together, especially where there is an abundance of ideas. Clustering your ideas lets you see them visually in a different way, so that you can more readily understand possible directions your paper may take.

Activity 2 Picture Discussion in groups / vocabulary support

Guided brainstorming. The teacher shows the class a printed picture and guides a brainstorming session about what is happening in the picture. The teacher records several of the ideas on the board. Group brainstorming activity. Students receive a printed picture to start their brainstorming session. In groups of 4 students look at the picture and discuss ideas for a story. Each person in the group must write down one idea on a shared paper used for brainstorming. After five minutes the teacher writes some of the class examples on the board. Asks several groups how they generated story ideas.

While-Writing

• - Pair writing

• - Group writing

• - Self/peer editing tasks

• - Proofreading tasks

• - Reflecting and Revising tasks

Post-Writing

• Sharing and Publishing

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a tool that uses a relaxed, informal atmosphere combined with lateral thinking to solve

problems. In spite of its importance in the generation of new ideas, many students do not have enough

training to use it. This activity will teach students to brainstorm effectively. It can be carried out in a

one-period session. No materials are required apart from a pen or pencil and sheets of paper.

The activity

Elicit from students different ways to generate new ideas.

Tell the students that they are going to try an activity called brainstorming to generate ideas.

divide the class into two groups.

Assign one student in each group to be a leader. Give the group leaders the following tips:

First group leader:

Encourage other students to contribute ideas on how to improve this English class. But, you

do not want to waste any time. If a student states an idea which seems useless, tell the

student “That’s no good” or “Bad idea”, then move on to another student.

Second group leader:

Encourage the other students to contribute ideas on how to improve this English class. Ask

one student in the group to write down all ideas. Praise students’ contributions and don’t

criticize any of the ideas. Make sure all ideas are accepted and written down.

Give students ten minutes to do the brainstorming activity.

Get feedback from students about the brainstorming. Ask which group produced more ideas and

which group enjoyed the activity more.

Group leaders read out their slips of paper.

Students guess which group was brainstorming the right way.

Write these rules of successful brainstorming on the board:

All ideas are accepted and written down.

Generate as many ideas as possible.

Unusual, even seemingly irrelevant ideas are welcome

You may use other students’ idea and expand on it

Criticism is banned at this stage.

Using these rules students brainstorm other topics.

When they finish, groups choose their three best ideas and write them up on the board.

What is Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a combination of a relaxed, informal approach to problem-solving and lateral thinking.

People are asked to find ideas and thoughts that can at first seem to be a bit irrelevant. The idea is to

use some of these ideas to form original, creative solutions to problems. Even some seemingly useless

ideas can spark still more ideas. The goal of brainstorming is to direct people to new ways of thinking

and break from the usual way of reasoning.

The most important thing about brainstorming is that there should be no criticism of ideas. students try

to open up possibilities and discard wrong assumptions about the limits of the problem. Judgments and

analysis of ideas are explored after the brainstorming process while focus should be at this stage on

idea generation.

Why brainstorming?

Brainstorming contributes to the generation of creative solutions to a problem. It teaches students to

breaks away from old patterns of reasoning to new unexplored paths of thinking.

Problem solving has become part and parcel of teaching and learning process. Brainstorming can

make group problem-solving a less sterile and a more satisfactory process.

It can be used with your class to bring the various students experiences into play. This increases

the richness of ideas explored, particularly before reading, listening and writing activities.

Brainstorming is fun. That’s why it helps student-student and students-teacher relationships to get

stronger as they solve problems in a positive, stress-free environment.

Brainstorming technique was first designed to be used with groups, but it can also be used by a single

person privately to generate ideas.

Individual Brainstorming

When individuals brainstorm on their own, they come up with more ideas, and often better quality

ideas, than groups of people who brainstorm together. Perhaps this occurs because of many reasons

In groups, learners aren’t always strict in following the rules of brainstorming, and the risk of

unfavorable group behaviors may arise.

Instead of generating their own new ideas, students may pay more attention to other people’s

ideas.

Sometimes learners forget their ideas while they are waiting for their turn to speak.

Sometimes people are blocked because of shyness.

Some students tend to do well when they work alone.

individual brainstorming may be less engaging and less stressful. Students are free and do not

worry about other people’s opinions and judgements, and can therefore be more freely creative.

For instance, a student who hesitates to bring up an idea in a group brainstorming because he

thinks its unworthy, might be free to explore it in an individual brainstorming and find that it

develops into something quite interesting.

Students don’t have to wait for others to stop speaking before they contribute their own ideas.

There are however some downturns with individual brainstorming. In a group brainstorming, the

experiences of the members of the group help to develop ideas thoroughly. This is something that

might be missing in individual brainstorming where only the individuals experience come to play.

Group Brainstorming

Group brainstorming may work in so many effective ways:

Brainstorming brings the full experience and creativity of all members of the group to solve a

problem. When individual group members get stuck with an idea, another member’s creativity and

experience can take the idea to the next stage. Group brainstorming can therefore develop ideas

in more depth than individual brainstorming.

Another advantage of group brainstorming is that it helps everyone involved to feel that they have

contributed to the end solution.

It reminds one that other people have creative ideas to offer.

Brainstorming can be great for team-building and creating harmony within a team!

Nevertheless group brainstorming has some disadvantages. It can be risky for individuals. Valuable but

unusual suggestions may appear irrelevant at first sight. That’s why, the teacher needs to be careful

not to suppress these ideas. Group problem-solving must not stifle creativity.