Tag Archives: Differentiation

Communicative teaching (CLT)

COGNITIVE APPROACH TO LEARNING

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Learning is directly linked to the amount of thinking in our own brains. If we are feeling good doing that, success will follow.

Let’s face the reality. No-one who really wants to learn a foreign language wants to learn it in a behavioristic environment if they have observed any modern lessons. What I am trying to do in these articles is to give language teachers a practical window to communicative language teaching (CLT) by combining the cognitive and constructive approach to teaching. I have a separate article on behaviourism for those who wish to look at those ideas.

Once again using CLT is a question of beliefs. Not just any beliefs, but beliefs which have been verified in practice over many decades.If the teacher believes the principles below are valid and puts them in practice, the lessons are bound to appeal to the students. But we teachers need to justify why we are using a particular method and what the beliefs behind it are.

If the students see that you are devoted to teaching and helping them, they will realize you really have thought the things through and they rely on you guiding them or at least give you a chance to show where the new method is taking you.

Cognitive approach of learning

In applying the cognitive approach of learning we believe that every student has to develop any new idea in their own minds and connect it with the knowledge they already have. Nobody really knows how learning takes place but we agree on the idea that the brains have to be activated properly. Listening to the teacher talking to the whole class does not necessarily lead to learning and memorization. Learning is a complicated intellectual process where each individual has to be active.

Well, how do we activate the brains then?

Traditionally the activation has been done by the teacher’s presentation followed by questions. This is still valid with young pupils and in some other subjects than languages.

The older the students get and the more they master the language, the more should we rely on giving them problems to solve or questions to be answered in groups. The answers they give do not matter that much. The process in discussing the question in the target language and finding possible answers to it is what matters.

The process is more important than the outcome. Learning takes place during the process, as a by-product of all the activities.

“But, … my students are not able to do any of that”, you might say. You may be right but all the things suggested below are possible AFTER you have dealt with the textbook chapter with its vocabulary and ideas first.

My basic philosophy in CLT is based on three premises:
  1. Insist on your students working on textbook chapters very hard, go through the chapters systematically using mainly student-centered approaches. Get them talking! See my articles on how to do it.
  2. Aim at having free discussion sessions at the end of lessons or unit and apply modern pair and group work techniques teaching all language skills.
  3. Teach the students how they can learn better, justify your views and suggestions and rely on the fact that language and life skills will be a by-product of this approach.

In some classes following Point 1 will work miracles and Point 2 may succeed with a little bit of differentiation. To sound convincing in Point 3 you have to have your own ideas clear in your mind. Very many of my articles touch upon Point 3, too. Be patient at first and be pleased with modest progress and presentations. You will see the difference in a few months. Rome was not built in a day. Neither can you change your teaching over night.

“Ok, but where do I find the time to do all that?”, you ask me. By doing three things:

  • Make the students study the chapter at home in advance so that they understand the content. This will speed up the activities in the lesson.
  • Most activities should be oral with very little writing. Instead of silencing the students let them talk and ignore the mistakes they make at this point.
  • Be brave and skip the chapters in the textbook you or the students do not find stimulating. It is a blessing, in most countries, that we teachers are allowed to choose the materials for teaching.

IN a few weeks or months it may be interesting for you to test how capable your students are in doing a more challenging CLT task in groups.

After the ‘compulsory’ orientation engage the students in doing one of tasks below. Or use a task of your own. In a couple of minutes they are working in groups learning more than you could ever do using some other method. Smiling, forgetting they are at school at all. Believe me, I have experienced it thousands of times.

The influence of positive emotions and attitudes to learning is overwhelming.

The students will learn …

  • through a process of observation; they are given sample sentences and they have to figure out the grammatical rule on the basis of them instead of the rule be given to them
  • by linking old memories and experiences to new ones; we link the formulation of comparative forms of adverbs to that of advjectives and make conclusions OR collect all information we have on Australia so far and then make questions that we want to find an answer to
  • by using creative critical thinking; how can we develop public transport in our town and which obstacles we might encounter (having first studied texts about the topic)
  • by working on concepts and categorization; developing mind-maps is ideal; central word, for example, energy and the mind-map is developed in groups and presented to others later on
  • by filling in information gaps; a story is divided in two and your pair asks you questions to find out what is missing in his/her part of the story
  • through problem solving; how can we save energy in ordinary households or how can we improve recycling in our town

One of the big changes in my teaching in the ‘revelation days’ in the 1990s was to observe the time I spend talking to the whole class, which little by little led to a situation where I restricted my speaking only to maybe 10 minutes in a 75-minute lesson. How? By re-organizing the lesson the way I explain in the articles under ‘The structure of a textbook-based lesson’.

My own experiences of learning languages

By now you must have realized that the Cognitive Approach is much more student-oriented than the Behavioristic one. It also gives the teacher a lot of freedom to try out creatively what works in his/her classes and adapt the style of teaching accordingly.

Teachers who use this philosophy also understand that language lessons are not the only places where languages can be learnt. So, we need to encourage our students to make use of all media in the target language, speak English fearlessly to strangers, read magazines and books in English or do anything else that improves their language skills.

My first memory and source of motivation of learning English properly was when an American choir visited my home town Oulu in the 1960s. I had been studying English for a couple of years but understood only a few words in the songs. However, the songs sounded so beautiful that I started to find English songs myself and finally ended up recording pop songs from Radio Luxemburg, writing down the lyrics and singing along with the tape.

By the time I went to senior high school at the age of 16 I knew hundreds of English songs and I had even learnt most of the English grammar subconsciously thanks to the songs. Somehow I knew how to write unknown words even if I had never seen them. This ‘voluntary project’ also increased my English vocabulary drastically.

After one grammar exam I was terribly disapponted with myself because I had changed the active sentences differently from the others and I thought I had made a mistake. I was surprised when the teacher pointed out that my way of doing it was also right even if it had never been taught to us. Some other teacher in those days might have marked my version wrong because it had not been taught.

It was something like this: My aunt sent us Christmas presents. >> We were sent Christmas presents by our aunt. (taught at school) / Christmas presents were sent (to) us by our aunt. (my version). What I am trying to say is taht some of your students know much more English than you know thanks to their hobbies or interests.

Unfortunately I had no chance to enjoy the benefits of the Cognitive Approach in English lessons over the twelve years I studied it. We never spoke freely in class and I wrote only one ‘essay’ which had to be a joke. It took more than two weeks to get them back marked because other teachers kept on reading them. Frankly speaking, now that I look back my own English lessons were a joke in itself.

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar, Yleinen

WORK STATION technique

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One of my colleagues fell in love and spent all weekends in another town. On her way back home by train she had little time to prepare lessons for Mondays so she developed her own way of using ‘work stations’ in her lessons. And, to her surprise, with great success.

‘Work stations’ (or Station work) is just another special type of group work. One of my absolute favourites among lesson types. I have been using it for decades a couple times a month at least. It works well with all kinds of students and is a particularly good way:

  • to have a different but effective, fast-pacing kind of lesson
  • to change a teacher-oriented lesson into a student-oriented one
  • to differentiate teaching by offering choices for the students
  • to enhance social skills in the groups and let the students help each other
  • to practise for a future exam

The example above implies that ‘station work’ does not need to be a burden for the teacher. It may well be based on the exercises in the workbook. We only have to organize the lesson so that we do the very same things in the groups that we would do in a teacher-oriented lesson.

