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ING303 Teaching Language Skills

ING303 Teaching Language Skills. Lecture 3: The text. Things to cover in this chapter. What is a text ?: A definition of what we mean by text in ELT Teaching the text : What we want learners to get from text study Comprehension of content : Procedures that help comprehension

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ING303 Teaching Language Skills

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  1. ING303TeachingLanguageSkills Asst. Prof. Dr. Emrah Görgülü Lecture 3: Thetext

  2. Thingstocover in thischapter • What is a text?: A definition of whatwemeanbytext in ELT • Teachingthetext: Whatwewantlearnerstogetfromtextstudy • Comprehension of content: Proceduresthathelpcomprehension • Languagelearning: Ways of selectingandteachinggrammaticalandvocabularyitemsfrom a text • Discourseanalysis: Aspects of discourse: genres, stylesandstructure

  3. What is a text? • A text in thecontext of EnglishLanguageTeaching is a piece of writingorspeechthat is usedforlanguagelearning. • A text can be studied as a completeandautonomousunit: thereaderorlistener can understand it withoutknowingthecontext. • A text is coherent in the sense that it has a beginning, a middleand an endwhichmake a clearsequence of thoughtsorevents. • Thus a text is differentfrom a list of wordsto be learnedorsentencesthatgiveexamples.

  4. What is a text? • A coursebooktextrangesfrom a paragrapghto a pageormore in length. • Thetext is normallyusedforintensivelanguagelearning in variousways: forcomprehensionwork, forlearninglanguageitemsthatappear in it, foranalysis of content. • Wemake a distinctionbetweenintensiveandextensivetextstudy. Intensivemeansthatthetext is not onlyunderstood, but alsostudied in detail. It is alsoused as a springboardforfurtherlanguagestudy. • Extensivemeansthatthetext is readorheardforpleasureand/orinformation. The main aim is toprovidereadingandlisteningfluencyandlanguagelearning is incidental. Q: Whichone do wefocus on?

  5. Teachingthetext • Thereare a number of reasonsstudentsread a text in class: • Studentsread a giventexttounderstanditscontent (i.e. Whatthe text is about) • Students then answer thequestionsaboutthetextto check comprehension • Studentslearnnewwords, phrases and grammatical structures, andusethem in andoutsidetheclassroom.

  6. Teachingthetext: thegoals • The main goals of teachingthetextarecomprehension of content, languagelearninganddiscourseanalysis. • Comprehension of content • General gist: Theteacherneedstomake sure thatstudentsunderstandthe general content of thetext. • Detailedunderstanding: Thenextstage is moredetailedcomprehension of thedifferentparts of thetext. Thismeanssentence-bysentencestudy, providingexplanations of newwords. • Reading betweenthelines: Youcould ask studentstoinfermeaningsthatare not statedexplicitly. In a literarytext, thespeech of differentcharactersshowstheirpersonalityandmotives.

  7. Teachingthetext: thegoals (cont’d) • Critical analysis: Thetextmay be studiedcritically: studentsareinvitedtojudge how truthful, consistentorlogicalthetext is. • Language learning • Vocabulary: Onebenefit of intensivestudy of a text is vocabularyexpansionorreview. Allthewordsneedto be understoodbySs. Do vocabulary-focusedactivitiesandhelpthemlearnnewwords! • Grammar: Anotherbenefit is thelearning of wordorsentencegrammar. Sshave an opportunitytolearndifferentgramamticalfeatures. It is usefulto pay attentiontoonesthatareharder.

  8. Teachingthetext: thegoals (cont’d) • Discourseanalysis: Itis thediscussion of thetext as a whole, ratherthanparticularlinguisticfeaturessuch as grammarandvocabulary. It can onlytakeplaceafterstudentshaveunderstoodthecontent. • Follow-uptasks: Afteryouhavefinishedcomprehension, youmayfindthatmanytextsproviderichstimuliforfurtherlanguage-learningtaskswhichinvolvestudentproduction (speechorwriting). (do actiontask on page 30)

  9. Comprehension of content • Thepriority in dealingwith a text is togetstudentstounderstand it: firstthegist, then in moredetail. • Preparation:Preparatorywork can be extremelyhelpfulforcomprehension. It can includediscussingthetopic, pre-teachingvocabularyandaskingpreliminaryquestions. • Presentingthetopic: Previousknowledge of thetopic is probablythefactorwhichmosthelpstextcomprehension. It is a good idea togivestudentsinformationaboutthecontent of thetext in advance. • Pre-teachingvocabulary: A lot of booksandteachers do thisbut teachingtoomanywords in advanceoverloadsstudents’ short-termmemory. They do not rememberthemeanings in thetext.

