Unit 11

UNIT 11 WORKSHEET

Task 1 – What are the two productive skills?

          They are speaking and writing.

Task 2 – Give a brief description of the differences between accuracy and fluency activities:

          Accuracy activities are usually part of the study phase while fluency activities tend to be part of the activate phase. This makes sense since the study stage focuses on correctness, and the activate stage focuses on practice and experimentation. Accuracy activities are more controlled by the teacher to ensure accurate reproduction of the language. Fluency activities are not so controlled and allow more freedom for the students to do what they want. It allows more room for to use the language creatively. The accuracy activities concentrate on producing correct language, but the fluency activities is more concerned with the effectiveness and flow of the communication.

Task 3 – List 5 different speaking activities, giving an example activity of your own for each:

1.     Drilling- Repeat various tongue twisters. For example, she sells seashells by the seashore. This helps with pronunciation of different letters and alliteration.

2.     Debates- Have students debate over moral dilemmas or political issues using various grammar structures, like the conditional.

3.     Model Dialogues- Act out a scene from a play. Maybe even put on a very brief production.

4.     Communication Games- telephone. One student whispers a sentence that uses a grammar structure to another student.

5.     Information Gap- Spot the differences.

Task 4 – Give examples of ways that the teacher can encourage students to speak and interact during a lesson:

          One reason why students may not participate is because of a lack of confidence. The teacher can build confidence in the students by actively praising the students when they answer correctly and letting them know that it’s okay to make mistakes. Students can still learn from mistakes. Never say that any idea is bad. Instead, you can say, “Okay, that’s one way. Is there any other way?” Validate the student’s contribution and try to get other students to contribute as well.

          Additionally, the teachers must be aware of cultural limitations of speaking and work with them. For example, in some cultures, students refrain from speaking until they are spoken to first. Sometimes students interact more in groups/pairs so try to assign tasks where they can interact with their peers.

Also, students want to know what they’re doing is meaningful and has a purpose. They just don’t want to do busy work. It is the duty of the teacher to create a desire and need in the students to communicate. Allow ample time for the students to think of what they are going to say.

Most importantly, the best way to promote students to speak and interact is to create a comfortable environment, where students are encouraged to contribute ideas, experiment with the language, and enjoy communicating.

Task 5 – List five ways, with short explanations, that a teacher can generate interest in a topic. Come up with ideas of your own:

1.     During the engage stage, make sure that everyone is participating. If you don’t get their attention from the beginning, it will be harder to get them focused on the topic later. If they’re not focused, then there’s no way to get them interested in the topic. You should try to call on different people every time and discuss topics that are relevant to everyone.

2.     Make sure that the activate stage is intriguing and interactive. Retain their attention once you got it. Students will become more interested in atopic if they find the activities interesting.

3.     Make sure that the students fully comprehend the details of the topic. They cannot be interested in something if they do not know what it is. At the beginning, describe the topic in clear, concise, simple terms. Always use language appropriate to their language level.

4.     Use lots of visual aid and make the activities as hands-on as possible. Students find it easier to relate to a topic if they can visualize it clearly. Try using newspaper articles or short movie clips.

5.     Let the students contribute as much as possible. Try to reduce as much interference as possible during the activate stage and sometimes the engage stage. The more involved the students become and the more personal it is to the students, the more interesting the topic becomes.

Task 6 – Give an example of an effective free-speaking activity and how it would fit into an ESA lesson plan, with as much detail as possible:

          The learning objective would be for the students to be able to use the language involved with giving and asking for directions.

-Engage: Ask the students how they usually come to school and the general path they take to get to school. Then ask students about various places they like to frequent and what’s nearby those buildings.

-Study: Elicit vocabulary about directions and complete an information-gap activity. The students have a map and some directions. The students must fill in the rest of the directions using the map.

-Activate: Students role-play a tourist and a native. Arrange the desks so you have “roads” and put pictures of famous landmarks in various places in the classroom. Students must ask each other on how to get to a specific landmark.

Task 7 – What additional issues does the teacher have to consider for a writing activity?

          The teacher should keep in mind that there are grammar and vocabulary differences in a writing activity. The vocabulary in writing is usually more formal than speaking.

Handwriting- Some students use a different alphabet system so forming English letters might present a major hindrance to some students. These students will need special training in the formation of individual letters. Additionally, teachers should always encourage the students to improve their handwriting to be neat and eligible.

          Spelling- This can be difficult due to the silent letters (such as kn), different pronunciations for the same word (read/read), and homophones (to/two/too). Since English is not a phonetic language, there are different ways of pronouncing the same letters. For example, the c in cat is pronounced differently from the c in city. Also, the differences between American English and British English add to the confusion (color/colour). Slang spelling also presents another consideration. The teacher should consider helping the students with spelling through extensive reading.

          Layout and pronunciation- The teacher has to consider that the grammar rules and the sentence structure may be different from those of English. Some languages write from right to left or have no punctuation or have no spacing at all. The teacher should consider exposing the students to many different writing styles.

          Creative writing- The teacher should encourage creative writing because it engages the students, and the finished work provides them with a sense of pride from a job well done. Teachers should consider pair/group work for creative writing assignments.

Task 8 – Think of five traditional games that could be adapted for the classroom and details of how you would use them (these games should not include any of those mentioned in the course unit):

1.     Bingo- Instead of numbers, have multiple bingo cards filled with vocabulary words o it. The teacher would then either show a picture or say a definition, and the students must match it on their bingo card. First student to have 5 in a row and say Bingo wins!

2.     Word search- The word list could be definitions or fill-in-the-blank clues that the students must find that word in the word search.

3.     Musical chairs- To teach popular English songs, such as the alphabet song, the students sing along with the song while they play musical chairs.

4.     Treasure hunt- Instead of a map, have written directions or word clues to lead the students to the “treasure.”

5.     Speed ball/Catch- Before a student can throw the ball, he/she must say a word that rhymes with the word that was chosen before the game.