4.

0 Intro (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.
Some learners worry a bit when hearing words such as ‘language elements’, ‘phonology’, etc. We felt
the same when we were in your position. However, pretty swiftly we realised that much of language
study is just common sense and is not particularly difficult to grasp. It just takes a bit of time.
Knowing, understanding and being able to apply and explain key language elements is a great skill,
just like reading and writing. Being well-skilled in language elements makes a teacher’s role much,
much easier. And your learners will admire your in-depth knowledge.
Take it easy as you go through this Module; there’s a lot to be covered. If there’s anything that stops
you in your tracks, there are several ways you can get back on track.
If you are a bit unsure about any English grammar/language element, here are some very
reliable recommendations to help you:

Books
1. Grammar for English Language Teachers: by Martin Parrott (Cambridge University Press)
An invaluable resource helping teachers at all levels of experience to develop their understanding of
English grammar. Grammar for English Language Teachers is designed to help practicing and trainee
teachers to develop their knowledge of English grammar systems. It encourages teachers to
appreciate factors that affect grammatical choices and evaluates the rules of thumb presented to
learners in course materials. In paperback and hardcover.
2. English Grammar in Use (Fourth Edition): by Raymond Murphy (Cambridge University Press)
Raymond Murphy’s classic reference and practice book for learners of English at intermediate (B1B2)
level. Perfect for self-study, but also ideal for supplementary grammar activities in the classroom. This
book has been used by millions of language learners and teachers around the world.

The fourth edition is available as a printed book, an eBook with audio, a mobile app for iOS and

Android, and online with a Learning Management System for educational institutions
3. Practical English Usage (Fourth Edition): by Michael Swan ( Oxford University Press)
Revised and updated for the fourth edition, it answers the questions that teachers and learners ask
about English grammar and vocabulary with clear, corpus-informed explanations and examples.
 Hardback with online access
 Paperback with online access
 Paperback
 Online (1 year’s access)
4. Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation: By John Seely (Oxford University Press)
 Handy pocket-size format
 Provides the information about grammar and punctuation that people need on a day-to-day
basis
 Accessible design and diagrams with related terms make the Oxford A-Z of Grammar and
Punctuation simple to use
 Uses examples of real usage to clarify grammatical points
 Contains longer feature entries on a wide range of tricky issues, such as the difference between
active and passive, and hyphens

Grammar Websites
 1. The Internet Grammar of English from University College
London at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/
2. Grammar Tips from Grammarly at https://www.grammarly.com/blog/category/handbook/

Grammar Dictionaries: Online

All the major English language dictionary companies publish both paper and free online learner’s dictionaries.
They provide lots of useful grammatical and vocabulary information about words and give examples of how
words are used. The three dictionaries listed below are all free online. However, the online versions are not as
comprehensive as the paper dictionaries. Thus, we recommend you buy one of them in paper format.

 Cambridge Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary

 Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary
 Macmillan Dictionary

Website Covering A Mix Of Grammar And

Language Elements
The British Council resources. Some would say that this is simply the best. There’s a huge amount of
practical English language resources to suit your language teaching needs:

 grammar
 lesson plans
 activities
 ideas for stories and poems
 songs
 teaching tools

There are full lesson plans to choose from, covering different topics and themes, all organized according to
the levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR).
They also have shorter activities, as well as ideas for using songs, poems and stories to help your learners
improve their English in engaging, motivating and enjoyable ways.
All their practical materials are written by experts in English Language Teaching and are free to download.
See:
Grammar: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar
Young Learners: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/resources/primary
Secondary/High School Levels: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/resources/secondary
Adult: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/resources/adults Let’s get started!
4.1 Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
(150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.

Let’s explore phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. You may not be aware of these terms. You’ll
soon find out, though, that they’re not difficult to grasp.
Lots of people, including some teachers, get a bit confused with these terms. Some teachers put all of this
under the heading ‘Pronunciation’ but, as we will see, this is wrong.
So, take your time with this Section and see if you can grasp the differences between these elements.

4.1.1. Phonological Awareness

Although your focus in the initial stages will be on helping your learners to grasp the meaning of words, you
need to help them become aware of the sounds of words.
Not only will they be better able to produce the right sounds for words that they hear and become familiar
with but also this attention to the sounds of words will prepare them well for later success with reading and
writing.
Phonological awareness is the ability to focus on the sounds of the language. It’s about making your learners
aware that words are made up of individual and different-sized sounds.
You need to help them to improve their ability in this, bit by bit. It can be a bit challenging for some younger
learners, but it needs to be done.
So how do you promote this phonological awareness?
Here is a practical route to follow. Stick to this order as best as you can:

1. Do lots and lots of listening games that focus your learners’ attention on words.
2. Move on to rhyming practice, e.g. rhymes, songs, and poems, to draw their attention to the sounds at
the end of words
3. Then, focus on alliteration (e.g. A big, bad bug bit the little beetle.) which will draw their attention to
the sounds at the beginning of words. Look out for stories and rhymes and songs that will help them
with this.
4. Building on what they have learned in the rhyming and alliteration work, focus on and practise the
comparison and contrast of sounds at the beginning and end of words.
5. Move on to sentence segmenting, helping them to be aware of, and counting, the number of words in
sentences.
6. Then focus on syllable segmenting and blending, clapping and counting the syllables in words and
then blending (combining) them back together into words. Remember: A syllable is a part of a word
that is pronounced with one uninterrupted sound. For example:
 lion: li-on (two syllables); clap and count the syllables li-on, li-on, li-on then blend back to lion;
help them with the pronunciation at the same time
 elephant: el-e-phant (three syllables); clap and count the syllables el-e-phant, el-e-phant,
ele-phant and then blend back to elephant; help them with the pronunciation at the same time
If you are unsure about syllables, check out http://www.howmanysyllables.com
7. Move on to onset and rime, dividing one-syllable words by their initial consonant sound and all their
other sounds. You can usually split a syllable into two distinct parts:

1. The onset. This consists of the initial consonant or consonant blend.

 2. The rime. This consists of the vowel and any final consonants.
So, in the word cat, c is the onset and at is the rime. So, following on from cat, you could then
use m-at, s-at, b-at, etc.

8. Focus on phoneme deletion and phoneme substitution of sounds in words. A phoneme is each
meaningful sound in a language.
Here is an example of phoneme deletion: Now, class, let’s look at the word smile. Smile. Take away
the /s/ sound. What have we got? That’s right, mile. Smile without the /s/ sound is mile.
Here is an example of phoneme substitution: Now, class, I saw a bug. Let’s look at the word bug. What
sound does it end with? That’s right – /g/. Now, change the /g/ sound to /n/. What’s the new word?
That’s right – bun.
9. Then focus on phoneme blending – blending individual sounds. The learners listen to a sequence of
separately spoken phonemes and then combine the phonemes to form a word. Then they write and
read the word, e.g. /b/, /i/, /g/ to make big.
10. Focus on phoneme segmentation, breaking down words into individual phonemes. Your learners break
a word into its separate sounds, e.g. breaking down grab into /g/, /r/, /a/, /b/, saying each sound as
they tap out or count it. Then they write and read the word.
11. Then help them to move to overall phoneme manipulation, replacing individual sounds in a word.

Phoneme manipulation includes deleting phonemes from words, adding phonemes to words, blending
phonemes to make words, segmenting words into phonemes and substituting one phoneme for another to
create a new word.
Strategies to promote phonological awareness
Here’s what you must do (and what you mustn’t do):

1. Ensure It Is An Integral Part Of Communication

Learners will do well with their phonological awareness so long as it is not run in isolation, and you ensure it
becomes an integral part of communication in the classroom. Don’t just suddenly bring up a word out of thin
air and start to analyse it.