Central pedagogical ideas

  • A new motivation point after the transition to a new table.
  • Everyone proceeds at their own pace.
  • Students help each other (the social emphatic aspect).
  • Teaching others is a great way to learn yourself (the internalization aspect).
  • The teacher can be mobile or work in a particular group .

Essential practical advice on organizing work stations

  1. The students are forced to be active and co-operate.
  2. Usually 4 -5 groups, 4 – 6 students in each group
  3. The desks are organized as in the photo below
  4. Time in each group depends on the length of the lesson
  5. First 5 min for organizing the groups, at the end 5 min for wrap up
  6. Group members are randomly selected, mixed-ability groups but one student is appointed group leader
  7. Each group has two sets of the same instructions on the numbered desk (this way everyone can see the written instructions)
  8. There are more exercises than there is time for (and the students know it), extra tasks are available and marked with *
  9. There is one extra task for all groups (for example: Ask each other the words of a particular chapter)
  10. Two sets of correct answers (if there are any) are placed in an envelope on the desk.
  11. Announce the change of groups 2 min beforehand, and let the students check the answers. Moving to the next table takes 30 seconds.
  12. Usually the 1st group takes a bit longer and the last one is shorter.

Look at the two examples below. By all means, do not hesitate to make your own version. The 1st time may seen troublesome but once you get a hang of the things to remember you will realize this is one of the best lessons types ever. I hope to be able to add a video on a ‘work stations’ lesson at some point.

Types of tasks in each group

  • 1 Listening to a recording of the chapter. In the corner of the room or with headphones on. Reading the text or part of it aloud. (See my recommendations on the structure of ordinary lessons.)
  • 2 Questions on the text + answers, or explain the chapter content in own words, or tell a story related to the chapter.
  • 3 Various vocabulary exercises, orally and/or written ones.
  • 4 Practise the latest grammar point orally and /or in writing.
  • 5 Let the students choose whatever woorkbook exercises they fancy.
An illustration how ‘station work’ can be used when we practise for an exam just before the exam itself.
  • Use the same types of tasks as you intend to use in the exam itself.
  • 1 A couple of dictation sentences (read by you or a student) A short reading task: done alone and checked together with justifications for the correct answers.
  • 2 and 4 Tasks testing recently taught grammar points, preferrably three difficulty levels (See my recommendations on ‘differentiation’ under heading ‘Grammar’
  • 3 Crossword or any other vocab task, preferrably three difficulty levels 5 Practise orally the kind of questions you wish your students to be able to answer in the exam or have oral ideas for a written essay for more advanced students .

Students really enjoy ‘station work’ lessons since they can co-operate in a relaxed atmosphere and time passes quickly away and they have options on what to focus on.

Model text-based lesson, Reading

DEEPENING UNDERSTANDING, Part 2 and ADDITIONAL ORAL TASKS

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In the previous article I suggested some alternative ways of making questions about a text. I also gave an example how to use differentiation in ‘question – answer technique’ so that the ambitious CLT principles are applied at least among some of the students.

UNDERLINING WORDS AND PHRASES IN THE TEXT

In the ‘old’ days I used a technique ‘Find me another way of saying’ to hammer in phrases like this:

T: Look at the text and find me another way of saying:”two weeks”.
S: “A fortnight”
T: “And then another ways of saying: “I did not have enough money in my wallet.”
S: “I was short of funds on me.”

This process is very slow and could be replaced by giving the students a ready-made list of para-phrases s that would be worth remembering. These stage I have relaced the whole thing in two ways: 1) The students underline anything they find worth underlining or I give a list like in example 3 below and the students say sentences where they use the phrases.

Now we have a look at some alternative ways to enhance talking in class and check understanding of a text. For the sake of motivation it is advisable to replace ‘question -answers’ with something else every now and then.

In short, the examples below demonstrate a way how to combine reading comprehension with speaking freely on the basis of the chapter.

TRUE – FALSE -tasks

The best thing about ‘True – False’ exercises is that it makes the students think and even better if they have to justify their choice in groups orally: argue convincingly why their choice is correct.

Here are some variations for ‘True – False’ -tasks

  1. Make all statements false, one word makes it false
  2. Make all statements false, part of the statement is wrong
  3. More statements are false than true and the students have to identify the false ones and justify why they are false
  4. Add a third choice ‘Not mentioned’, this choice is really demanding, both for the students and for the writer of the statements, this version can actually be considered to be ‘Multiple-choice’

MULTIPLE CHOICE EXERCISES

‘Multiple choice’ is an excellent way to check if a text has been understood properly. It is a very common exam task which gives reliable information of the students’ reading (and listening) skills.

If time allows, just like in ‘True – False’ tasks we can

  • give students individual time to make their choices and
  • then let them discuss the choices in pairs or groups; in English of course
  • This process will teach them a lot and they will learn from each other.
  • The discussion with others is in fact more important than the correct answers.

USING MIND MAPS

Sample 1

From CLT point of view mind maps are excellent because they give hints to the students what to talk about but offer no ready-made sentences to be used. The mind map above is a real communicative task for advanced students after they have studied a chapter with similar content.

Semi-communicative mind map would have additional key words like ‘classical, pop, rock, instrumental; guitar, piano, organ, flute, saxophone; painting, theatre, films, sculpture, poetry’ etc. to get the discussion going more smoothly. The best groups would probably realize how music is used in films to arouse feelings and that song lyrics are often poems.

A mechanical version of the mind map would have both words and guiding questions on the screen. Very often I have the mechanical version visible for everybody and tell the students to ignore my guiding if they feel like it. I call it invisible differentiation since the others do not actually know how much you use the guidance given.

SAMPLE 2

Source: Weilin+Göös, Course 2 Finland

In reality it does not matter how much the students consult the original text. We allow them to do it if they need the support. The main thing is that differentiation takes place unnoticed at the level of their choice.

SAMPLE 3

Source: Weilin+Göös, Course 2 Finland

In nearly all cases where we wish the students to discuss matters in groups it is advisable to have some ideas, pictures or lists or words/phrases that stirs imagination sufficiently. It is only natutal that some students work at a mechanical level and the best ones fully communicatively. Differentiation in action without any stigma on anyone.

USING PLOT PICTURES

Source: SIIE 7 WSOY, Finland

This is an example of how to replace questions made by the teacher with students explaining about the chapter. The topis is hobbies but in my opinion the CLT trick is not to ask the students to memorize and reproduce the content of the chapter, which is what the weakest students do by looking at the text since they are not at the level of making sentences of their own yet.

The trick is to ask the students to make up stories of their own on the basis of the pictures. And the ideas can be completely imaginary and different from the chapter content.

Once the students are allowed to produce stories of their own they really seem to enjoy the freedom and become very motivated to talk in class.

USING PICTURES TO ENHANCE SPEAKING

See my article on ‘Lexical approach to learning languages’. This picture, for example is linked with teaching grammar orally.

It is essential to realize that all language skills are interlinked and variety in classes can be reached by combining the skills.

Source: SIIE 7, WSOY Finland

Assuming the textbook chapter was about New York and Manhattan, the student make up a story of their own on the basis of these pictures.

ADDITIONAL TYPES OF ORAL EXERCISES

Now we have finally reached the last part of our text-based lesson: oral exercises which can be the ones in the study books or modified versions of them or any exercises that the teacher has found in other sources.

