Methodologies and Approaches in ELT The short URL for this page is: The 20th century was a period of great experimentation and innovation in language education. These were almost always based on evolving theories of learning, of language acquisition and of language itself. This website aimed to provide some factual and critical information about each of the better-known so-called methodologies. Just as QANTAS covers more of the world than its name, the Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service, might suggest, this website has grown to become the central repository for most of my work. This site is an ongoing project. The author won a British Council ELTon in 2010. Check it out. and a new accompanying Workbook & Glossary in April 2016.
Reading & Writing (Literacy) - Common Core State Standards | Vermont Agency of Education The Common Core Standards (English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects) set requirements not only for English language arts (ELA) but also for literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Just as students must learn to read, write, speak, listen, and use language effectively in a variety of content areas, so too must the Standards specify the literacy skills and understandings required for college and career readiness in multiple disciplines. Students who meet the Standards develop the skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening that are the foundation for any creative and purposeful expression in language. (CCSS ELA/L p. 3) Questions?
Bloom's taxonomy and English language learners Thinking Skills and English language learners English language learners should be asked critical thinking questions from all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. Some of the tasks on the taxonomy are difficult for ELLs because they lack the language and vocabulary to work in English. However, teachers need to ask questions from all levels of the taxonomy that are age appropriate and at the English language level of the English language learners. Even very young children can work at the Synthesis and Evaluation levels. Examples at each level below come from Pa Lia's First Day by Michelle Edwards. Level 1: Knowledge. What did Pa Lia's brother do on the way to school? Level II: Comprehension. Why did Pa Lia dawdle on the way to school? Level III: Application. Why did Pa Lia send a note? Level 4: Analysis. How do we know Pa La felt nervous? Level 5: Synthesis. Pa Lia is a new student at school and she has no friends. Level VI: Evaluation. Resource Picks
Teaching Tips | Silent Cacophony Welcome to Teaching Tip Tuesdays – The Table of Contents Please visit this page often as I will continue to update it every week with my latest teaching tip. Below you find the tips in the order they have appeared on my blog. The tips are also grouped by theme a little further down. I hope that you will find this series of posts useful in your classroom. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, or would like to write a guest post for Teaching Tip Tuesdays, please leave me a comment below, send me an email, or get at me on Twitter Teachers helping teachers is what it is all about. 1. Posts by Theme will continue to be updated as well April Fools Day April Fools Day Art 5 Shading Techniques , Super Buck , Colour Wheel , First Day Craft , Don’t Throw That Out , Colour Families , Elementary Oragami (guest post) , Super Doors , Art Attack , Unscramble, Write, and Draw , Define Yourself: Word Collage , Visual (Drawing) Telephone , OK Go Primary Colours Assessment and Marking Drama Games Geography
Checking Understanding Analysis of the language consists of two sub-stages, often known as highlighting and concept checking. Highlighting is taking the model sentence and showing, telling or eliciting what the problems are in terms of form, function, and phonology. Concept checking is checking the understanding of difficult aspects of the target structure in terms of function and meaning. Ways of checking understandingConcept questionsSome examplesLearning to construct concept questionsConclusion Ways of checking understanding Concept checking is normally achieved by the use of a set of questions designed to ensure comprehension of the target language, raise awareness of its problems, and to indicate to the teacher that the learners have fully understood. The question 'Do you understand?' Time lines to establish tenses. Concept questions Concept questions themselves are often difficult to construct since they involve clarifying function and meaning using simple language but not the target language itself.
Nine ways to revise English vocabulary using slips of paper What can teachers do when classroom technology stops working? Cristina Cabal, latest winner of the British Council's TeachingEnglish blog award for her post on pronunciation, suggests nine activities for revising English vocabulary using simple slips of paper. Nowadays, it seems very simple to plan a lesson that makes use of the many tools available online, especially as more and more of us have access to the Internet in our classrooms. But while technology is increasingly part of our teaching, there are times when it can cause problems and frustrations for teachers, such as when the Wi-Fi stops working or the computer shuts down, leaving you with a one-hour lesson to teach and no plan B up your sleeve. One of the best ways to deal with this situation is to use slips of paper – a resource available to every teacher in any given situation. Using slips of paper to revise vocabulary 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Using slips of paper to practise vocabulary in writing 6. 7. 8. 9.