  10. Comprehension of content (cont’d) • Raisingexpectationsandcuriosity: It is importanttomotivatestudentstoreadthetext. A usefulstrategy is toarousetheircuriositybygivingthemquestionstodiscuss, towhichthetextwillprovidetheanswers. • Alternatively, letthemglance at thetitle, headingsandanyillustrations, andmakeguessesor ask questionsaboutthecontent of thetext. (do thetask on p. 31) • Reading forunderstanding: Therearethreeways a newtext is actuallyread in class: (i) theteacherreadsaloudwhilestudentsreadalong; (ii) studentsread it silently; (iii) studentsreadsectionsaloud, in turn. (do thetask on p. 32)

  11. Comprehension of content (cont’d) Comprehensiontasks • Comprehensionquesions: Themostcommontype of text is comprehensionquestionsfollowingthereading. But be careful! (do thefirsttask on page 33) • Doingcomprehensiontasksdoes not necessarilymeanyourstudentshaveunderstoodthetext/passage. • Thereason is thequestions ‘echo’ thetext, andyou can answerthemwithoutthinking. Somequestions do not requirecomprehension! • Whatto do then? Ifthequestionsarewordeddifferentlyfromthetextitself, orrequireinterpretation, thentheyarelikelyto be moreeffective (do thesecondtask on page 33)

  12. Comprehension of content (cont’d) • Othercomprehensiontasks: • Inpairsorsmallgroups, studentscomposetheirowncomprehensionquestions, thenexchangeanswer. • Theclassdiscussesthequestionsorissuesthatwerebroughtupbeforereading (raisingexpectationsandcuriosity). • Studentssummarizethecontentorallyor in writing. • Studentssuggestalternativetitlesandjustifythem. • Studentswrite a continuationtothetext. • Students re-presentthecontent: as a picture, a list of pointor a table. • Studenttranslatesomeor al of thetextto L1.

  13. Comprehension of content (cont’d) PracticalTips • Whendoingpreparatorywork, tellstudentstoclosetheirbooks, and not tolook at thetextitself. Otherwisetheymight be distracted. • Feelfreetopausebrieflyto slip in quicktranslationor of difficultbitsifyouarereadingaloud a text at firstencounter. • Provideglossesforunknownwords in thetextmorethanonce. • Ask studentsto do comprehensionquestions on theirownor in pairsbeforegoingthroughthemwiththewholeclass. • Adoptthe ‘sandwich’ principlefortextcomprehension.

  14. Languagelearning • Thetextcontains a lot of languageitemsthatwewantourstudentstolearn in orderto be abletousethemlater in theirowncommunic. • Afterwehaveensuredcomprehension, thenextstage is tospendsome time focussing on lexicalandotheritems. • Selection of vocabulary: It is importanttofocus on themostusefulandcommonvocabularyespeciallywhenyouaretachingbeginnersorintermediateclasses. • Grammar, spellingandpunctuation: Youshouldprioritizefeatures tat aremoreimportantandfrequent. Theitemsyoufocus on should be onesyouhaverecentlytaught.

  15. Languagelearning (cont’d) • Teachingselecteditems: Onceyouhaveselectedwhichitemsfromthetextyouwillteach, youneedtothinkabouthowto do it. • Q: Whether it is bettertolearnlanguageimplicitlyorexplicitly. • Implicitlanguagelearning: absorbing it intuitively, throughreadingorhearing in a communicativecontext. • Explicitlanguagelearning: receivingexplanationsaboutthenewlanguageanddeliberatelypractising it. • A: Youprobablyneedboth. • Whenreading a text, studentsseethelanguagefirstwithin a meaningfulcontextandneedtounderstand it in ordertocomprehendthetext. Thenfocus on specificlanguagepoints!

  16. PracticalTips • Use online sitestocheckvocab. frequency: Whichwordsaremorefrequentandthereforewrothteacing www.lextutor.ca/vp/bnc • Youtypeorcopy-pasteyourtextinto a windowandclick on ‘submit’ andreceiveinformationaboutthefrequency of differentwords. • Ask studentstounderlinewordstheyknowratherthanonesthey do not: It is moreencouragingand morale-boosting. • Notewhatyouhavetaught: Make sure younotedownforyourselfwhichlanguageitemsyouhavetaughtfrom a textsoyou can comebackandreviewlater. • Includewholeexpressions, not justsinglewords: in thevocabularyitemsyouselecttoteachmorethoroughly.

  17. Follow-uptasks • Onceyourclass has finishedstudying a text, thenyou can do follow-uptasks. Theseusetext as a triggerforfurtherlanguagework. • Shortenthetext: Delete as manywordsandsentences in thetext as you can, but theresult has to be a grammaticalandcoherenttext! • Extendthetext: Addadjectivesandadverbswhereveryou can. • Add at leastthreeextrasentenceswithineachparagraph, withoutdestoyingitscoherence. • Changethetext: Insertsynonyms of words in thetextwhereveryou can. Changethe tense throughout. Changeactivetopassive. • Createyourowntext: Writeyourowntextbased on thestructure of thetextyouhavejuststudied, but on a topic of yourownchoosing.

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