The types of tasks below are the juicy bits of our lessons. They bring joy and excitement into the class and are related to real life situations.

Having done with a chapter of two in the textbook these exercises hammer in orally what we were trying to learn. They work even with weak students if we provide them with supportive materials. And you can link them to any of the language skill areas we have in mind.

These exercises can be linked to

  • some new or old grammatical point, such as ‘explaining a process using the present passive voice’, ‘looking at photos and doing comparisons’ or interviewing others (Have you ever …? Has your mum often …?
  • a pre-task for the next lesson, such as ‘Find someone who’ -game where the answer is Yes or No and a certain grammatical point is repeated in a variety of ways
  • functions of language, such as ‘asking for directions’, ‘requesting politely’ or ‘giving a speech’
  • real-life situations, such as ‘at a hotel’, ‘at the airport’, ‘at a restaurant’ or ‘at the doctor’s’
  • a role play, such as ‘reporter – film star’, ‘politicians making a decision’ or ‘travel guide – tourists’
  • co-operative learning, an elaborative group work where the students move on to another group teaching others what they learnt in the previous group
  • work stations – technique, group work where the students move from one table to another and each table has a different task for them
  • task-based and inquiry-based learning, both are student-centered approaches where to focus is directed to finding information or answers to a problematic question, students use the foreign language in a natural way and it does not feel like a language lesson at all

These oral exercise types will be dealt with in other articles.

Model text-based lesson

DEEPENING UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENTIATION, Part 1

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Answering questions about a text is not a true CLT activity because the answers can be found in the text. Communivative use of language requires that the language is produced by the students themselves.

Still, ‘question – answer’ approach can be very useful. For some students it is as far as they can get – but I have witnessed a lot of miracles among students. They stop worrying about mistakes and throw in words and make a real effort to get their message through.

Let’s move on in our list of ‘Things to do in class’. I will first expand the ‘question-answer’ technique and show at the end of the article how to replace it, at least occasionally, with differentiation tasks.

  1. The students have studied the chapter at home in advance
  2. We have checked homework exercises
  3. We have worked orally on the new words of the next chapter
  4. We have listened to the chapter and checked understanding of the text
  5. We have read the text or a part of it aloud
  6. NOW we have to deepen our understanding of the text, and use differentiation
  7. Doing oral activities, written exercises or underlining text in class
  1. First of all, up to this point there have been many stages where the teacher has been the organizer and initiator of class activities. In my opinion this is the way it should be: time is saved, the students are active and the teacher is as much as possible in the role of a CLT teacher, an organizer and facilitator of learning
  2. Linguists sometimes call this kind of text-based lesson ‘a closed system’ because the students are tied to the texts. However, in CLT activities we aim at using ‘an open system’ which ideally means that the students use language and ideas of their own.
  3. In my logic this is the only way that makes sense because I do not want to throw my students into water until I know they can swim. In other words, the students must master the vocabulary, structures, phrases and some basic ideas about a new topic before they are able and can be allowed to talk freely.
  4. One thing we teachers need to realize is that we do not make the questions about the text because we need information. No, since we already know the answers. This realization leads to the idea that we should use question – answer or any other approach as a way towards free talking. Asking questions from one student at a time does not make sense here. Everyone should be made talk and be active.
  5. After reading the text aloud the students can be permitted to talk about the text freely. But can they all do it? The answer is NO, not all. So what are we teachers supposed to do? Use differentiation; i.e. every one of the students chooses one of the 3 tasks and works with others who took the same level task.
  6. If you want to make the questions on the text yourself (since you have no time for differentiation) you can
  • A) usually we simply ask the questions and they are not visible, BUT now have the questions on the screen and read them from there (serving auditive and visual learners, developing reading and listening at the same time)
  • B) the funny option: ask all the students to answer the questions aloud at the same time (sounds crazy but 100 % activity level) You, poker-faced!
  • C) ask the students to work in pairs, (50 % of the class is active), the best option

Differentiation in ‘question-answer technique’

I assume just about all teachers use ‘question – answer technique’ but I hope not in the traditional manner. In Finland we used to have student streaming up to the mid 1980s, i.e. dividing the students into three proficiency levels with different goals. When the system was abolished, we only had mixed-ability classes and teachers were obliged to use differentiation in their lessons. Nevertheless, I kept the idea of three levels of streaming when I was trying to differentiate my teaching in class. But I let the students choose the level and change it as they pleased.

This is what I started to do in the mid-1980s at this stage of the lesson.

I gave three options to my students, they choose one task and find other who chose the same task and start working according to my instructions on the screen or in a handout.

They were completely free to choose A, B or C, even make a mixture of them if they wanted. They were only limited by time, 10 – 15 minutes.

Holiday resorts appeal to people everywhere, Shangri La close to Muscat, Oman.

For example, having dealt with the basics with a text (not here) the students would choose A, B or C. If you have a weak class, you may tell them to start with A and move to B and C if they have time.

A Look at the text about the summer holiday trip of the Hills, work in pairs and answer the questions orally taking turns.

When did the Hills start their holiday? (Lines 1 – 3) How did they get to Greece? (Lines 4 – 7) What kind of plans did they have for the holiday? (Lines 8 – 13) etc. Simple questions for beginners and weak students, answers can be found in the text, if encouraged the students can give answers in their own words. Why- and How do we know that -questions make the task a bit more demanding. Who, when, where, how, what … like, whose -questions are the easy ones since you can answer

B Look at the text about the summer holiday trip of the Hills, work in pairs and explain in your own words what happened in their holiday. You can make up things that are not mentioned in the text at all. Your story does not have to be true. Here are some key words: holiday, plan, London, train, flight, airport, hotel

C If you are not very interested in the Hill family’s holiday, explain about the best holiday trip your family has made. The foundation for the free talk is laid at the beginning of the lesson and the best students can easily do C.

The teacher remains in the background and does not interfere with the tasks unless the students ask him/her something. Neither do we correct any of the mistakes publicly even if we hear them. If we start doing that, the students become hesitant and finally stop talking in the fear of making a fool of themselves. The students do not make mistakes on purpose and besides, we can take notes on the mistakes and come back to them later on without pointing at any individuals.

You may think “Well, sounds reasonable enough but I do not have time to write the instructions.” But believe me, it only takes a few minutes and it is all worth the trouble when you see the smiles on the students faces. Besides, you can ask good students to take turns making up similar exercises for you. You will be surprised!

If you never or rarely get beyond the ‘traditional ‘questions – answers’ stage, you do not give your students a chance to speak freely, which is one of our final aims in CLT classes.

The next article deals with alternative ways of checking the level of understanding the text and how to turn the focus to talking in class.

Grammar

TEACHING YOUNG BEGINNERS GRAMMAR, the lexical approach

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At its best lexical approach means teaching grammar as chunks, set phrases which serve as models which help memorization. Combining chunks with real-life situations leads to real communication.

Teaching grammar to young beginners using the inductive method is not very common because the ability of youngsters to understand conceptual explanations and rules is often limited to the very best pupils in the class.

Therefore, in mixed-ability classes teachers tend to use the lexical approach in teaching grammar with occasional use of the deductive method. In both cases there is a lot of emphasis on chunks that serve as structure models.

