Oral skills

How can we develop listening comprehension in our students?

To answer this question we must start by thinking about how we listen. We tend to listen to things in two different ways:

• Intensive listening: if we want to know lots of detail about what we are listening to, we are listening intensively. If we are listening to the direction to a friend's house, for example, then we need to understand all of what we hear.
• Extensive listening: If we only need to get the main idea about what we are listening extensively. This is what we do when we listen to an interview on the radio at the same time as cooking dinner.

Students need to be able to do both kinds of listening and to choose the right skill depending on the circumstances.

Image: Anxiety by Practical Cures

Here, it's relevant to pay attention to how to overcome anxiety. Students often get the idea that they have to understand everything in the new language. They tend to feel anxious and stop listening immediately when they come across something they don't understand. This is not helpful for them and they need the opportunity to realise that they can be successful learners without understanding every word.

One way to help students become more independent listeners is to give them choices about the skills they want to practise. For example, if you are playing a recording of the news, your students can choose to listen:

• Extensively and find out how many stories are in the headlines that day.
• Intensively to a particular news story for specific details.

When you do a listening activity, think about how you could give your students some autonomy. Try designing two different sorts of task or tasks at two different levels and give your students a choice about which one they want to do first. For example: a) play them an English pop song and let them choose between completing a gap-fill of the words of the song and answering questions like 'What is this song about?'; 'How many verses are there?'; b) get the students to evaluate how successful their listening was by asking them whether they found out what they needed to know from the track or if they enjoyed choosing the task by themselves.

As far as speaking is concerned, students have very different abilities and levels of confidence about speaking in English. Some may be shy about speaking English; be nervous about making mistakes; be embarrassed if they get something wrong, give up very easily if they don't know the right word, etc. Others are more willing to take risks and, as long as they get their message across or simply they do not worry too much about making mistakes.

Anxious students worry about accuracy and more confident students concentrate on fluency. To find out what your students' worries are, a questionnaire can be offered to them in order to identify not only their worries, but also their interests. Some statements for the questionnaire are given as examples: I enjoy speaking English; I like making English friends and talking to them in English; I try to avoid speaking in English in front of the rest of the class; I never volunteer to speak in English in class; I enjoy doing role plays in class; I don't mind speaking in English if I know exactly what to say; I hate making mistakes when I speak English. Thus, students will tick the statements which are true for them and then compare their answers with a partner's.

Accuracy and fluency are important for effective language learning so we need to help learners understand the difference and develop both. They need to know what kind of learner they are already and we need to give them strategies to develop further in and out of class.

Apart from this, students should learn some strategies to get out of difficulty when their communication goes wrong. For example, they need to be able to: ask for clarification; say that they do not understand, and paraphrase what someone else has said to check that they have understood.

Ask your students to make a list of all the different ways they know in English to say that they don't understand and to ask for clarification, e.g., 'Sorry?'; 'Pardon?'; 'Could you say that again?'

Students can practise these in pairs. Get them to take it in turns to say something very difficult or very fast and get the other student to choose an appropriate way of asking for help. If your students are beginners or cannot think by themselves of what things to say, you could give them a list of ideas to start them off.

Here, special emphasis will be given to rhythm, rhyme and music. Students can improve their pronunciation with activities which are fun and involve rhythm and music so that we are making use of more than one sense at the same time. You can get your students to: sing current pop songs in English (they can sing along to a CD); and recite poems with a strong rhythm and lots of rhymes (try using poems written for younger children). Students will concentrate on the patterns and rhythm and the individual sounds will take care of themselves. They enjoy songs and poems and they can write their own and recite these in class. Some students with a strong musical sense will find this a really good way of learning and may want to extend these activities outside the classroom by singing and reciting songs and poems at home.

Image: Church (Portfolio) by Jake Guild

Another way to improve students' spoken skills is to put on an end of term English concert where students perform and produce songs, poems or short plays in English. It could be fun for teachers and students.

Independence can also be promoted by having students record themselves. They are setting their own standards of what is good enough and are deciding by themselves which particular aspects of pronunciation to work on. In fact, students often set themselves very high standards: they can use this for speaking as well as listening practice; they may enjoy singing along to English pop songs; they might also record themselves. This is an excellent way to improve pronunciation without the embarrassment of being heard by anyone else.

Teachers (in class) can make a list of aspects of speech for students to work on at home and get them to monitor their own progress. For example: a) practise distinguishing between /t/, /d/ and /id/ sounds in the regular past tense verbs: kissed, walked, visited, jumped, smoked, collected, cried; b) work on a list of ten new two or three syllable words learnt that week, saying them and putting the stress in the right place.

How do I teach grammar in the EFL classroom?

How to teach grammar in the EFL classroom is a main question for every English teacher. At first sight, you might think that teaching grammar is just a matter of explaining grammar rules to students. However, teaching grammar effectively is a much more complicated matter. There are a number of techniques that can be used to teach grammar effectively:

• The ABCs of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Your students will love working together on this yearlong parts-of-speech project. Cover a large section of a wall with paper; then tape cardboard alphabet letters from A to Z to the paper, leaving space beneath each letter. Add the title 'The ABCs of the parts of speech'. Next challenge each youngster to cut pictures of nouns, verbs, and adjectives from magazines. Have him/her label each picture with its name and part of speech; then mount the pictures under the appropriate letters. Challenge your students to add pictures to the display throughout the year.
• I can... Remind students that a verb is a word that shows action. Then have students name examples of verbs. List their ideas on the chalkboard. Pair students; then assign each pair a different verb from the list, keeping each assignment a secret from the other pairs. Have each pair pantomime its verb for the class. Further challenge youngsters by having each student write, then illustrate four verbs on a sheet of divided paper titled 'I can...' If desired, collect the pictures and bind them between two covers; then add the title 'What can you do?' Place the booklet at a reading corner for all to enjoy.
• A picture for every verb. Here is an activity that reinforces the concept of verbs. Instruct each child to cut a picture from a magazine; then have her/him glue it to the middle of a sheet of cardboard or construction paper. Have the student list verbs around her/his cutout that relate to the picture, then challenge her/him to write a story that incorporates the verbs on another sheet of paper. Have the children tape their stories to the bottom of their pictures. Display the finished projects on a wall or bulletin board.
• Silly sentences. Use this activity to help youngsters understand the importance of nouns and verbs. After reviewing nouns and verbs, write a student-generated list of both parts of speech on the blackboard. Then have each student choose a different noun and verb from the list and write them on separate cards. Collect the cards and place them into the corresponding container labelled 'nouns' or 'verbs'. Each student draws one card from each container and writes and illustrates a silly sentence using the words on the cards. Invite student volunteers to share their sentences and illustrations with their classmates. No doubt your students will have a better understanding of nouns and verbs.
• One of-a-kind word search. Challenge your students to learn the parts of speech as they search for words. To begin, shere the following information with your students: a) nouns: name a person, place or thing. They can be singular (one) or plural (more than one); b) pronouns are words that are used to take the place of nouns, such as 'I', 'he', 'she', 'it'; c) verbs are words that show action, such as 'run', 'skip' and 'hop'; d) adjectives are words used to describe nouns, such as 'tall', 'short', 'thin', and 'hairy'. Then, divide students into four groups. Assign each group a different name: nouns, pronouns, verbs, or adjectives. After that, provide each group with a highlighter and a copy of a selected story or passage. Have each group read the story and then highlight examples of its assigned part of speech. Ask groups to share their answers with the rest of the class. If desired, write the students' responses on the chalkboard. As students learn the parts of speech, provide additional sheets for individual youngsters to highlight.
• Sentences with spunk. Instruct each student to think of a noun and list adjectives to describe it on a sheet of paper. Then, on another sheet of paper, have her/him write a sentence that incorporates the noun and adjectives. Challenge students to see who can come up with the longest, most descriptive sentence. To enhance the activity, have youngsters copy and illustrate their sentences on sheets of paper. Mount the completed drawings on a bulletin board titled 'Sentences with spunk'.
• Guess what? Play this guessing game to finish your adjective lesson. Challenge each youngster to think of an object. Instruct students to keep their objects secret. Then have them list adjective clues about their objects on blank cards. Invite a volunteer to read her/his clues aloud to her/his classmates. Ask the other students to guess her/his object based on the clues she/he gave. Provide time for additional volunteers to share their clues.
• Describe that. Challenge your youngsters to create these picture webs as they learn about adjectives. Display an object in a prominent location; then have students use words to describe what they see. List students' responses on the chalkboard. Tell students that the words they shared are adjectives, words used to describe nouns. To make a web, a student cuts a detailed picture from a newspaper or magazine; then she/he glues it to the middle of a sheet of construction paper. She/he draws five lines extending from her/his picture and writes an adjective to describe her/his picture at the end of each line. If desired, have her/him write a sentence for each adjective. Provide time for students to share their work with their classmates.
• Plural noun fun. Write the names of different nouns (in their singular form) on separate cards. Also label three baskets '-s', '-es', and '-ies'. Show students pictures of a kiss, a cow, and a bunny. Have students name the plural form of each noun; then write it on the blackboard. Discuss the different endings plural nouns may have. Then distribute the singular-noun cards. Ask each student to determine the correct plural ending and place his/her card into the corresponding basket. Check to be sure each card is in the right basket.
• Colourful sentences. Reinforce basic sentence skills with this colourful idea. Remind students that sentences are complete thoughts with subjects (or noun phrases) and predicates (or verb phrases). Ask students to share sentences; then help them identify each part. Next invite a student volunteer to write the subject part of a sentence on the blackboard. Then ask another student to finish writing the sentence with a different colour of chalk. Challenge students to name the subject and predicate. Have additional youngsters write sentences on the blackboard until every child has had a turn. Using two different coloured crayons, each student then writes and illustrates a sentence (in a similar manner) on a sheet of construction paper. Provide time for each student to share his/her sentence with his/her classmates.

Good luck with your grammar-teaching!

'My Family Tree'

Image: Genealogy Family Tree, by przylga

'My Family Tree' is a project you can carry out in your classroom to work with the vocabulary about the family.

It's a very simple project with which we develop some key competences:

• Linguistic communication competence.
• Social and civic competences.
• Initiative sense and entrepreneurship.
• Cultural awareness and expression.

The students will work in groups of three and each one of them will have to assume his/her part of the work to complete the taks together with the rest of the group.

The teacher will show a model of family tree for them to know how to do it.

To carry out the project, the students must get photos of famous people, cartoon or comic characters, etc. They can use magazines or the Internet. If they use the Internet we will be also developing the digital competence. Using this material they will create a figured family tree, the funniest the better. As a support for sticking the photos they can use any material they prefer (cardboard, a large piece of cloth, wood...). It's very important to use imagination and draw pictures or stick various things to decorate it (flowers, buttons, leaves...). The members of each team will have to meet out of the school timetable (at home, in the library...) to do the project, and they will have to bring it to the classroom on a determined date and show it to the rest of the class, giving the opportune explanations and answering the questions of their classmates.