“Grammaring”: The Fifth Skill In Language Teaching and Learning Fez – Language teaching and learning has always been a controversial area within applied linguistics. According to Corder (1973), “what to teach or learn can be described in linguistic terms as grammar […] or in psychological terms as language skills” (p. 137). Although grammar refers to what we know about a language such as phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, language skills are about what we do with language. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Controversies often arise when the boundaries between these two areas become blurred, as in the case of treating “grammaring” as a language skill. The teaching and learning of grammar has always been one of the most hotly debated topics in the field of language education. With the shift from structuralism to transformational generative grammar, the notion of grammar has been redefined as the system of rules that every native speaker of a language has acquired. A Tentative Definition of “Grammaring” Bibliography
My current understanding of how grammar is mastered – the ‘theory’ This is the first post in series of two posts in which I review my current understanding of how grammar is mastered. In this post I’ll overview some research on grammar acquisition and in the second one I’ll give a concrete example of how some of these ideas prompted me to tweak the way I teach a particular grammar topic (the patterns used with ‘I wish’). To summarize these changes, I have stepped away from the ‘pure’ PPP lesson shape with its initial ‘presentation’ stagemodified some of the practice activities in order to change the way the structure is retrieved from memory What do we mean when we say ‘mastering grammar’? Probably everyone who’s involved in language teaching knows the term ‘interlanguage‘. Grammatical processing belongs to the so-called implicit knowledge and operates automatically, mostly without recourse to attention, unless the person stops before formulating the utterance and rehearses it in their short-memory. References Sanz, C. and Leuw, R. Like this:
A Task-based approach This article also links to the following activity.Try - Speaking activities - Task-based speaking - planning a night out Present Practice ProduceThe problems with PPPA Task-based approachThe advantages of TBLConclusion Present Practice Produce (PPP) During an initial teacher training course, most teachers become familiar with the PPP paradigm. A PPP lesson would proceed in the following manner. First, the teacher presents an item of language in a clear context to get across its meaning. The problems with PPP It all sounds quite logical but teachers who use this method will soon identify problems with it: Students can give the impression that they are comfortable with the new language as they are producing it accurately in the class. A Task-based approach Task -based learning offers an alternative for language teachers. Task The students complete a task in pairs or groups using the language resources that they have as the teacher monitors and offers encouragement.
Recycling Language in a Dogme Classroom – chiasuanchong I have often have teachers asking me, ‘If language just emerges, how do you ensure learning takes place? How do you recycle the langauge?’ Many of you have read, or written blogposts on the same subject, but I thought I’d share my favourite ways of recycling language (which I’ve, of course, stolen and adapted from all the wonderful teachers and colleagues around me). First things first, I find a retrospective record of my Dogme lessons useful in helping me keep track of what has gone on, so as to revise the language covered, and also to enable me to provide the appropriate scaffolding for subsequent lessons. Here are photos of three different days of my Low-Intermediate lesson. (You’ll need to click on the picture to enlarge it.) The emergent language is then transferred onto cards. Here’s how I use them. 1. This is something I have adapted from an idea that originated from my colleague, Melissa, and have done it every lesson since. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. So there you have it.
Digital Publications for the Digital Classroom procedural knowledge vs. declarative knowledge Procedural knowledge is, in a nutshell, knowing how to do something. It contrasts with declarative knowledge, which is knowledge about something. For example, I may read about the importance of perfect arm strokes and coordination while swimming and yet drown like a stone when inside the pool. This may sound obvious, I know, but as far as language learning goes, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Declarative knowledge enables a student to describe a rule and perhaps apply it in a drill or a gap-fill. Not surprisingly, procedural knowledge does not translate automatically into declarative knowledge – try asking a native speaker to explain why exactly she said “I’ve been there” rather than “I went there”. Some people (like Krashen) claim that declarative and procedural knowledge are two separate entities, while others believe that declarative knowledge can be proceduralized through practice. By the way, click here for another post on declarative knowledge vs procedural knowledge.