My transparencies/slides below are from the 1990s. My apologies for what they look like but never mind. What you see on them is still valid even today.

Luckily the number of ‘demanding’ grammatical structures is not very big in the early years of teaching a new foreign language and most structures taught can be learnt as ’chunks’ ; i.e. word combinations, words, set phrases or set structures. In these cases there is usually minimum reference to any rules and the learning of structures is similar to that of mother tongue: a lot of oral repetition and practice as well as using examples as models.

Even if some early CLT enthusiasts were not eager to teach grammar at least here in Finland we never gave it up. Nevevertheless, communicative language teaching brought along a significant change in teaching grammar: CLT principles emphasized the idea that grammar was not to be taught in isolation but combined with real-life situations where natives actually use the structures.

Applying lexical approach in situations

I remember how I struggled with my low-achievers in the early 1980s. In those days we still divided our age groups into three streams according to their proficiency level.

How was I supposed to make my students use grammatical structures in situations that resemble real-life situations following CLT principles?

Gradually I developed a strategy that seemed to work, my own version of situational grammar. Sorry about the shape of this slide from the 1980s. I had to cut of the dirty bits from it. Result of my treasure hunt and how I got going.

Why am I having this approach now? Because it gives you some perspective to my line of thinking and besides everything below is still valid today!

At a restaurant – chunks ‘I’d like to …’ , ‘I’ll have …’

Sometimes I had to use even Finnish translations on the transparency to make sure the weakest ones understood what they were saying. But still, they went on talking! The menu is probably from book series SIIE. Say It In English (WSOY).
Looking at a ‘real’ menu made the students realize the importance of ‘food vocabulary’. You had better not order something you do not like and still have to pay for it.

  1. First I made a long list of real-life situations such as ‘at a restaurant’, ‘at a supermarket’, ‘at a police station’, ‘in an interview’ ‘explaing about future plans or past event’, ‘comparing things’ etc.
  2. Secondly, I thought which structures were typical of these situations and gradually I ended up in having a list of situations with grammatical structures. ‘shopping – comparative and superlative forms of adjectives’, ‘at the police station or in an insurance company – was/were + -ing form – describing what was happening at the moment’
  3. Thirdly, I realized that dramatizing the real-life situations was the only way to get close to reality at school. So, I told my students about the new ideas and why I’d like to try them out with them. In practice we chose role-play as our main method for dramatization. But …
  4. Fourthly, I was pretty sure that I could not throw my low-achievers to these situations without suitable pre-tasks and proper preparation. Role-play was going to be the final stage of the practice.
  5. Fifthly, I had to plan carefully the stages to be taken before the role-play. Sometimes it was a piece of cake since the students already knew the ‘chunks’ on the basis of the previous chapter in the textbook and could apply it right away.

At a dinner table – practising ‘could’, ‘would’. ‘ ‘d’ and ‘should‘

  • The chapter related to the 1st conditional was studied in class.
  • The exercise below was done in pairs at least twice. As you can see it is barely semi-communicative since most of the ideas are given ready-made.
  • But there was an element for communicative creativity since the students were allowed to replace the words in the box with words of their choice if they wanted to.
  • Finally we practised a similar situation at a ‘restaurant’ with real menus and a waiter/waitress taking orders with a white towel round the arm. Some of the key phrases were reflected on the screen with an overhead projector to help the weakest ones.
This kind of role-play is highly motivating since everyone understands that they will face a similar situation if they travel abroad. This exercise is also an example of ‘hidden differentiation’ where the weaker ones can hang on with the help of the advanced students. The continuation of the exercise below shows how the teaching of grammar and situations can be combined with extensive learning of vocabulary. A lesson like this will never be forgotten
  • With the advanced groups we went a bit further. Each 4-person group in class collected a vocabulary list: ‘cookware’, ‘kitchen utensils’, ‘kitchen verbs’ , ‘names of dishes’, ‘fruit, berries and vegetables’, ‘kitchen gadgets’ ‘spices and ingredients’ and made an exercise for the others to practise those words.
  • We went to the school cookery class to actually open the drawers and closets and cabins to check if we really memorized the ‘kitchen’ words.
  • Next each group made some food with ingredients they had brought from home (45 min) and we had a ‘RESTAURANT’ where we could dramatize the the highlight of the previous lessons, some students as clients and the others as waiters switching roles half way through.

Applying lexical approach in grammatical pre-tasks

It is rather common among CLT language teachers to start teaching a grammar point with a pre-task where the students use the new structure in an oral activity and have not got a clue about the rule they are applying. Usually the activity involves the use of a lexical chunk directly linked to the new grammar point. If the situations are ‘realistic’, the pair work or role plays, for example, can be very effective.

Games like ‘The Hot Ball’ or ‘Find someone who …’ are ideal as a pretask for a new grammatical point since the students get to use the structure up to 30 times correctly before the rule is formulated.

Pre-task: The hot ball game – the perfect tense

The teacher writes the sentence below on the board or screen

‘I have been to England/ Sweden/ Italy/ Germany/ Spain ...’

  • The chunk to be learnt, the perfect tense structure, is ‘I have been to …’
  • The students who are in a circle are supposed to say the same sentence by replacing the underlined country with any other country.
  • The teacher throws a small ball to the next student, whose attention is on the ‘hot ball’ so that it does not ‘burn’ their hands. So there is no time to worry about the sentence.
  • The student says his/her sentence and throws the ball to someone else.
  • Note that what the students say do not have to be true and … means they can use their creativity to make the answer more commi´unicative.

The chunk ‘I have been to’ serves as an introduction to the perfect tense and can be replaced later on by ‘I / We have had a dog/ two cats / a red car/ a summer cottage …

Similarly you could introduce many other structures ‘I’d like to …’ without any talk about the 1st conditional, superlative forms etc.

Pre-task: ‘Find somone who …’ – the perfect tense

Instructions for the students:

Find someone who can answer ‘Yes’ to your question. Write the name in the second box. You can use the same name only once. You have max 5 minutes for the task.

1 Have you seen any movies this week?
2 Has your dad or mum done sports today?
3 Have your classmates spoken to you this morning?
4 Has your math teacher ever been late?
5 Has your friend ever bought you a present?
6 Have your granparents ever picked you up from school?Anne
7 Have you talked to the head of the school today?
8 Has anyone given you money this week?
9 Have you been abroad this year?Raimo
10 Have you told your parents a joke this month?

So this is the ‘Pre-task’:

  • The students get this paper and walk about in the room asking these questions.
  • It may be hard to get ‘Yes’ answers to some questions and that is why many questions have to be repeated many times.
  • The key idea is that the students will have used the new structure correctly a lot before it is actually taught.
  • And there is no chance to make mistakes.
  • At the end the ‘results’ are explained in groups:’Raimo has been abroad this year.’

Pre-task: ‘Be able to’

This pre-task from the my early CLT years shows how a mechanical exercise can be changed to demand something more than reading aloud. In this case the student has to make links like ‘camera -photos’ ‘skates – ice-hockey’.

Besides students should be encouraged to make similar sentences creatively by replacing the words in the boxes with their own words. I should have added three dots … after the red boxes to indicate any words the students can come up with. Effortless differentiation!

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar

THE INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE METHOD in teaching grammar

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Look at the photo above. Which one is better for learning? The teacher telling the secret of the mystery car OR the students studying the car and finding it out themselves?