2. Do Not Aim For Perfection

No, the more realistic goals for you are that your learners:

 develop intelligibility (the degree to which the learner’s speech can be understood in different
language situations)
 increase communication ability
 develop increased self-confidence in speaking the language and listening and understanding the
language

3. Plan The Phonological Awareness Experiences

Don’t just do these as they come up. You have a route to follow, as outlined above. So, plan what you’ll do
when and how.
The activities need to be fun. Always add a bit of fun to keep up their motivation and participation.
It’s so easy to promote enjoyment and fun when dealing with younger learners. For example, when guiding
them through alliteration, you could easily change a song they love, such as Twinkle, Twinkle Little
Star into Binkle, Binkle, Bittle Bar. They’ll find it funny but will be learning at the same time.
Utilise all the activities they are already familiar with. There’s no need to try and introduce some unfamiliar
activity. Their focus may be more on understanding the unfamiliar activity than the phonological awareness
you are striving for.
So, use experiences they are familiar with, e.g. singing songs, rhyming games, chanting nursery rhymes,
poems, etc. Just adapt what’s already there.
However, don’t just focus on games and activities. Use familiar routines to practise and recycle their
phonological awareness. For example:

 Everyone whose name begins with the llll sound, bring your books to me. Remember this: you must
emphasise the sound and not the letter name.
 When lined up outside the class, you could say: All those whose name begins with a ssss sound come
in first. Next, those with a tttt sound. Each time you would vary the order. You could also do this when
they leave your class.

Think about how you can involve parents/caregivers in this. In some countries, learners’ parents/caregivers
may not know a single word in English. However, depending on the cost and the effort you are prepared to put
into it, you could record this week’s sounds onto copies of CDs or memory sticks that the children take home
with them and the parents/caregivers support them in the sound activity practice.
This won’t be too challenging for non-English speaking parents/caregivers.
Generally, you are best to start with phonological awareness activities and then move on to phonemic
awareness activities. But sometimes, it will be apt to interlink the two at the same time.

4.1.2. Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness relates to the correspondences between letters or groups of letters and the sounds
they represent.
If the learners do not first become phonologically aware, later instruction in phonemic awareness
and decoding (breaking up a word into sounds) will not make sense.
Learners with phonemic awareness can break up words into their different sounds. They can join sounds
together to make words.
It helps beginning readers to see the links between the spoken and written words. Once they grasp this, they
can recognise familiar words quickly and can have a go at figuring out unfamiliar words.
Research shows that progress in learning to read depends on how much phonological and phonemic
awareness a learner has.
Remember this: Phonemic awareness aims to help learners see the correspondence between letters and
sounds so that when they see a letter or sometimes a group of letters, they learn that these symbols (letters)
represent speech sounds heard in words.
Children can demonstrate that they have phonemic awareness in several ways, including:

 recognising words, in a set of words, which start with the same sound (e.g. bell, bike, and boy all
have /b/ at the beginning)
 identifying and speaking the first or last sound in a word (e.g. the beginning sound of dog is /d/; the
ending sound of bit is /t/.)
 linking, or blending, the separate sounds in a word to say the word (/m/, /a/, /p/ = map.)

When learners break up a word into sounds, this is called decoding. The end goal is for the learner to join the
individual sounds in a word and then utter the word as a whole.
Inexperienced teachers get confused between phonemic awareness and pronunciation and often use the
word pronunciation as a label for all aspects of sound production in the classroom. This is wrong.
Phonemic awareness is the teaching of sounds as part of decoding letters in words to decipher the individual
sounds.
Pronunciation is different. It refers to how a person articulates specific sounds.
Decoding – the deciphering of individual words – is of immense importance. In English, decoding can be tricky
due to the exceptions there are between sound and symbol correspondence. It differs from other languages
such as Spanish, which has a straight one-to-one sound and letter correspondence.
Learners of English can find this very tricky as there may be no indication of how the letter symbol should be
pronounced. For example, the letter c can be:

 a hard sound, /k/, as in can, cake, cage

 a soft sound, /s/, as in cent, circle, city

The key points to remember when enhancing learners’ phonemic awareness:

1. Always remember that the end goal is the understanding of meaning, not phonemic awareness.
Phonemic awareness instruction is a critical objective which needs to be met on the way to the goal of
reading comprehension. It is certainly not an end goal in itself.
2. In some schools, a full phonemic awareness approach early in the programme may be the norm. If this
is what the school leaders have set down, there’s not much you can do about this, at least until you
have been there some time.
Or this type of approach may be followed because that’s the way it has always been done.
The problem with a full phonemic awareness approach is that it’s unlikely to work well in the initial
stages of learning, where your learners have limited meaning of words in English and lack oral
proficiency.
Unlike native-English learners, they don’t know lots of chunks and phrases which native-English
speakers have already picked up from songs, stories, rhymes and chat from their parents/caregivers
and siblings.
It will be wise to remember this.
3. Some teachers, for various reasons, often overemphasise the role of phonemic awareness. Perhaps it’s
because they and the learners enjoy this type of activity. Or maybe it’s a comfort zone for the teacher,
and he stays in that zone just a bit too much.

The problem is that where there is more emphasis on phonemic awareness than on meaning and
comprehension, the learners may lose sight that they are reading words. The decoding is critical, but it
must not replace meaning and comprehension (understanding).

Phonics teaching should enhance comprehension; it should not usurp or be deemed more
important the primary goal of comprehension/understanding.
4. Never ask learners to decode a word where they don’t know its meaning. You need to focus on the
words they already know.
5. Phonemic awareness instruction should be tackled briskly and relevantly. It should always take place in
activities which are relevant and have a purpose. Learners should not be involved in phonics
instruction which has the effect of isolating letters and sounds from meaningful use in text.
6. It should emphasise chunks and patterns in words that learners will recognise when reading other
words with similar chunks and patterns.

4.1.3. Phonological And Phonemic

Awareness Activities
Here is a mix of phonological and phonemic awareness activities. We’ve put them together as you’ll likely be
doing quite a bit of interlinking of activities. A variety of activities and lots of practice are the keys to success.
Explore and reflect on what’s best to meet the need. And, remember, make it fun. Here are some activities:

1. Listen and imitate: This is a technique in which learners listen to a model (you or a recording) and
repeat or imitate it, e.g. breaking up a word into its syllable parts and noticing the change in mouth and
lip movements.
2. Minimal pairs: Seeing if learners can distinguish between minimal pairs. A minimal pair is simply a pair
of words that differ in only one phoneme (each meaningful sound in a language). Examples of common
minimal pairs are:
 ship/sheep
 pin/pen
 buy/boy
 hut/hat
3. Contextualised minimal pairs: In this technique, you establish the context/setting, such as a
blacksmith shoeing a horse, and present key lexis. Learners are then trained to respond to a sentence
stem with the appropriate, meaningful response (a or b):
Sentence stem:
The blacksmith (a. hits / b. heats) the horseshoe.
Cued learner response:
a. with the hammer / b. in the fire.
4. Visual aids: For sound formation, it may help to use a sketch of the mouth or a colour wall chart, and
to describe the pronunciation of a sound in terms of lips, tongue, teeth, etc.
5. Tongue twisters: This is a technique from speech correction strategies for native speakers. One well-
known example is: She sells seashells by the seashore. You could make up your own twisters. Rhymes
and jingles are also effective, as are chants.
6. Drilling: These can include imitation drills, with repetition of sounds, words and sentences and varied
repetition of drills (varied speed, volume, and mood)
7. Linking: Trying to link the sound to a word that they already know. For example, they may find the
sound in cheese quite easy, but then find it quite tricky when it appears in the middle of a word
like purchase. Reminding them of the sound in the word cheese will help them to form it correctly
in purchase.
8. Same or different: Read a short list of three words to the learners and ask them to tell you if you are
reading the same word, or if there is a different word in the list. If the words are all the same, they
say same, and if there is a different sound, they say different. The learners will not see the list of words,
of course, e.g. sit sat seat; ship sheep ship
9. Stop me: Very similar to the example above, except that the learners stop you when you use a
different sound, e.g. ship, ship, ship, ship, ship, sheep
10. Listen!: Place minimal pairs in sentences so that the learners listen carefully and decide on the word
being used.
Notice that both words must make sense in the context, e.g. Come here and have a look at this
lock/rock; If you sit up straight you won’t slip/sleep; He came to ask me about his cut/cat.
11. Pictures: Pictures can be very effective with learners of all ages. The learners can have pairs of
pictures in front of them; e.g. ship and sheep. When you say a word (or read out a sentence), they must
point to the appropriate picture.
4.2 Pronunciation and Teaching
Techniques (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.

