Teach English in Boping Zhen - Liaocheng Shi

The four different skills in a language are divided into two groups: -the receptive skills of listening and reading -the productive skills of speaking and writing We may find that foreign students would prefer to concentrate on certain skills and maybe feel that writing is not that important for their needs. However, we have seen throughout this course that all four skills are just as important and should be addressed as such. From the courses, the TEFL method shows the importance of Student talk Time and how it can be achieved so that the students may communicate freely. Writing should be kept for the Study phase or even for homework to give if there is no time during the class for the special point of language you want to teach. It is important to know where the lesson will be taught. In a school in another country, the students will be mostly monolingual, meaning that they have a common L1 and a common alphabet. Problems can arise if they do not use the Roman alphabet like the Russians or Asians. This must be taught before anything else in that case, as well as pronunciation of the different letters and then, go on to the different sounds if the students are old enough to understand the signs in a dictionary. This would not be appropriate for very young learners. In the latter case, one should focus more on pronunciation. If you are teaching English in a country where the main language is English, you probably are teaching pupils for a precise purpose such as preparing for an external exam where all four skills will be tested or, to be able to integrate well in the country they moved to. If you are not in a typical school situation where you probably know the students from the previous year it is important to see what level your new students have and what they are learning the language for and for what reason. Real beginners will have to be taught from the very beginning as they have not yet been exposed to the English language. False beginners who have been exposed to the language or who have learned it a while ago will probably know something about the pronunciation of some simple words and maybe even the Roman alphabet. For the other classes, it is important to do an assessment test of what they already know so you may plan your syllabus accordingly. This will start out with easy questions and will become harder and harder as the student progresses through the test. By seeing what each individual has achieved you will get an idea of what level they are at. If the students have different levels but are in the same class for a question of age or year in the foreign school system, you may need to use slightly different materials, ideally on the same topic, for the strongest and weakest students. The fact that the topic is the same permits them to interact at their level in discussions with the whole class. In the study phase, you may need to prepare some extra worksheets for stronger students that finish quickly and could become bored if not kept busy. It will be more rewarding for them to have something a little more harder to do. This also helps the weaker students not to feel uncomfortable because the materials are too hard for them. Another way to confront this is to pair up stronger students with weaker ones and hence not lose the class dynamics. Whatever way it is approached, a TEFL lesson should have clear, simple and precise explanations or instructions and must be lively and interesting, especially in the activate phase so as not to lose the enthusiasm of the class. A teacher may achieve this by getting to know their students and the topics they are interested in. If there are different tastes in the group you should change the topic regularly so no one feels left out. We mentioned before that knowing the Roman alphabet and its pronunciation in English as well of the different sounds the students need for listening and speaking is what should be taught first. We then go on to very simple phrases like introducing oneself to one another. The teacher could start and therefore, with only ever using the English language, make the students understand and be able to introduce themselves in more or less detail according to their age and level. Once this simple task is achieved it is good to start teaching the language they need to learn. It would probably start with vocabulary that can be used in very simple sentences. The vocabulary can be introduced with flash cards, realia, pictures, etc. so they know what we are talking about to then be able to recognize it and use it English. After simple sentences can be made for different topics it is good to start teaching the parts of speech; nouns, prepositions, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, gerunds, adjectives, etc. Again, depending on what the L1 language is of each student, these could be used in a very different way than their native language. This particular case will demand more introduction of simple English language and homework to reinforce this so as not to reduce TTT or STT. The parts of speech are the very structure of a sentence in the language. Again, for very young learners who might not yet know the grammar and writing of their own language may need purely listening and speaking in the first classes. Once the parts of speech are understood and we know the level and needs of our students we can create a syllabus where each lesson will be about a certain language point, whether it is grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, etc. To teach these four different skills that basically show the full understanding of the language we may use the following materials: - Listening: songs, a recorded voice or conversation, a video interview, the teacher as the model, etc. - Speaking: role-playing, debates, drilling, games, and most activities will need this skill. - Reading: the spelling of the correct parts of speech, how they sound in one's head, the meaning of the word is essential to be able to read. Some extra work to be done at home might be necessary so that the class does not become too formal. In general, the students must understand the pronunciation of different words but also know the exceptions where some words are spelled differently and sound the same or the case where two words are spelled the same but are pronounced differently and have different meanings. -Writing: This will be gradual as the students first have to master writing in English, especially if they do not use the Roman alphabet, and here good penmanship is necessary and should be practiced starting with the teacher's writing on the board (separate letters in lower case except for at the beginning of the sentence and certain nouns and pronouns (upper case). A lot more can be said about the four different skills and they are the key to speaking a language, therefore, we could base our whole teaching on these skills. This was just an approach to define the skills and explain what each is for.