The answer is at the very end of this article. Think carefully because it will reveal your attitude towards teaching grammar as well.

I know. Having studied English for many years at the university you are not supposed to lecture and shine with your knowledge in front of your class (= the deductive method). Let’s have a look at our options.

Why the inductive method? Because it forces the students to think hard. The more they crack their brains, the better they learn.

Earlier on we defined the two most common methods in teaching grammar:

“Most teachers know the term ’inductive method’ of teaching grammar, which means the formulation of the rules on the basis on examples. It is contrasted with the ’deductive method’ which means the teacher explaining the rules in detail and then letting the students practise and apply the rules. This is the easy way out in teaching grammar. The teacher thinks ’I taught you the rules and it is up to you to learn them. We need to move on.’ “

I will start by discussing ‘the inductive method’. In my opinion it is the one we can and should use in teaching nearly all grammatical points. The inductive method activates the students’ brains much better than the ‘deductive one’.

The advantages of using the inductive method

  • First of all, students remember the rule better if they themselves have worked it out from the sample sentences given to them.
  • Secondly, students become very motivated to solve the problem; it is a minor detective operation.
  • Thirdly, every student is given time to try to figure out the rule if the process is slow, and proceeds step by step.
  • The teacher can exercise his/her expertise in the matter by presenting the relevant questions when the rule is being formulated.
  • In most cases the process can be carried out in English but in some classes it may be better to use the mother tongue to make sure everyone understands the rule.

How does the process advance in using the inductive method?

For the method to be effective it is advisable to more or less follow the steps given below and allow differentiation in the exercise types at Stage 5 if necessary.

Stage 1: Pre-task 1 Play a board game where the students throw a dice (or roll a pencil with 1-6 dots on it) and can move onwards if they remember the 3 forms of about 20 verbs, regular and irregular ones. N.B. Always make sure the foundation for the next task is solid: Some irregular verbs must be mastered for Stage 2.

Stage 2: Pre-task 2 Have a ‘Find someone who …’ task in order to make the students use the structure to be learnt many times. The structure to be learnt is The 2nd conditional.

What would you have done, if the school had been closed today?

ActionName if ‘YES’
I would have gone swimming.
I and my friend would have played computer games.Peter
Me and my dad would have eaten lunch together.Jill
I would have written our home essay.
I would have slept a couple of hours more at home.Shirley

Stage 3: Look at the examples below and work out the rule for the main clause and for the if-clause.

The main clauseThe if-clause
I would have gone downtownif the boss had given me the task.
My mum would have taken dad’s carif it had been in the garage,
What do these two clauses have in common? (= KEY QUESTION!!)
(would have + verb)
How would you translate the clauses? ‘olisin mennyt’ ‘olisi ottanut’		What do these two if-clause have in common? (the pluperfect tense)
How would you translate the clauses? ‘olisi antanut’ ‘olisi ollut’

Stage 4: Let’s formulate the rule for the 2nd conditional

The road to the formulation of the rule is clear if the students spot which pattern the sample clauses have in common.

The main clauseThe if-clause
would have + 3rd form of the verbthe pluperfect tense = had + 3rd form of the verb
‘olisi tehnyt’‘olisi tehnyt’

Now the Finnish students would notice that the Finnish language does not make any difference between the main and if-clauses and for them that is the point to bear in mind. In addition to the rules, of course. In other languages the situation may be different. In any case, comparison with the mother tongue is often very useful.

Stage 5: The if-clause can be in front of or after the main clause but do not reveal it to the students. Let them fall into the ‘trap’ when they do the first exercises and they will remember the application of the rule better.

Practice session; just like we have learnt before there should be 3 kinds of tasks for the sake of differentiation. The students will do i), ii) or iii) or all of them. See the samples below as a reminder!

i) A mechanical task (a gap filling exercise, isolated sentences with no context)

I don’t understand why you said nothing. I ___________________________ (tell) him the truth, if he __________________________ (ask) me anything about it.

Why did they not let us know they were not coming? If they _____________________ (call) us, we _________________________ (leave) the party immediately.

ii) Semi-communicative exercise (a realistic context but no freedom to write creatively and use the 2nd conditional forms)

There was a robbery at a local grocery store last week and three students are discussing what they would have done if they had been in the shop at that time.

Malcolm: I ______________________________ (hide) behind the shelves and if it _____________________________ (be) possible, I _________________________(call) the police quietly.

Anne: If I __________________________ (see) the robber, I _______________________ (write down) what they looked like and how they spoke.

Cary: I ______________________________ (try) to be quiet and I ______________________________ (take) photos from my hiding place. It _____________________________ (be) very dangerous, if the robber _______________________ (see) me doing it.

iii) A real communicative task (a realistic situation/context and freedom to be creative about the content)

There was a boat accident on a lake near your school yesterday and you are talking about it with your class mates. Write at least four things you would have done if you had been there and had seen what was going on. Include at least two if-clauses in your story.

How does the process advance in the deductive method?

The decuctive method is very easy to use but in my opinion should not be used too much since the students do not need to crack their brains very much when the teacher is explaining the rules.

There are, however, a couple of cases when the use of the deductive method is justifiable:

  • The rules might be too complicated for the students to work out. (For example, changing ‘direct speech’ into ‘indirect speech’ includes far too many little details to be taken into account.
  • Working out the rules might take far too much time.
  • The class is not accustomed or able to formulate the rules, not even when it is done in the mother tongue.

If we look at the stages above, in the worst case a teacher in favour of the deductive method might skip Stages 1 – 3 altogether, explain the rules at Stage 4 and offer mere mechanical exercises in Stage 5.

All in all, hopefully you have now a better idea how modern CLT teachers deal with grammar and treat it as an essential part of foreign language learning.

The ‘car’ is not a real car at all but a piece of art in New York made mostly of recycled tyres.

Communicative teaching (CLT), Grammar

COMMUNICATIVE GRAMMAR, TASKS AND DIFFERENTIATION

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Many teachers feel guilty when their students rarely reach the stage of ‘real’ communication while learning grammar. Please, don’t! Just provide the opportunities for ‘real-life’ practice.

In fact, there is no actual communicative grammar. In CLT we teach grammar rules pretty much the same way we did before using mainly the inductive method and ocassionally deductive method as well.

Thanks to CLT we started to apply the rules differently: first with a lot of oral exercises in ‘real-life’ situations (role plays, task-based exercises etc.) and after that we applied the rules in writing as well.

  • Don’t mind the grammatical errors, they will disappear later on. And even if they don’t, it is not the end of the world. No-one makes mistakes on purpose (unless they are joking).
  • Don’t be pleased with mechanical written exercises and stop there, if your students can do better.

My greatest concerns with grammar at this point have always been:

  • Which of the three methods of dealing with the rules should I choose?
  • Can I go straight to communicative exercises or should I proceed in this particular order 1) mechanical, 2) semi-communicative or 3) communicative exercises.
  • Is there a way to differentiate the learning of grammar?
  • What else should I take into account when teaching grammar?

MY RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES FOR TEACHING GRAMMAR

1 Start with a pre-task where the students use the new structure and become subconsciously aware of the structure, minimal chance for mistakes. Find someone who … is my favourite CLT pre-task: no chance to make mistakes but the students talk a lot and get a feeling of the new structure. See my example below.