Remember: Pronunciation refers to how a person articulates specific sounds. Let’s explore 5 critical
elements of pronunciation.

4.2.1. Pronunciation: Vowels, Consonants

And Syllables
When teaching pronunciation, you’ll want to have a good knowledge of vowel sounds. Vowels sounds are made
with the mouth open and the airway unobstructed (just recite a, e, i, o, u). With consonants, however, the flow
of air is briefly obstructed in some way (just recite b, f, v, for example).
In speech, the exact number of vowels depends on the regional accent, but there are more than 20 English vowel
sounds.
Diphthongs are an essential element of pronunciation. A diphthong is simply a vowel sound that is composed of
a sequence of two vowels. The vowel in the word so, for example, begins with the o sound of hot and then
glides into the u sound of put. Other diphthongs are the vowel sounds in high and late.
When teaching pronunciation, you’ll also need to know a bit about consonants. As mentioned above, a
consonant is a sound that is made by blocking the flow of air while speaking.
For example, the first sound in the word mark is made by closing the lips briefly, while the last sound is
produced by pressing the blade of the tongue up against the hard palate. There are 22 consonants in spoken
English.
Let’s consider some other critical features of speech which you need to know to help your learners’
pronunciation.

4.2.2. Pronunciation: Stress At Word And

Sentence Level
Word stress is where we say part of a word with greater energy, i.e., with more length, more depth, more
emphasis and sound on the vowel sound. Distinguish the stress in the vowel sounds in the stressed syllables and
the other syllables in the words pencil, photography, volunteer (stressed syllables are underlined).
Like English, many languages give especially strong stress to one syllable in a word. Other languages give
similar length to all the syllables.
Stress can also influence how we pronounce sentences and incomplete sentences.
We apply more or less stress to different parts of the sentence, i.e., slower and louder, or quicker and more
softly. This is called sentence stress.
Generally, one word in the sentence will have the main stress. This is the word which the speaker thinks is most
important for the meaning of the utterance.
Other words can have secondary stress. This is not as strong as main stress and falls on words which are not as
important to the meaning as the word with the main stress.
Other words in the sentence are unstressed.
For example, in this spoken sentence: She came home late last night, the word with the main stress is the
underlined one – late; the words with secondary stress would probably be came, home, last, night; and the
unstressed word is she.
But remember: It is possible to stress any word in a sentence if the speaker thinks it is important.
Whether you are focussing on word stress or sentence stress, provide the class with some guidance about the
position of the stress in one of two ways.
Either write the word/sentence on the board and show the stress by using a symbol or use a hand to make a
gesture (perhaps a chopping movement) to demonstrate where to place the stress when you say the word.
Here is how it could look if you were using a symbol on the board:

pencil

Word Stress And Sentence Stress Rules

We’re going to stick to the simple rules here as many rules are full of exceptions. For example, there are many
two-syllable words in English that are spelt the same but their meaning changes depending on the stress:

1. You will progress a lot with your English if you follow this rule.
You will make a lot of progress with your English if you follow this rule.
2. He rejected the plan.
This bowl was a reject, so I bought it at half price.
3. Everyone was present at the meeting.
I will present my ideas to the company tomorrow in a presentation.

Here are some fundamental word stress rules:

1. One word has only one primary stress. One word cannot have two primary stresses. If you hear two stresses, you
hear two words. Two stresses cannot be one word. There can be a secondary stress in some words. But a
secondary stress is much smaller than the main (primary) stress and is only used in long words.
2. We can only stress vowels, not consonants.

Here are some fundamental sentence stress rules:

1. Content words are stressed. Content words carry meaning, e.g. main verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and
negative auxiliaries (don’t, can’t, aren’t)
2. Structure words are unstressed. Structure words are used for correct grammar, e.g. pronouns, prepositions,
articles, conjunctions and auxiliary/helping verbs (e.g. do, be, can, have, must).
3. The time between stressed words is always the same.
There’s the odd exception to sentence stress rules, but far fewer than word stress exceptions. For example, we
have said that structure words are unstressed in a sentence. But look at the structure word she below, which the
speaker is stressing for emphasis while confirming information:

Lisa didn’t do that, did she?

Yes, she did.
4.2.3 Pronunciation: Intonation
Intonation is another important part of pronunciation. It is the movement of the level of the voice, i.e., the tune
of a sentence or a group of words.
We use intonation to express emotions and attitudes and to emphasise or make less important particular things
we are saying.
We also use intonation to signal to others the function of what we are saying; that is, to show we are starting or
stopping speaking, or whether we are asking a question or making a statement.

Practice
To hear these intonation uses, try saying School’s just finished with these meanings:

 stating a fact
 with surprise
 with happiness
 as a question
 to emphasise just

You should hear the level of your voice rising and falling in different patterns.
Different intonation patterns can show many different meanings. However, there is no short and simple way of
describing how the patterns relate to meanings.
Intonation patterns can also be demonstrated with the use of arrows on the board or hand gestures to show the
‘musical’ pattern. Wherever possible, try to speak in a normal manner without a distorted intonation pattern as
this will provide the learners with a better model to follow.

4.2.4. Pronunciation: Rhythm

Sentence stress is what gives English its rhythm or beat. Look at this sentence:
Will you CLOSE the DOOR because he’s GONE to WORK?
In our sentence, the 4 key content words (close, door, gone, work) are stressed.
Why is this important for pronunciation? It is important because it adds music to the language. It is the rhythm
of the English language. It changes the speed at which we speak (and listen to) the language. The time between
each stressed word is the same.
There is 1 syllable between CLOSE and DOOR and 3 syllables between DOOR and GONE. But the time
between CLOSE and DOOR and between DOOR and GONE is the same. We maintain a constant beat on the
stressed words.
To do this, we say the more slowly, and because he’s more quickly. We change the speed of the small structure
words so that the rhythm of the key content words stays the same.

4.2.5 Pronunciation: Linking

Learners need to hear natural, fast, relaxed pronunciation as we speak it every day, not a carefully over-
articulated, overly-pronounced one-word-by-one-word phrasing of sentences. Speaking too slowly and too
emphatically is a common characteristic of the inexperienced teacher.
Speaking unnaturally can have a detrimental effect:

 Your learners will imitate your speaking style and speak unnaturally too.
 They will not recognise and understand rapid natural speech when they hear it.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t slow your speech down a bit to help your learners get some basic ideas, but it
does mean that you should speak naturally most of the time. It also means that you need to teach them what
natural speech sounds like.
There is some evidence that says that if learners don’t speak naturally, they won’t recognise normal speech
when they hear it.
Some examples:

 How much is it? sounds something like How muh chi zit?
 Don’t eat apples! sounds something like Don tea tapples!

