CSS ENGLISH LANGUAGE PRACTICAL TEACHING PART-1

Classroom techniques and tasks

In this section, we look at some of the techniques and ideas that have been introduced in the preceding sections. There are so many of these that I have had to be highly selective. I have chosen to organize this section in terms of pretask, task, and follow-up.

Pre-task As we have seen, pretasks have several functions: to create interest, help build students’ schema in relation to the topic, introduce key vocabulary, and revise grammar items prior to the introduction of the task proper. There is almost no limit to the number of things that can be done at the pretask stage. Here are some examples:

Have students

• look at a list of comprehension questions and try to predict the answers before carrying out a listening task; 

• classify a set of words for describing emotions as “positive,” “negative,” and “neutral” before reading a magazine article about emotions; 

• practice a model conversation and then introduce their own variations before doing a role-play;     

• study a picture of a group of people at a party and try to guess which people are married/going out with each other before hearing a conversation about the couples;

• brainstorm ways in which cities of the future will be different from now before writing a newspaper article; 

• match newspaper headlines and photos before reading articles;

• check off words in a vocabulary list that are associated with living in a foreign culture before listening to a person recounting their experiences of living abroad; 

• rank from most to least important a list of factors predicting if a relationship will last before listening to a mini-lecture on the subject; 

• discuss the best year they ever had before taking part in an information gap exercise; 

• look at pictures taken from advertisements and guess what the ads are trying to sell before listening to the ads.

Task 

    The number of tasks that can be used to activate language in the classroom is also large. Some of the more popular task types in the communicative classroom include: role-plays, simulations, problem-solving, listening to authentic audio/video material, discussions, decision-making, and information gaps. Information gap tasks in which two or more students have access to different information that they have to share in order to complete the task are popular because,

• they work well with learners at most levels of proficiency from post beginner to advanced;

• students participate actively;

• all students have to take part if the task is to work;

• they work well with mixed level groups.

Here is an example of an information gap task. This task is personalized in that the students create their own information gap based on content from their own lives.

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Reflection:

1. What level of proficiency do you think the task above is designed for?

2. What language do you imagine that students will need to use?

3. What language functions are the students practicing?

Design your own information gap task. Specify the vocabulary, grammar, and structures that you think the students will need in order to complete the task.

Follow-up As already indicated, the follow-up phase also provides lots of scope. The teacher can give feedback to the students, debrief them on some aspect of the preceding task, or encourage them to reflect on what they learned and how well they are doing.

Here are some examples of reflection tasks.

Example:

1. Write down five new words you learned in today’s lesson. Write sentences using three of these new words. Write down three new sentences or questions you learned.

2. Review the language functions you practiced in this lesson. Circle your answers.

Can you

            ... talk about past events?                 Yes         A little         Not yet 

            give and receive messages?            Yes         A little          Not yet

3. What would you say?

Your best friend invites you to his/her birthday party but you can’t make it. 

You say__________________________________________________.

You want someone to get you a book from the library. 

You say__________________________________________________.

4. Review the language we practiced today. In groups, brainstorm ways to use this language out of class. Imagine you are visiting an English- speaking country. Where and when might you need this language?