2 Choose an appropriate ‘method’ of dealing with the rules.
a) the inductive method; it is in most cases the one I favour, the students work out the rules themselves using some examples, the effort and thinking result in the students remembering the rules better

b) the decuctive method; the teacher explains the rules and lets the students apply them in exercises; some rules are too complicated for the students to work out or it would simply take too much time

c) the lexical approach; rules are seldom given at all but they are learnt using fixed/set grammatical patterns as models for the structures; most appropriate for beginners and elementary class students whose conceptual thinking is not high enough to grasp abstract rules

THE TEACHER KNOWS HIS/HER CLASS BEST – AND HE/SHE IS THEREFORE ENTITLED TO CHOOSE a), b) or c) in each case.

3 Be prepared to differentiate the teaching of grammar. Low-achievers are able to recognize the structures and apply them in simple sentences with models. Advanced students can be very creative with the structures once they know the rule.
These methods and approaches are dealt with in more detail in the next articles.

Examples on each Task type

Let me demonstrate how to proceed from a pre-task to a mechanical exercise towards a communicative one. This is a written example but it could be carried out orally as well.

Pre-task, Find someone who

The pre-task is a combination or ‘indefinitive pronouns’ and ‘the perfect tense’ The students present the Yes/No-questions and write the name of those who answer ‘Yes’ in the box.

1 Have you seen any Tarzan films?Michael
2 Has your dad used any vehicle this morning/afternoon?
3 Has somebody told you a joke today?
4 Have you done every school task for today?
5 Has you mum already gone to work or somewhere else this morning/afternoon?Alison
6 Has anyone listened to the Beatles today?
Some of the questions are hard ones on purpose and the students have to repat the questions many times.
The same name may appear only once in the list. After five minutes the sentences are read in groups of four: ‘Michael has seen (some) Tarzan films’ etc. The same sentences can be used in the formulation of the rules.

3 types of grammatical exercises

i) A mechanical task with no real-life context and communicative purpose. However, one must not underestimate these kind of tasks since they also require a lot of knowledge of the target language.

A: What have you done today?
B: I __________________ a letter? (write)
A: What has your mum done today?
B: She _______________________ the bathroom. (clean)
A: What have your classmates done this week?
B: They ______________________ swimming. (go)
A: What have you done this summer?
B: I ___________________ to drive a car and I ________________ a lot of French. (learn, speak)
The rule for the perfect tense ‘has/have + 3rd form of the verb’ has to be known and applied but we have only isolated sentences with no connection to real life. A very easy drill and a gap exercise. Still, some students get no further than this level.

ii) A semi-commmunicative task, the context and the conversation is more natural. Still, the problem is that there is no room for creativity and the students are tied to use the phrases and verbs given.

Let’s practice the past continous forms (was/were + -ing-form)
Jim: Hi, Brenda. I heard you were in an accident. What happened?
Brenda: Hi, Jim. Yes, but I’m ok. My dad ___________________ (drive) our Toyota near the beach and I ______________________ (sit) next to him when a lorry hit us from behind.
Jim: Oh, dear. _______ it _______________ (rain) or something or what was the reason for the accident?
Brenda: No, no. The sun _______________________ (shine) and the weather was fine.
Jim: What was it then? Maybe the lorry driver __________________ (talk) on the phone and didn’t see when you ____________________ (slow down).
Brenda: No, the police think that the breaks of the lorry ________________ (not, work) properly.
Jim: Well, thank God you are fine. My father ________________ (check) our car yesterday when I came home. But it seemed to be alright.
Advanced students do this exercise in two minutes and do not find it challenging and motivating. Yes, it resembles ordinary discussion but … So we need to give them a creative challenge.

iii) A true communicative task. The students are free to create a story of their own and also use other linguistic means than the grammar point referred to in the guidance part under the photos.

Task: Look at the photos and write a story in pairs or in a group of three on the basis of the photos. You do not have to use all photos and you can add other ideas too. The title: ‘Me as an eye-witness’

You are free to create your own story but you must include the following ideas in your story:

  • What was the incident? What was the time when the incident happened? Where were you in New York?
  • What were you and the people around you doing when the incident took place?
  • You called home and your friends. What were your parents and your friends doing at that time?
  • How did it all end?

How does differentiation work if these recommendations are followed?

Stage 1: The pre-task. It is a compulsory task for everybody.

Stage 2: The students are completely free to choose any of the three exercise types: 1) Mechanical exercises 2) Semi-communicative exercises or 3) Communicative exercises.

In other words, some students choose 1) or 2) or 3) only and ignore the rest. The others might take 1) and 2) or 2) and 3) etc. without the teacher telling them which one to choose. The best ones might take only 3) and expand that one even further.

Of course when you are introducing this idea to the students, you can tell them that this is the difficulty order as well but later on it is not necessary any more.

All three approaches how to cope with the grammatical rules will be dealt with in more detail in the following articles. The final grammar article is about the Dodson method, which is one methological option in teaching slow learners and beginners. The interesting thing in it is how the teacher makes use of the mother tongue in this method.

Writing

TEACHING BEGINNERS WRITING, differentiation

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Use some pre-tasks to stir the imagination of the students before you ask them to write anything. Photos are excellent in this respect.

Learning a foreign language is usually started with listening and speaking. The words and phrases learnt may be shown as visual stimuli but actual reading and writing takes place a bit later when the students are given a textbook.

Writing in its simpliest form means

  • writing down or copying words, word lists or short sentences; the teacher shows a picture and the students write the word for it; the teacher says words aloud and the students write them down, etc.
  • dictation: the teacher reads simple sentences or stories and the students write them down, filling in words in a text with gaps or some missing words in a song
  • writing down simple sentences either copying them from the book, copying part of the sentence and changing part of it
  • elaboration: students make sentences or simple stories using some words given to them
  • free creative writing: the students write a fictive story using or ignoring the prompts given by the teacher

All in all, writing starts from individual words, continues in writing simple sentences which at its best are creative in the sense that they are not copied from the textbook chapters. Learning to write well is a long process and both teachers and students have to be patient until the very end of studies.

At the beginning pupils need a lot of guidance from the teacher but as they get older most students benefit from being allowed to be creative and all they need to get going is a set of titles or pictures to choose from.

Differentiation in mixed-ability classes

However, all teachers know that there is a tremendous variation in writing skills in mixed-ability classes. Let’s have a look at the following example and see how the teacher can differentiate the writing task so that the pupils can work at their own level. They know how past tenses of regular verbs are formed and some 30 irregular past tenses.

The formula of differentiation is simple

  1. Revision is done the previous lesson on vocabulary and the grammatical point we wish to emphasize. The topic has to be based on the chapters that were recently studied.
  2. A couple of oral pre-tasks are done in pairs or groups at the beginning of the writing session as a reminder.
  3. Three (or two) choices how to get started with writing. The only difference is in how much of the guidence provided by the teacher the students are making use of.

For example Title: Last summer Be as creative as you wish.

Pre-tasks: The idea is to force 6th graders to use the past tense in telling what happened last summer. The past tense was practised the previous week but we will do a couple of warm-up exercices as a reminder.

Many students find it hard to get started with writing so we need to stir their imagination a bit with some pre-tasks, A) and B) below.

A) The students change a story on the screen written is the present tense to the past tense. It is an oral exercise done in pairs. The second time the students do the same thing but have to change something in every sentence. (5 min) In other words, the mechanical 1st version is turned to a semi-communicative more creative version.