If you habitually speak slowly and over-enunciate, your learners will listen for How much is it? and won’t
understand when they hear the normal speech sounds of How muh chi zit? You need to instruct your learners in
these differences, how to pronounce them and how to listen for them.
Where the end of one word connects to the beginning of the next word, this is called ‘linking’. Linking is a
naturally occurring phenomenon in the speech of every native speaker of English and is not the result of sloppy
or defective speech.
One major feature of linking occurs when a word ending in a consonant sound precedes a word beginning with
a vowel sound – as in don’t eat apples.
When the native-English speaker says this, the consonant sound at the end of don’t runs into the vowel sound at
the beginning of eats and the consonant sound at the end of eats runs into the vowel sound at the beginning
of apples. Thus, it sounds like don tea tapples.
Many learners of English tend to separate the words into distinct units and so their speech sounds ‘staccato’.
Other structural features cause this, e.g. linking between one word that ends in a vowel sound and the second
which begins with a vowel sound.
You should encourage your learners at least to attempt to approximate these linking features of English because
they are so commonly used in everyday speech. This, in turn, should raise their awareness of the existence of
these features and will make the task of listening easier.

4.2.6. Teaching Pronunciation

1. Key Points
The overall aim of teaching pronunciation is for the learner to develop spoken English so that:

 the learner is easy to understand when speaking English

 it allows a positive image of himself as a speaker of English
Here’s what you must do (and what you mustn’t do):

1. Ensure it is an integral part of communication

Learners will do well in the pronunciation of English if the pronunciation episode is not run in isolation and
instead becomes an integral part of communication in the class.
2. Do not aim for perfection
The goal of pronunciation in the CLT class is not the attainment of ‘perfect’ pronunciation. Who has this, anyway,
and who says it’s ‘perfect’? And how can it be proved? No, the more realistic goals for you are that your learners:
 develop intelligibility (the degree to which the learner’s speech can be understood in different language
situations)
 increase communication ability
 develop increased self-confidence in speaking the language and listening and understanding the
language
3. Give lots of practice

Remember! The more practice given, the better the pronunciation will be.

2. The Phonemic Chart

All the activities listed above under Phonological and Phonemic awareness activities can be used to
enhance pronunciation, as can the Phonemic Chart.

The Phonemic Chart

This is an alternative method of approaching the teaching and learning of English pronunciation.
A phonemic chart provides a set of symbols, each one intended to represent an individual sound of the
language, irrespective of the way it appears in the standard written script.
There are a few different phonemic charts.
We highly recommend that you use this British Council phonemic chart. Go to:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/activities/phonemic-chart where you will see the symbols, can hear all the
sounds and can download it to your computer or iPad.
It may take several weeks for you to familiarise yourself with all the sounds. But it will be worth it.
In preparation for your TEFL career, you should start to familiarise yourself with the chart and the sounds. Once
you have had a first look at it, the following information will be useful.
The individual sounds of English are called phonemes, and the set of symbols representing the sounds is called
the phonemic alphabet.
Having received a basic knowledge and teaching in this system and by using a good quality EnglishEnglish
dictionary, most older learners should be able to discover the pronunciation of unknown words without your
help.
Many teachers are reluctant to introduce the phonemic chart to their learners for several reasons:

 They do not feel that the time spent learning the system is justified.
 They feel that learners already have an uphill task dealing with English spelling without asking them to learn
another alphabet.
 They feel unsure about the system.
But:

 Learning the phonemic alphabet is not as challenging as it first appears, and it can be made considerably easier
by introducing it piece by piece to the class as part of your daily lesson plan.
 With a little application, you often discover that the system becomes second nature.

Note:
Other languages have their own unique phonemic systems. When learning English, it is common for the
phonemic system of their first language to influence the production of sounds in English.
Please remember that in an English-speaking country, dialectal differences should be considered when using
phonemic charts.
Note there is not always a correspondence between the number of letters and the number of sounds.
Also, note that most English dictionaries show where the stress of a word is by using the mark ‘.
Give it a go!

3. Moving Pronunciation From The Brain To The

Mouth
An excellent technique for teaching pronunciation well and faster is to enable learners to move pronunciation
from their brains to their mouth.
Some teachers who see pronunciation only as a cognitive activity will take longer to achieve their pronunciation
goals, and it will be less engaging and practical for their learners.
The solution is to make it both a cognitive and physical activity.
Make it a wholly physical activity by getting your learners to focus on the muscles that produce sound, rhythm
and articulation.
You need to get them to sense physically what their muscles are doing so that they become aware of the
interaction between muscle movement, sound production and aural perception.
This will enable them to:

 Adapt their pronunciation, e.g. adapt/change the way they say a sound or stress a syllable
 See the muscle movement and adapt/change it if necessary
 Increase their awareness of the internal sensation/ movement from the muscle movement

Thus, you are encouraging them to:

 Listen to the sound they are emitting, e.g. from a recording

 ‘See’ the sound, e.g. in a mirror
 Feel the sound, e.g. by placing their fingers on their lips, tongue and jaw.

This is a much more practical and successful method for teaching pronunciation.
Before doing this, it would be wise to explore a modern pronunciation text with lots of illustrations of lip,
tongue and jaw movements when pronouncing. You could copy these and distribute them to your learners.
Using illustrations, demonstrations, mirrors and muscle movements will make your pronunciation sessions
much more engaging, practical and fun.
4.3 Lexis (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.

4.3.1. What Is Lexis?

You have met this word briefly before.
In the past, when many native-English speakers were being taught English, one primary approach used by the
teacher was to teach grammar (often as a separate session), and from time to time she would introduce new
vocabulary (often arising from reading exercises).
And sometimes, vocabulary was taught by the teacher making up a list of words that the learners needed to
learn. The point is that these two activities – grammar and vocabulary – were often handled separately.
In Communicative Language Teaching, the approach you will be using, there has been a shift over recent
years to using the word lexis to signify both the teaching of vocabulary and certain areas of grammar
together.
Vocabulary is usually seen as individual words, whereas lexis is a somewhat broader concept and consists of
words, phrases, collocations (words that are commonly connected), chunks and formulaic grammatical
expressions.
It also includes set patterns that were previously designated as grammar elements, e.g. If I were you …; Do you
mind if …, etc. These words, chunks and patterns are now often called lexical items.
Recognising specific grammar structures as lexical items means that they can be introduced much
earlier, without structural analysis or elaboration in a separate grammar session.
Since the idea of notions and functions made its way into language teaching, mainly as
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has gained prominence, some structures associated with grammar
started to be taught lexically (or functionally).
I’d like to is not taught as the conditional tense but is taught as a chunk of language we use to express desire.
Similarly, many ‘traditional’ grammar items can be introduced lexically, early on.
So, the proponents of lexis see vocabulary and certain areas of grammar linked together, so there is
neither a separate grammar session (except for difficult concepts) nor a separate vocabulary session.
These are married together under the umbrella of lexis.
You may teach in a school that is well up-to-date and talks about lexis and lexical items OR you may be in a
school that separates the two and talks of grammar and vocabulary. Neither is better. The key is to be aware
of this.

