English and Its Teaching III
jueves, 7 de noviembre de 2013
domingo, 20 de octubre de 2013
The four skills
Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom
Marcos Peñate Cabrera
mpenate [at] dde.ulpgc.es
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (The Canary Islands, Spain)
mpenate [at] dde.ulpgc.es
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (The Canary Islands, Spain)
Plácido Bazo
pbazom [at] ull.es
University of La Laguna (The Canary Islands, Spain)
pbazom [at] ull.es
University of La Laguna (The Canary Islands, Spain)
Introduction
The teaching of English as a foreign language is now one of the most
important subjects in most European primary schools. The implementation of
English has brought along the need to establish clear objectives that are
different to the ones traditionally assigned to secondary schools. While in
secondary schools we still find, in many cases, a teaching based in the formal
aspects of the language, i.e. grammar; primary school teachers have had to
adopt a different approach as the age of the children make the teaching of
formal aspects not advisable. As a result of this point of view, the different
Educational Departments have decided to establish, as the main purpose of the
EFL teaching, the development of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading
and writing. However, the implementation of this approach has not been
trouble-free as many teachers insist on asking their children to understand
every single word they listen to or read, or expect their pupils to write or
speak without making the mistakes normally found in the process of acquiring
any language.
The main purpose of this paper is to provide some
guidelines that we hope can be useful to teachers of English as a foreign
language in primary schools.
Listening
Listening is the language skill which learners usually find the most
difficult. This often is because they feel under unnecessary pressure to
understand every word. To achieve the aims related to this skill, the teacher
plays an important role that is defined in the following steps.
1. It is important to
help pupils prepare for the listening task well before they hear the
text itself. First of all the teacher must ensure that the pupils understand
the language they need to complete the task and are fully aware of exactly what
is expected of them. Reassure the pupils that they do not need to understand
every word they hear.
2. The next important
step is to encourage pupils to anticipate what they are going to hear.
In everyday life, the situation, the speaker, and visual clues all help us to
decode oral messages. A way to make things a bit easier to the pupils is to
present the listening activity within the context of the topic of a teaching
unit. This in itself will help pupils to predict what the answers might be. The
teacher can help them further by asking questions and using the illustrations
to encourage pupils to guess the answers even before they hear the text.
3. During the listening
the pupils should be able to concentrate on understanding the message so
make sure they are not trying to read, draw, and write at the same time. Always
give a second chance to listen to the text to provide a new opportunity to
those who were not able to do the task.
4. Finally, when pupils
have completed the activity, invite answers from the whole class. Try not to
put individual pupils under undue pressure. Rather than confirming whether an
answer is correct or not, play the cassette again and allow pupils to listen
again for confirmation. You may be given a variety of answers, in which case
list them all on the board and play the text again, so that the class can
listen and choose the correct one. Even if the pupils all appear to have
completed the task successfully, always encourage them to listen to the text
once more and check their answers for themselves.
Speaking
First of all, we must take into account that the level of language input
(listening) must be higher than the level of language production expected of
the pupils. So we have many speaking activities used in the first levels that
enable pupils to participate with a minimal verbal response. However in the
last levels, pupils are encouraged to begin to manipulate language and express
themselves in a much more personal way.
In primary schools two main types of speaking
activities are used. The first type, songs, chants, and poems,
encourages pupils to mimic the model they hear on the cassette. This helps
pupils to master the sounds, rhythms, and intonation of the English language
through simple reproduction. The games and pair work activities on the
other hand, although always based on a given model, encourage the pupils to
begin to manipulate the language by presenting them with a certain amount of
choice, albeit within a fairly controlled situation.
In order for any speaking activity to be successful
children need to acknowledge that there is a real reason for asking a question
or giving a piece of information. Therefore, make sure the activities you
present to the pupils, provide a reason for speaking, whether this is to play a
game or to find out real information about friends in the class.
Once the activity begins, make sure that the
children are speaking as much English as possible without interfering to
correct the mistakes that they will probably make. Try to treat errors casually
by praising the utterance and simply repeating it correctly without necessarily
highlighting the errors. And finally, always offer praise for effort regardless
of the accuracy of the English produced.
Reading
In order to make reading an interesting challenge as opposed to a
tedious chore, it is important that pupils do not labour over every word,
whether they are skimming the text for general meaning or scanning it to pick
out specific information. Other things to keep in mind are:
1. When choosing texts
consider not only their difficulty level, but also their interest or
their humour so that children will want to read for the same reasons they read
in their own language: to be entertained or to find out something they do not
already know.
2. As with listening
activities, it is important to spend time preparing for the task by
using the illustrations (a usual feature in reading activities for children),
pupils' own knowledge about the subject matter, and key vocabulary to help the
pupils to predict the general content of the text. Discuss the subject and ask
questions to elicit language and to stimulate the pupils' interest in the text
before they begin reading. Also make sure that the pupils understand the
essential vocabulary they need to complete the task before they begin to read.
3. While the children are
reading the text, move around the class providing support if pupils need
it. Where possible, encourage pupils to work out the meaning of vocabulary as
they come across it, using the context and the supporting illustrations.
4. Do not encourage
pupils to read texts aloud unless this is to learn a play or
recite a poem. Reading aloud inhibits most pupils and forces them to
concentrate on what they are saying as opposed to what they are reading and the
meaning is very often lost.
Writing
In primary schools, EFL pupils progress from writing isolated words and
phrases, to short paragraphs about themselves or about very familiar topics
(family, home, hobbies, friends, food, etc.)
Since many pupils at this level are not yet capable
either linguistically or intellectually of creating a piece of written text
from scratch, it is important that time is spent building up the language they
will need and providing a model on which they can then base their own efforts.
The writing activities should therefore be based on a parallel text and guide
the pupils, using simple cues. These writing activities generally appear
towards the end of a unit so that pupils have had plenty of exposure to the
language and practice of the main structures and vocabulary they need.
At this stage, the pupils' work will invariably
contain mistakes. Again, the teacher should try to be sensitive in his/her
correction and not necessarily insist on every error being highlighted. A piece
of written work covered in red pen is demoralizing and generally
counter-productive. Where possible, encourage pupils to correct their own
mistakes as they work. If there is time, encourage pupils to decorate their
written work and where feasible display their efforts in the classroom.
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-FourSkills.html
viernes, 11 de octubre de 2013
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