Jane likes to go shopping on Saturday mornings. She usually goes to town by bus but sometimes she takes her own car if she plans to buy some big things. It is eight o’clock and Jane gets up, brushes her teeth and makes morning coffee. She also drinks some water and eats a banana and two sanwiches …
The story is unfinished here and would need 3 – 4 sentences more. If the students do not know the answers, they need to negotiate between themselves and finally consult another pair or the teacher. Some students get only the 1st reading done, others maybe have 3 different versions.

B) The students get into groups of four and make a mind map on what they could write about. 5 min planning. Something like this, just throwing in ideas that can be used or ignored.

C) Write a true or imaginative story of what happened to you, your friends and/or your family last summer. Choose any of the three options below.

Choice A Choice BChoice C (the easiest one)
Feel free to write a creative story. It does not have to be true.You may use the beginning of the sentences below as part of you story. 1) Answer the questions OR 2) Fill in the story with any ideas that please you. The first letter or two are sometimes given to you. You are welcome to write sentences of your own too.
Last summer I and my best friend went to … because we …
First we … the train to …
Secondly, we …
After four hours we … because …
When we came back late in the evening we …

The next week me and my family ….
We … there by … and the following morning we … because …
1) What did you do last summer and why? Where did you go and with whom? Pick four places and explain about them. How did you get the money for ? Why did you go there? How did you get there and back? What were the best things you did there? … OR
2) Last summer my family m… a trip to … and we stay… in a ho… for … days. We sw… in the swimming pool for many ho… and at lunch time we we.. very hungry a… like a horse. My mum w… to the nearby village and bo…. herself some new clothes. My dad likes reading so he r… some short stories when we we… swimming.
Just before we le… the hotel on the last d…, we pick… up apples and strawberries. They co.. very little. My dad dr… us back home and …
A week later we …
The best thing last summer was when we …
When school started …


(Surprisingly many students give up this choice because it is not creative and because the modified cloze text (2) actually requires reading comprehension and a lot of thinking.) In most classes Choices B and C might be enough.
Choice A is for advanced students, B for average ones and C for weaker students. Still, we let them choose any of the options. The more there are sentences and ideas produced by the student him-/herself the better, He/she has to be rewarded with higher marks.

At first glance this kind of differentiation may seem troublesome but if you think about it from the students’ point of view, it shows that you care and try to make writing a more pleasant experience for them. Especially the weak writers need a lot of support and ideas. On the other hand, this way we do not tie the hands of more advanced students.

How does one evaluate stories like this?

This is an interesting question but I like to keep things simple.

Teacher evaluation: In our Finnish system we use grading 4 – 10. 10 is the highest grade and 4 means failure. This is what I tell my students:

  • Choice A suggests you are heading for Grade 9 or 10.
  • Choice B implies you wish to get Grade 7 or 8
  • Choice C basically means you aim at Grade 5 or 6
  • BUT the evaluation is not that simple since everyone can use the ideas given in Choice B and C. Therefore I simply have to consider the level of creativeness and language in general because someone who makes use of Choice C may well come up with a perfectly original story and deserves a high grade.
  • On the other hand, someone who chooses Choice A and writes an appaling story does not deserve a high grade.
  • SO, in the end I am simply using the national criteria in giving the grades but take into account how much the writer leans on the guidance given.

Student/Peer evaluation in writing

Letting the students read each other’s stories and assessing them is a delicate process of its own. In my opinion the students find it very interesting and it is great to have a group of other people who read the story in addition to the teacher. However, note the following points:

  • Ask the students not to write their names on the papers. The writers draw a symbol on the paper to identify their work later on.
  • Young students can indicate with some positive symbols how much they liked the story. 1 – 5 stars or roses, etc.
  • Junior high students (ages 11 -15) can use positive symbols and write only positive comments about the story. If they do not understand something they can put a question mark (?) in the margin.
  • Some junior high classes might be mature enough to give some constructive feedback also on the challenges or the ways the story could be made better. They might even be able to suggest the grade if they are familiar with the criteria/rubric.
  • The assessment can also be done in (randomly selected) pairs.
  • All the feedback is done in class before there are any teacher’s markings on the papers. The teacher moves around the class when the ‘assessment’ is going on because this is a dead-serious business and nobody’s feelings are to be hurt.
  • Senior high students benefit a lot if they are allowed to assess each other’s stories, essays or any other type of written assignments.
  • They will 1) get a realistic view on how good writers they are compared with others, 2) They will learn to interpret the criteria better and realize which writing skill elements they need to improve themselves, 3) They will have to think carefully how to apply all the advice given to them by the teacher. 4) They will be more motivated to write the texts since they know someone else than the teacher will be reading them too.

I hope you now realize how different the writing process becomes if it is done at least roughly as I suggest above. To me the benefits are undeniable and in the long run the teacher’s workload is not increased.

Reading

READING

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Trial and error -method sometimes works beautifully. But would it not be better and quicker to give these people advice how to learn to swim than let them try it out themselves. The same applies to learning to read at a deep level – the students need to realize what they are doing wrong and which new strategies they need to start applying.

When applying CLT ideas in helping my students improve their reading skills I made a few startling discoveries.

  • The first one was that I have no way of knowing what goes on in the heads of my students when they are reading a text. The ‘quality’ of reading was hidden from me.
  • Secondly, as a result of this discovery I realized that the reading process is different for every one of us and the difficulties may be caused by many reasons and I as the teacher had no clue of them.
  • Thirdly, I had not helped my students enough to find the causes to these difficulties or to find a remedy for them. It had been like ‘Read more and more and you will become a better reader’ OR even worse ‘Throw the child into the water and let them learn to swim little by little’.
  • Fourthly, I realized I can make a difference in my students’ reading comprehension only indirectly; I had to make changes in what happens in my lessons and what kind of advice and guidence I could offer my students.
Move the arrow button to see the two options: Is reading a text a relaxing experience or is it filled with fear of not being able to overcome the obstacles on the way?

I had always insisted on my students studying the new chapter at home in advance. So the foundation for reading comprehension was there. It had actually been laid in the elementary school and with some students in the junior high school. When starting to apply CLT ideas in my ‘teaching’ of reading I first made a few important changes in my lessons.

  • I began to use differentiation in my lessons and replaced me asking questions about the text by giving my students 3 options how to ‘check’ reading comprehension. See Point 4 in Reading strategies below
  • The check was always done orally in pairs or groups, not with the teacher. So I combined reading with speaking. Reading comprehension became part of speaking practice. See more detailed account in ‘Deepening understanding of text, Part 1’
  • I started to teach more and more about various strategies how to improve reading skills and how to cope with exams as well. This idea led directly to improving writing skills as well.

The most striking example of the importance of education and reading skills that I have come across in my life is what happened in Oman in 1970 when Sultan Qaboos became the ruler and turned the uneducated nation into a modern cililized country merely in 50 years.

Introduction to receptive skills and reading strategies

As I have stated earlier on that receptive skills (listening and reading), are much more difficult to teach than productive skills (speaking and writing). Speaking and writing skills can easily be measured against a criteria. In contrast, listening and reading take place in the heads of the students and we have no physical evidence on the quality of understanding.