4.3.2. Selecting Appropriate And Relevant

Lexis
You may be a little bit apprehensive when you are reflecting on what lexis you will teach when you take up
your post. Don’t worry about this; this thought comes into the minds of all new teachers.
But remember: There are always solutions.
Here’s what to do:
1. Local standards/curriculum
The most critical point of all is that you need to find out first whether there are local standards and a
curriculum set down by the local government and/or the school concerning the relevant lexis (and related
content) that you must teach.
If there are standards and a curriculum set down, then you must adhere to these for the level(s) you will be
teaching. Note that this doesn’t mean you cannot add additional lexis to the standards and curriculum set
down.
Let’s imagine your learners are studying a theme/project on food. An individual or group may ask you to tell
them the name of, say, a kitchen utensil they have seen but they don’t know what it’s called or even, perhaps,
what it does. Maybe it’s an apple corer.
The utensil is not set down in any of the curriculum lexical lists. If you feel it’s relevant and they may come
across this utensil reasonably frequently in the future, then it would be a good idea to introduce them to this
new word and its pronunciation.
If you have never come into contact with educational standards, have a browse through the USA Common
Core State Standards Initiative at http://www.corestandards.org/. This will give you some background to
educational standards but note that any educational standards set down outside the USA are likely to be
different.
2. Coursebook – or not
In some cases, you will be helped in the selection of new lexical items by the coursebook that you use, if there
is one.
From this point forward, let’s imagine there are no standards, curriculum or coursebook, and you’ve
been asked to teach a beginner class. We’ve been there and done this. Easy-peasy. Read on.

4.3.3. Relevant Lexis

Here are some very practical ways to decide on the relevant and appropriate lexis to teach:

1. Ask Your Experienced Colleagues

Meet with your Head of Department/Director of studies and ask for her advice. It may be that last year’s group
first tackled a group theme/project, e.g. My family. This would be a great start, and you’d have a pretty good
idea of the type of lexis you could use.

2. Meet With Last Year’s Teacher

Meet with the teacher who taught last year’s beginner class if he is available. Ask for his advice.

3. Observe The Previous Year’s Class

If points 1 or 2 don’t work out, ask the teacher who is now teaching the class who were beginners last year if
you can sit in on some of her classes, if possible, to see if you can get a grasp of what they learned in the
previous year.
With her permission, carry out a simple needs analysis to see what relevant lexis and chunks they learned.
4. Find Out How They Spend A Typical Day
Find out from your teaching colleagues, as best and as soon as you can, what a typical day for a school child in
your class looks like, for the age and level you will be teaching. This will give you lots of information to help you
in deciding what lexis is relevant:

 Do some walk long distances to school?

 Do some travel on buses?
 Do they go shopping?
 Do any of them come from large families?
 What sports are they mad on, both for the girls and boys?
 Do they go to watch matches?
 What are the frequent types of food they eat?

And so on. Information like this is like gold dust and will keep you on track with the content/themes you will
major on and the relevant lexis to teach.
Remember: your focus is always on introducing language in meaningful contexts. There’s little point in basing
a theme around The World of Computers if few have access to these.
Always keep asking yourself this question: What are the typical situations my learner group get involved
in? Your learners will find themselves in many situations which will be typical for your group, e.g. going on a
bus, buying something in a shop, apologising for bumping into another learner in the school corridor, etc.
So, you need to make sure that you identify the critical situations for your learners and include these in your
content. As their language improves, you won’t need to ask your colleagues. You can ask your learners about
the kinds of things they do in their normal daily life.
This will then guide you to the essential lexis you need to teach.
Identifying situations will lead you to introduce functions and exponents. Once this happens, you won’t be
worrying about what lexis you should be teaching. You’ll be full of ideas. We will explore functions and
exponents later.

5. Frequency Is Paramount
One significant factor in the selection of relevant lexis is the frequency of the word. There would be little point
in teaching words to your learners if they are rarely likely to need them or use them.
In terms of language input, the frequency of lexis is accorded a high level of significance. The rationale for this
is quite simply that the most frequently occurring words in the English language will be those which are most
useful to learners.
For example, the beginner level of many series of coursebooks will have a basic lexical syllabus formulated
from the first 500 to 800 most frequently occurring words in English.
Here is a list of what are purported to be the 200 most common speaking words in English:

This table is merely a guide, and should only be viewed as such, but there is merit in this. It gives you a rough
guide to fundamental constructions and chunks that you could first major on, e.g. I like.., I don’t like …
Then you would add in the new and relevant lexis to these constructions, e.g. I like gazpachuelo
malagueño, which would lead you on to introducing very pertinent lexis in English such as fish, potatoes,
mayonnaise, wine vinegar, shrimps, clams, etc.
6. Research The L2 Language Reading Books
Let’s imagine that all your learners are native-Mandarin speakers in China.
Think outside the box, particularly with anything that can make your job easier. In China, what Chinese reading
books, pertaining to the age and level of your learners, can you get your hands on, say, from a library or your
learners?
These will help to indicate the level of Mandarin lexis for your group but, more importantly, it will provide you
with an indication of the type of lexis used at their level, i.e. what words they have been learning in Mandarin.
You may have to get a Mandarin speaker to translate for you.
This will make your choice of relevant English lexis easier, and they will be able to relate to the new English
words easier when you show them you can speak some of these words in Mandarin. Remember, though, not
to overdo this translation-type activity.

7. Remember The English Profile Programme

This will keep you on track when deciding which words are appropriate for the learner’s CEFR level.

4.3.4. Appropriate Lexis

You wouldn’t be taking this course if you were not regarded as being a person with integrity.
Choosing appropriate language is all down to your integrity, and you can work out much of this for yourself.
For example, if your first class is a beginner class, you can work out that it wouldn’t be sensible:

 to give lexis which is outside of their interests, needs and view of their world
 to give beginners long and complex words with several syllables
 to introduce them to words that relate to cognitive concepts such as analyse. It’s much too soon for
that.
 to introduce them to any words which are recognised almost everywhere as taboo for earners, e.g.
certain parts of the male and female bodies
 to introduce many idioms, which are much too complicated for this stage
 to introduce many city-dwelling words if the learners are based in a rural area, and viceversa
 to introduce words and ideas through words, which are outside of their culture

A significant point to remember is the difference between surface culture and deep culture.
Surface culture relates to topics such as the customs, food, holidays, places, situations, famous people and
traditions that are relevant to the learners’ local context. Lexis for these activities would be very appropriate.
Deep culture issues relate to concepts such as attitudes, perceptions, and values. Keep away from these in
the early stages. There may be occasions where these can be discussed with advanced learners.
The opportunities for being misunderstood, due to the learners’ lack of lexis, meaning and the understanding
of nuances in English, are enormous. Stay clear.
Always try to avoid getting bogged down with lexis in subjects which are regarded as taboo in all but very
advanced levels, e.g. religion and politics. Again, the opportunities for being misunderstood are immense.
For example, if you were a royalist from the UK and proud to mention your Queen, this could easily backfire on
you in a country whose bloody history involved getting rid of royalty. A learner could go home and state to his
anti-royalist parents/caregivers: We learn about queen. She very nice person. Everybody like her.
So, be sensible and act with integrity. To save you from falling into traps like the one above when, say, you are
teaching in China, you should research China’s history and make-up, using a reputable site such as The World
Factbook at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-worldfactbook/geos/co.html
We will be delving further into cultural aspects a little bit later.

4.3.5. Types Of Language

1. Words And Chunks
When learners have listened to the English language for a large period of time, they will gradually and naturally
start to utter words and chunks of language they have heard you say.
So, once they are comfortable with hearing the words, they will take the wonderful step to say the words. You
will notice this in different scenarios:

 Speaking out phrases and chunks they have learned through listening to you, e.g. please, thank you,
open book (to their friend), etc.
 Joining in with the Total Physical Response (TPR) activities you’ll use with rhymes and songs, but now
uttering some of the chunks. Learners listen to rhymes, songs or stories, and mime to them without
having to produce the language. TPR links language learning to physical actions and ensures that
learners hear lots of English in meaningful contexts without having to say any words. The key principle
of TPR is that learners have lots of opportunities to absorb the language before they have to say
anything. Then they start to repeat the words/chunks.
 Answering simple questions you ask them, e.g. Are all the books open? and answering: Yes! or Yes,
Miss, or Yes, Miss Brown or My open or Book open, etc.
 Memorising short dialogues through time: How are you? I fine or See you!
 Introducing themselves: Me, Lucy.

