Teaching the four skills

Listening & speakingSome issues to address:

1. Phonological linking (liaison), e.g., as ̮your, an ̮awful, the ̮awful ̮lawyer2. Reduced forms

contractions: wanna [want to], hafta [have to] lemme [let me], betcha [(I) bet you] reductions: Jennifer Jenny; gov’ment; interest [→ Intrɛst] cluster truncation: months [mʌns], just do it [jʌs.du:.It]ellipsis: I don’t want to go I don’t want to I don’ wanna → →

3. Colloquial language, colloquialisms, dialectal forms; pronunciation differences according to register (linguistic formality level), style, dialect, region

4. Speaking rate – more reduced forms & other differences in pronunciation5. Parentheticals (items inserted into sentences with a “parenthetical” intonation)6. Stress, rhythm, intonation7. Interaction – social, pragmatic & other complexities (pronunciation, word choice, etc.)

Pragmatic & sociolinguist aspects:Many conversational routines involve turn-taking, where turns form an adjacency pairs (as discourse linguists call them), where one statement anticipates or expects another in return, like so:

A:B:

A says something, to which B is expected to respond. These adjacency pairs are the basic building blocks of conversation. There are many types, which teachers can use for starting a conversation or mini-conversation in class activities:• greetings & farewells• congratulations• suggestions• compliments• requests• questions• starting small talk• ritual complaining: a form of small talk about unpleasant circumstances (e.g., bad weather)

1. turn-taking & turn-taking adjacency pairs 2. also teach dispreferred responses: interrupting, refusals, denials 3. cultural differences in “face” politeness, dispreferred responses, indirectness & directness4. cultural differences in addressing professors, teachers, older persons, relatives, bosses, etc.

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5. “face” politeness 6. corrections, repairs 7. overlapping turns, interruptions8. “holding the floor” 9. intonation, e.g., sentence stress, sentence intonation10. formality levels (register)11. male & female conversational styles 12. dialects, e.g., British, North American, Australian, Indian

“Face” politeness or linguistic politeness refers to responding in a way that the other person expects, not interrupting a person, and such, so as to respect his/her preferences or expectations as a speaker. Dispreferred responses are a (slight) potential act against one’s preferences or “face”, so we soften or mitigate these with softeners (hedges).

Discourse markers.Discourse makers indicate attitudes toward the discourse or other information about what is coming.

Hedges: softeners you know, maybe, well, I think, like, perhapsFeedback: indicating or seeking agreement or attention

yes, yeah, okay, mmh, uh-huh; you know?, don’t you?

Backchannel: indicate that you’re listening or understanding

yes, uh-huh, mmh, yeah

Fillers: pause markers uh, umDispreferred response well, uh, okay, yeahSelf-corrections you know, like, I mean, wellTopic shift markers besides, anyway, as for, as I was saying,

regarding, as regards, now

classroom activities: • passive listening• intensive practice• responsive exercises• selective exercises (e.g, find X in the dialog)• comprehension exercises• transactional dialogs – conveying specific information, negotiations, goal-oriented

interactions such as business transactions or customer-client interactions• interpersonal dialogs• monologues, presentations

Tips:• Materials should be interesting & motivating• Focus on comprehensible input, not input beyond their level of comprehension • Use authentic materials as much as possible (or modified authentic texts) • Encourage students to learn & use listening strategies (looking for key words, non-verbal

cues, contextual cues, listening for gist of meaning)• Provide appropriate feedback & correction • Provide opportunities for students to initiate conversations

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• Teach use of small talk (weather, family, ritual complaining...) • Teach pragmatic interactions like compliments, introductions, ritual complaining,

congratulating, requests • Scaffolding techniques– simplification, repetition, teacher-led exercises, etc. • Forumulaic phrases (e.g., standard politeness phrases, standard conversational expressions &

routines)• Sample sentences as models (e.g., memorized exemplar sentences)

Reading, writing, vocabularyProcess approach vs. prescriptive approachContrastive rhetoric – writing style differences between East Asian & Western organization of paragraphs & essays

tips:1. Encourage extensive outside reading2. Teach different genres or discourse forms, including different levels of formality – formal letters,

diaries / journals, directions, personal letters, essays, lab reports, business letters, forms & applications, manuals, advertisements, invitations, creative writing / fiction, short stories, etc.

3. Teach phonics, especially for younger children4. Teach students to guess new words from context 5. Make students guess from context by substituting new words with pseudo-words in a reading

passage6. Teach skimming / scanning techniques, identifying main ideas or gist7. Teach techniques for generating ideas for writing – brainstorming, group work, freewriting,

outlining, semantic mapping / clustering, flow charts.8. Teach idiomatic and metaphorical usage9. Teach discourse connectives / transitionals 10. Teach paragraph styles, e.g., contrast / comparison, descriptive, listing examples, analytical,

problem solving11. Use interesting & authentic reading selections & writing assignments12. Target readings & writing assignments to students’ interests 13. Encourage more advanced students to use monolingual or monolingual ESL dictionaries14. Teach morphemes – but in a contextualized manner

Grammar – some considerations: 1. Proper understanding of what grammar is & why to teach it; thus, functional explanations of

grammar 2. Teach different style / register levels – colloquial / informal as well as formal English3. Consider students’ needs, and consider their proficiency level & cognitive level4. Descriptive rather than prescriptive approaches 5. Inductive or deductive presentation of grammar6. Use authentic materials as much as possible, or modified materials

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Integrated instruction

1. Content based instructionTeaching specific content area; sometimes combined with TBLT or immersionSchool immersion programs, e.g., grade school subjects in English“Writing across the curriculum” - writing in subject matter (biology, history, etc.)English for specific purposes (ESP) – e.g., college level instruction in writing & other skills in content area (science, engineering, business, etc.)English for academic purposes (EAP) – ESP academic writing or content area

2. Theme based instructionSimilar to content based instruction, but more loosely organized around themes, not necessarily EAP/ESP, e.g., an intensive English course based on health issues, environment, current events, etc.

3. Experiential learningHands-on projects, research projects, computer activities, field trips, etc.

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