Listening comprehension can be verified only indirectly by checking if the listeners responses make sense in the light of what was said by other people. The other way is, of course, by having an exam.

Reading comprehension is even more challenging because people often read silently on their own and there are seldom immediate situations where understanding is checked in normal life. We rarely challenge the information someone has read about. Besides, interestingly enough research has shown that the process in decoding written messages is different among recipients and may even result in arguments about the content.

The most important thing for teachers is to make the students aware of their own reading processes, strengths and weaknesses, and also of the ways other readers approach a new text. Pair and group work as well as various reading strategies serve as tools for raising the awareness but they are also keys to the remedies, keys how to improve one’s own reading skills.

Nevertheless, the situation is far from being hopeless since we can teach about reading indirectly and most of my other articles on reading deal with strategies that serve as tools to enhance reading skills of ordinary and examination texts.

The other articles related to READING COMPREHENSION are

ReadingReading comprehension strategies in class
Solving reading difficulties
Reading strategies, an example how to teach them
Reading strategies, spotting main ideas
Strategies to be used in exams and a model lesson how to introduce them
Sample exam for reading comprehension
Deep level reading, returning the markes sample exam

These other articles under heading READING demonstrate …

  • how important it is that the students themselves become aware of the reasons why they do not always understand a text or succeed in the exams and what they need to do to overcome the difficulties
  • how complex the process of reading actually is and how differently readers may approach an ordinary or an exam text and how versatile the difficulties they encounter may be
  • how the students can make use of various strategies during the exam to get better results
  • how to organize the lessons after the exam has been taken and the exams are returned to the students
Writing

DICTATION, benefits and challenges

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Dictation is a bit controversial activity in CLT because it is not very creative but it has some advantages, too.

Pedagogical ideas on the use of dictation in class

Dictation is considered to be a demanding type of language exercise since it presupposes

  • not only listening and writing skills
  • but also knowledge of vocabulary (how the words are pronounced and written),
  • and knowledge of grammatical structures (how and in which order they appear in a sentence) 

Research shows that dictation is a fairly reliable way to test a student’s proficiency level. I have personally found this to be true and therefore I always have a couple of sentences dictated in my comprehensive school exams. Dictation also trains the ear for the target language and is a natural stepping stone for real creative writing skills.

Dictation is a good way to get the skill of writing going with words, phrases or full sentences. But it is not a very common activity in real-life situations. It is maybe most commonly used on the phone when someone calls us and we have to write down addresses, shopping lists, directions to a place or names (spelled to us letter by letter,) for example.

Thus pair work on the phone might be more recommendable and motivating  than teacher-run dictations. In other words, it does not have to be the teacher who dictates the sentences but it can be a student too.

Nevertheless, I think the most compelling reason to keep up dictation is that it is practice for ‘note taking’ which is most useful in lessons, university lectures, meetings or conferences. Therefore I recommend ordinary dictation in the elementary and comprehensive classes only. In the senior high note-taking while watching a documentary video or listening to some recording is much more useful.

How to overcome the disadvantages of dictation?

There is no denying that there are some issues to think about when we deal with dictation. Teachers often give up dictation altogether for three reasons:

  1. Firstly, dictation may be very time-consuming if the sentences are long and everything is read at least twice.
  2. Secondly, checking and correcting the answers is often desperately slow.    
  3. Thirdly, weaker students easily get frustrated with dictation because their inability to cope with the task becomes so visible and obvious.

Solution to problems 1 and 2: The teacher reads the (short) sentence once and after a minor pause reads the sentence again (in shorter parts) and at the same time starts to reveal the correct answer on the blackboard or screen allowing the weaker ones to copy the sentence in their notebooks. Encourage the good students not to ‘peek the answers’.

So, the good pupils write without looking at the screen and the weak ones are allowed to copy the sentences from the screen. By the end of the dictation everyone will have checked their own work and no time is wasted on strenuous checking. There is no need to check the success at this stage but it can be part of the pupils’ self-evaluation. I just walk through the class to see the writing was done. The whole activity is over in less than 5 minutes .  

Solution to problem 3: Being permitted to ‘copy’ from the screen is a big relief for weaker students. Another way is to give them a version of the dictation sentences where only some words are missing. Naturally, the dictation has to be based on vocabulary and structures that have been gone through in class. If the students are working in pairs, they can dictate their pair words or sentences from the previous chapter and check them while the other one is writing.

It is perfectly justifiable to use dictation every now and then due to pedagogical reasons but also to bring some variation to the lessons.

My favourite dictation tasks

In elementary classes

bank a park work near she drive in a lorry because to works morning doctors my mum they to hospital this drives my the new dad work often week

All the words needed in the dictation are on the screen. There are some extra words in the box. ‘My dad drives a new lorry this week.’ etc

Black hole dictation

This is an interesting version of a gap exercise. The simplest way is to take a copy of the textbook page and blacken some words or phrases and then show the blackened text to the students who have to write the missing parts in their note books. The task is easier if you give the first letter/s. The task gets more demanding if the students have to  fill in other words than the ones in the original text.

‘Phone’ dictation

The students sit back to back, so that they don’t look the other one in the eye. The students are given a shopping list or a list of tasks/chores to be done at home, school or in the town. They ‘call’ the partner and ask them to do the things for them. They have to use real telephone phrases and the partner has to write the chores down.

An even more communicative task: The speaker decides where the partner goes and what the chores are. No teacher’s guidance needed.

Go to the grocery store and buy milk, cheese and dark bread.
Go to the sport store: buy size 5 foorball, new socks for yourself and a birthday present for grandad
Go the the library and bring a book on gardening, feed the cats

An interactive A/B dictation

The dictation takes place after a chapter has been studied in class. Pupil A does not see the part of Pupil B until the whole dictation is over. Checking is done without the teacher’s help.

Read the full sentence to your partner who will write the missing words on the line. Take turns. (The original paper is folded and cut in two in the middle)

Pupil APupil B
Jim does __________________ ________________ things every day.Jim does many different things every day.
He sleeps for nine hours at night.He _________________________ ___________________ at night.
He _________________________________ for six hours.He goes to school by bus for six hours.
He does his homework for two hours after school.He _____________________________ for two hours ______________ school.
He ____________________________ for about an hour.He plays video games for about an hour.
He watches TV for an hour.He ______________ TV _____________ hour.
He eats dinner for __________ _________________________________.He eats dinner for one and a half hours.
He plays football until seven o’clock.He ______________________________ ____________________.

For more advanced pupils and students one can move to longer sentences and use interactive forms of dictation where the students take care of reading the sentences for each other or other members of the group. And take care of checking as well.

It is a good idea to combine dictation with other types of activities such as listening and taking notes, for example.

Other types of writing tasks

SymbolMeaning of the evaluation symbol
_______ underlining any kind of mistake
_ _ _ _underlined part is ok, but not good language
>wrong word order, move to the direction of the arrow
?the meaning is very unclear ( ? in the margin)
+ or ++good ( + in the margin or text), ++ excellent
/\an arrow pointing upwards = something is missing
(an article, preposition, word etc.)
With some classes at least it might be a good idea for the teacher not correct all mistakes but make the students try to correct them so that the students are forced to think about the mistakes and the same mistakes will not be repeated.

With some classes at least it might be a good idea for the teacher not correct all mistakes but make the students try to correct them so that the students are forced to think about the mistakes and the same mistakes will not be repeated.