And you’ll notice that they generally use them at the right times. For example, when you always say Open your
books, they’ll know what to do as you always say that chunk after handing out the books.
Or, if you always say Bye, children at the end of the lesson and perhaps add a little wave, they’ll recognise that
this always happens when they leave so you must be saying something like goodbye.
Of course, at this stage, they won’t be able to analyse your chunks into separate words or understand what
each of the words means on its own.
As adults, we all use chunks. These may vary a bit depending on our native-English type, but these will
demonstrate the point:

 See you later!

 Goodness me!
 What a (pleasant) surprise!
 That’s awesome!
 What’s up?
 What do you think?
 How do you feel about that?

These are called fixed chunks. They are all complete and ready to use at any time.
Other chunks are partially fixed – they are not complete, and they need some other items or elements so that
the whole chunk then makes sense. For example:

 What do you want to …?

 Where would you like to …?
  I like …
 I don’t like …
 Have you got …?

The critical point is that chunks, whether fixed or partially fixed, help learners to produce their language
output much faster. The learners don’t need to give any thought to the individual words making up the chunk.
Grasping these chunks is a crucial step not just for building their lexical bank, but it is vital for building up their
knowledge and skills so that they can participate in communication. To speak the new language, they need
to participate.
Once they can participate, you can then guide them on how they can participate.
Your next step is to build on this by introducing them to set phrases as chunks. These will open up new
horizons for them.
Your first step, of course, is to help them grasp the meaning of the chunks, then how they can use these
effortlessly in meaningful situations. Here are examples of the types of chunks you’ll likely want to cover with
them. You’ll be able to think of many more. The chunks are underlined:
A: What do you want to do?
B: I want (to play, to play soccer, to sleep)
A: What do you like?
B: I like (football, sleeping, ice cream)
A: Do you like (cheese, tomatoes, apples or oranges)?
B: I like cheese.
A: Where are you going?
I’m going to (school, the cinema, the toilet, etc.)
A: What do you have (in your hand, in your bag, for tea)?
B: I have (a pen, a book, rice for tea)
A: Are you a (monkey, fly, flower) – as in a classroom guessing game, identifying a mime)?
B: Yes, I’m a (monkey, fly, flower, etc.)
B: No, I’m a (caterpillar, teacher, snake, etc.)
These chunk structures need to be practised a lot, and they may seem repetitive to you. But they are
necessary. You should try to make them fun and ensure that they are meaningful and can be used well, time
after time by the learners.
Then you’ll really start to see them advance so long as you continue to introduce them to other meaningful
language they can use in their immediate world.
Examples: Chunks used by British tourists
To reinforce the importance of chunks, a useful example in the UK is the annual holiday exodus that many
make to Europe. Let’s use France as an example. In general, UK holidaymakers don’t make a significant effort
to learn foreign languages. Maybe it’s because they think everyone should speak English.
Even although they may never have had any L2 input whatsoever, it’s interesting how they pick up chunks to
get over the meaning of what they want to have, do, find out, etc. They learn these from their children, from
listening to other British tourists, from films etc.
It’s unlikely that many of the visitors would recognise the words written down or be able to analyse the
separate words in isolation. But they get by when meaning is essential.
For France, most of them will have picked up:
  Avez vous … ? (Have you got …?) and they’ll fill in the word from a dictionary, or mime.
 Où est …? (Where is …?) and they’ll fill in the words from a dictionary, or mime.
 Quelle heure? (What time?) Here they ask the time but are not sure how to finish off the sentence.
However, it doesn’t matter since the meaning is clear.
 Merci beaucoup! (Thank you very much)! Here, they use a whole chunk.
 S’il vous plaît. (Please.) An essential whole chunk.

2. Metaphors and similes

Learners need to get to grips with unusual language. Let’s consider metaphors and similes.
Similes and metaphors are both used to make comparisons or elucidate concepts but tackle these in a
different form.
Metaphors state a comparison. Similes use the words like and as to make a comparison.

 That country’s a melting pot. (metaphor)

 She’s the light of my life. (metaphor)
 The room is like a furnace. (simile)
 He is as bald as a coot. (simile)

The difficulty for L2 learners is understanding these expressions and, importantly, using the correct wording.
We don’t say That country’s a melting saucepan or She’s the luminosity of my life.
This inability to use other words in these expressions demonstrates the collocations that exist in all languages,
where words seem to go together naturally. These are constructions that your learners will have to learn bit by
bit through study and practice.

4.3.6. Lexis Activities And Exercises

Here are some practical options for presenting new lexical items. These are best carried out in pairs or
groups:
Context: Learners see the text that contains lexical items and deduce the meaning of the item based on the
surrounding language.
Miming or gesturing: Learners guess the meaning of a lexical item based on your or another learner’s miming
and gesturing.
Substitution drills: These kinds of drills enable learners to focus on structure while learning related lexis. For
example, a dialogue or sentence structure is first taught, then learners substitute different content words.
Antonyms/synonyms: Learners match items from a list of synonyms or antonyms to the word(s) in a text.
Hangman: The classic lexis game where learners choose letters to spell out the lexical item in a limited
number of rounds.
Odd-Man-Out: You list four words for your learners to analyse. Learners must determine the relationship
between the words and then explain why one word does not belong.
Matching definitions: Learners match words to a list of definitions.
Gapped dictation: You read a text with some lexis missing, and the learners must deduce what the lexical
item is, based on the context.
Using dictionaries: These can be used for several reasons:

 Using the alphabet and placing words in alphabetical order

 Checking the pronunciation of new words
 Positioning the stress correctly
  Distinguishing different uses of the same word
 Distinguishing different meanings of words with the same spelling
 Checking the grammatical role of a word
 Identifying British and American spelling or meaning
 Checking on the formality or informality of a new word

Keeping a lexis record: Jotting down any new words. You can then use this as a warmer exercise, a few days
later, to check whether the word and its meaning and usage have been embedded.
Using drawings/pictures: These can be used very effectively to teach lexis.
Labelling: Working in pairs or small groups, or pairs and then small groups, the learners can, for example, label
the various parts of a picture of a bicycle or the parts of the body.
One learner alone may not possess all the lexis that is needed, but by working in pairs or small groups they are
likely to have a larger group of words. They can then combine with another pair or small group to see if they
have a complete list.
When teaching lexical items to learners, you should keep in mind that a learner’s learning of a word means not
only knowing its dictionary meaning but also understanding its form, different connotations and its correct
use.
Rather than simply giving learners the meaning of a lexical item, you need to make sure that your learners
understand the meaning.
To this end, you can help your learners develop effective lexis learning strategies. You can also develop
learner-centred presentation techniques, such as eliciting and effective concept checking, which make lexis
learning, and teaching, much more engaging.
Recycling
Remember this!
All your excellent work may be undone if there is no recycling.
Recycling is where your learners meet and use a word several times so that eventually it is remembered and
recalled naturally.
Don’t just focus on your learners learning new words. Continue to recycle words they have met already. This
will help to ensure that words are embedded in their long-term memories.
And remember this! Where your learners have learned a word successfully, and enjoy using it, introduce
them to other words in that lexical set. A lexical set can be defined as a group of words embracing the same
topic, function or form. For example, recycling the word amazing will provide a solid foundation for
introducing them to a variety of words with somewhat similar meanings, e.g.
wonderful, great, fantastic, awesome and remarkable.
One of the best times to recycle lexis is during the warmer the next day. Here’s a simple example.

Example
 Let’s say you covered a lexical set of fruit the previous day.
 Split the class into small groups of, say, three or four learners.
 Give them a real-life picture of fruit from their local marketplace. It contains all the fruit they learned.
 In turns, a learner must identify and speak out one of the types of fruit you covered the day before.

Rules: No repetition allowed. A learner can be challenged if others think he’s wrong. Each learner has 3 lives. If
they can’t identify and say a fruit name, they lose a life. The winner is the last person to have a life left.
4.4 Connotation and Denotation (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.

Connotation refers to the associations, or positive or negative feelings, which a lexical item evokes. It is an idea
or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning, e.g. the
word discipline has unhappy connotations of punishment and repression for some people.
Words may have positive or negative connotations.
For example, consider the words childish, childlike and youthful. They have much the same literal meaning, but
they have different connotative meanings. Childish and childlike have a negative connotation as they often refer
to the immature behaviour of a person. On the other hand, youthful implies that a person is lively and energetic.
Here are some other examples. Cultural and emotional associations shape their suggested meanings:

 A dove has connotations of peace or gentility.

 Hollywood connotes such things as glamour, celebrity, and dreams of stardom.
 Home suggests family, comfort and security.
 Politician often has a negative connotation of insincerity while statesperson connotes sincerity.
 Pushy refers to someone loud-mouthed and irritating.

‘Strong-willed‘ and ‘pig-headed‘ have much the same literal meaning – ‘stubborn‘.
However, strongwilled connotes some degree of admiration for the level of someone’s will and drive (a positive
connotation), while pig-headed connotes frustration in dealing with someone (a negative connotation).

Denotation
Denotation is typically defined as the literal meaning or dictionary meaning of a word in contrast to its
connotative or associated meanings. If we compare the following two statements with the first two examples
above, you’ll see the difference between connotation and denotation:
A dove denotes any of the various birds of the family Columbidae, having a heavy body, small head, short legs,
and long pointed wings: order Columbiformes. They are typically smaller than pigeons.
Hollywood denotes a NW suburb of Los Angeles, California: the centre of the American film industry. In
literary works, it is common practice for writers to deviate from the dictionary meanings of words to create
fresher ideas and images. Even in our daily conversation, we diverge from the dictionary meanings of words
and prefer connotative or associated meanings of words to convey our message better.
4.5 Appropriacy in Relation to Cultural
Contextualisation (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.
We mentioned ‘appropriate lexis’ above, but here our focus is on appropriacy in relation to cultural
contextualisation. A subtler aspect of meaning that often needs to be introduced to learners is whether a
particular item is appropriate for use in a specific context.
Appropriacy of a piece of speech is measured against sociocultural norms.
However, the same piece of speech in one society’s culture may not be considered appropriate in another
culture.
Possible repercussions may arise from a learner saying words that could be viewed as inappropriate in another
culture and society.
For this reason, you must make your learners aware of possible cross-linguistic problems.
Thus, your learners must know that a particular word or phrase is very common, or relatively rare, or ‘taboo’ in,
say, polite conversation. Or, perhaps, the word tends to be used in writing but not in speech; or that it is more
suitable in formal than in informal discourse.
For example, weep is virtually synonymous in denotation with cry, but it is more formal and poetic, tends to be
used in writing more than in speech, and is much less common.
So far, we’ve focussed on the learner. But what about YOU?
Here’s what you need to know and reflect on to ensure you get cultural contextualisation right the
first time:

1. Remember this: Communication is culture-bound. The way an individual communicates and the
words and structures she uses emanate from her culture.
2. Learners with different cultural norms are at risk if you have little knowledge, sensitivity or
appreciation of the diversity in communication styles. You may perceive differences as problems and
respond to learners’ diversity with a negative attitude, low expectations and culturally inappropriate
teaching and assessment procedures.
3. Remember: Cultures vary internally and are changeable. There are usually many cultural differences
within a single race or nationality. Avoid stereotyping your learners.
4. What is logical and essential in your culture, e.g. always tagging on please to a request, or taking turns
to speak, may seem irrational and unimportant to learners in another culture.
5. In describing another culture’s language, teachers tend to stress the differences and overlook the
similarities. Do not fall into this trap.
6. Avoid some inappropriate cross-cultural communication barriers:
 Be aware of words, images and situations that suggest that all or most members of a racial
group are the same.
 Be aware of possible negative implications of word/colour symbolism and usage that could
offend people or reinforce bias. For example, terms such as black magic or black market can be
offensive in some cultures.
 Avoid words that have questionable racial or ethnic connotations. For example, a phrase such
as you people may have a racial overtone.
 Be aware that words, objects, characters and symbols may reflect different beliefs or values for
different groups. For example, the Confederate flag and Uncle Remus stories may offend
African Americans because they reflect the culture of slavery and the Old South.
 Be aware of different approaches to taking turns during conversations. For example, some
cultures frequently perceive ‘breaking in’ to reinforce or disagree with another’s point of view
to be perfectly permissible, indeed desirable.
Cultures often have different standards/levels for loudness, silence, speed of delivering a message,
attentiveness and time taken to respond to another’s point. For example, Far East societies place a high value
on contemplation and tend, therefore, to feel little responsibility to make immediate responses during
conversation.
Understanding another culture’s language is a continuous process.
4.6 Word Formation (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.
If you are a native-English speaker, you’ve probably never given much thought to word formation. However,
as an EFL teacher, you must reflect on this. It will help your learners greatly.
Lexical items, whether one-word or multi-word, can often be broken down into their component ‘bits’, or
morphemes.
A morpheme is defined as the smallest linguistic unit that has meaning. Let’s start with the
word approach and change it to unapproachable. The new word unapproachable has three morphemes: un +
approach + able.
The prefix is the part of a word that comes before the base. So, the prefix here is un. Prefixes add to or alter
the base word in some way. The prefix un means not or opposite of, so by adding it to approachable, it has
given the word a negative meaning.
The base or stem of the word is approach. The base is the word or part of a word to which prefixes and suffixes
are attached to make new forms.
The suffix is that part of the word that comes after the base. So, the suffix here is able. When we add a suffix,
we make a new word out of the base. A suffix often changes the base word from one-word class (part of
speech) to another. So, for example, the base word approach has now been made into an adjective by
adding able.
Another example is adding –ish to the noun child, which then makes childish, which is an adjective.
So, we can see from this simple activity that:

 If a learner knows what the prefix means, she’ll be on her way to understanding a part of an unfamiliar
word.
 If the learner knows what the suffix generally indicates, she’ll be on her way to identifying whether the
word is a verb, adjective, adverb or noun, if there isn’t any other evidence available.
 A little bit of guessing with the meaning of the base/stem may get her right to the meaning of an
unfamiliar word.

Note that the process of adding prefixes and suffixes comes under the umbrella heading of affixation, which
means the linguistic process speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes.
You can find lists of common prefixes and suffixes on internet sites, etc.
Ensure your learners take care with a word that may appear to have a prefix, but it’s not; for example, the
prefix post, meaning after, is not the same post in postman.
Compounding
Many words have been formed by compounding. Compound words are typically formed by combining two
lexical items. These items can be two nouns, or a noun and a verb, or a gerund and a noun. (A gerund is the –
ing form of a verb used as a noun, e.g. Smoking is not permitted.)
The resulting compounding can be in the form of a single word, as in the following examples: bookcase;
lifeguard; baseball. We can also create one word out of two separate, sometimes hyphenated words, as in the
following examples: follow-up; white-collar; paper clip. Help your learners to understand word formation. This
will encourage them to take risks in forming words once they know the base word.
4.7 Word relationships (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.
The relationship between words can be an advantageous, practical way to present lexical items.
These relationships will help them to expand their language and make it more varied.

Synonyms
A synonym is a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a
language. Synonyms can be any part of speech, but the words used as synonyms must belong to the same part of
speech. Here are a few examples:

 preposition: on and upon

 verb: buy and purchase
 adjective: big and large
 adverb: quickly and speedily

Antonyms
These are items that mean the opposite; rich is an antonym of poor; big is an antonym of small.

Hyponyms
These are items that serve as specific examples of a general concept. Dog, cat and donkey are hyponyms of
animal. Potatoes, carrots and onions are hyponyms of vegetable.
4.8 Phrasal Verbs, Idioms and Collocations
(150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.

These items exist in all languages. We never think of them as we acquire our native language. However, for all
L2 learners, these present enormous challenges when learning English. There are few robust learning
strategies you can present to them so that they can learn these.
You need to explain these when they come up in the classroom and encourage them to rote-learn other
examples as much as possible.

1. Phrasal Verbs
We mentioned before that phrasal verbs are a VERY significant feature of the English language and are very
challenging for learners. Sentences such as I put it down to the weather, or I made it up with my sister, are
usually gobbledegook to beginner non-native-English speakers.
Phrasal verbs are composed of:

1. a verb, and
2. a preposition or adverb, or both, added to the verb.

The addition of the preposition or adverb often changes the meaning of the verb entirely, for example:
look up – consult a dictionary for the meaning of a word (look a word up in a dictionary) look for – seek, search
for (look for her contact lens) look forward to – await eagerly (look forward to meeting someone or attending
an event)
There are no definitive rules that can explain how phrasal verbs are formed correctly. Some linguists have
tried to set out rules, but their efforts have not been persuasive. Unfortunately for the learner of English, there
are thousands of phrasal verbs.
Teaching Phrasal verbs
Here is the method we use to teach phrasal verbs.
The key: Think of an everyday context and topic that applies to all of them.
Ask yourself: What do all my learners do to some degree?
Choose a relevant and meaningful topic to bring out a tranche of related phrasal verbs.
All your learners need to eat, be it at home or in a café/restaurant. They may either buy the food or make the
food or watch their parents or friends making food.
All your learners are likely to use a phone to different degrees.
All your learners need to shop.
Most of the communicative functions are the same, e.g. Do you have …?; I would like a thing that …; Can you
show me a selection …? All these will include relevant and appropriate phrasal verbs in everyday use.
All your learners need to travel from school to home, be it on foot, by bus, etc. Again, all these events will
include relevant and appropriate phrasal verbs in everyday use.
Example
Let’s choose ‘Making a Sandwich’ as the topic. All learners will likely have had some experience of this, either
making a sandwich themselves or watching their parents or siblings doing this in the kitchen.
You could use your teacher’s table as the kitchen top and use plastic vegetables for your demonstration.
Here are some of the phrasal verbs that you could plan to bring out:

 peel off (fruit or vegetable skin)

 fry up (breakfast or vegetables)
 slice off (meat from the bone)
 cut up (into slices)
 cut off (fat)
 chop up (into small pieces or cubes)
 boil away (the water boiling in the pan for a set time)
 boil over (the water boiling over because there’s too much heat)

You would explain these, get them to repeat the sound, write what’s necessary on the board and handle any
queries. The learners could role-play a simple scenario of making a sandwich explaining to each other what
they are doing and who should do what next. You could also reinforce these later by, say, a gap-fill exercise or
a short written piece on ‘How to Make the Perfect Sandwich’.
Then, perhaps, you could bring in some dictionary work which would add to the phrasal verbs which they can
use in this context.
And you could encourage them to use these phrasal verbs at home. You could ask their parents or caregivers
to encourage the learners to do the activity while explaining to the parents or caregivers what they are doing.
This is how to do it, focussing on meaningful language they can frequently use in familiar everyday
contexts.

2. Idioms
These are a series of fixed lexical items that have their own figurative meaning which is different from their
literal component elements.
That is, an idiom is a phrase (a group of words), where the words joined together have a different meaning
from the dictionary definitions of the individual words. Idioms are tricky for EFL learners. For example:

 We’ll get that contract. That’s a given. I’m not sure about the other one.
 He knew he had done wrong, and the only choice left was for him to go back to them, cap in hand.
 There was absolute silence. You could cut it with a knife.

Introduce these as necessary but only one at a time on separate occasions. They must be introduced in
context. Take care to ensure that an idiom does not have an alternative rude or offensive connotation.

3. Collocations
This is an arrangement of two or more words or other elements, especially those that commonly co-
occur: rancid butter, bosom buddy, or dead serious. These combinations sound ‘right’ to native English
speakers, who use them frequently.
Other combinations/constructions seem unnatural and just sound ‘wrong’. For example:
  We say fast food but not quick food.
 We say quick shower but not fast shower.
 We say Let’s have a quick meal but not Let’s have a fast meal.

Why is this? Nobody knows!

4.9 Language Functions (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.

When discussing Lexis, we mentioned the need for you to find out the various situations that learners are
involved in, so that you then have a reliable indicator of what lexis you should then teach.
Once the key situations have been identified, the typical English language in these situations can be identified
and added to the content. Your focus will be on functions and exponents.

4.9.1. Examples Of Functions

We’ve mentioned these before, and we mention them again. They are so important.
A function is the communicative purpose we have for speaking, the reason why we say or write something,
e.g. agreeing, offering to help, requesting, apologising, complaining, inviting and asking permission, when we
are in a particular situation.
Functions are sometimes also called ‘situational language’ because the situation or context in which they are
used is critical.

4.9.2. Exponents
An exponent is the language we use to express the function. Sometimes the exponent is a set phrase, for
example, Sorry, I don’t quite follow that, or sometimes it is placed at the beginning of a sentence that could
have a variety of different endings – for example, Do you mind if I …?; Please can I …?; If I were you, I would …;
You should …
To choose the right exponent, we need to think about:

 the situation
 what the function is
 who the audience is
 the relationship of the speaker and receiver of the message

Remember: One function can be expressed through several different exponents, e.g.

 Coming for lunch?

 Shall we have lunch?
 What about lunch on Sunday?

The words that are used will depend on the context. Exponents express various levels of formality.
Examples: linking situation + function + exponents

1. Situation: Your learner Cristina has toothache.

 Function: She needs to ask permission to go home.
 Exponent: Please, Miss, may/can I go home? I have got toothache.
2. Situation: Your learner Chen sees an old lady having difficulty crossing a busy road.
 Function: He wants to find out if he can help her.
 Exponent: Excuse me, Madam, can/may I help you across the road?
3. Situation: Your learner Brett arrives at the ticket office in the bus station.
 Function: He needs to buy a ticket to Edinburgh.
 Exponent: Please may I have a ticket to Edinburgh?
Let’ try another example from the Business English arena.

Example: Linking Situation + Function + Exponents

Situation: Here is a typical business situation. Cristina’s boss, Chen, has asked her to attend a conference with
the specific aim of chatting to attendees, telling them about his business and persuading them to think about
buying from his business.
Cristina is a non-native-English speaker and won’t know any of the attendees. In this socialising situation, one
of the things (functions) she’ll need to conquer is introducing herself to people she doesn’t know (using the
right language, i.e. the right exponents).
Situation: Socialising at an event
Function: Introducing herself to people she doesn’t know in a socialising situation
Exponents: The language she needs to learn to help her start the conversation:

 Excuse me, could you explain this to me? My English is not so good. (This may be a little white lie, but
it’s an excellent conversation starter. People are always willing to help, and this will lead to further
discussion about her English being good, where she comes from, etc.)
 Hello! (Hi!) My name’s Cristina. Is it OK if I join you (your group)?
 Excuse me. Do you mind if I join you?
 Are you here on your own or with a group?
 Do you know many people are here tonight?
 Is this your first time here?
 Have you travelled far?
 Sorry, do you have a light?
 Sorry, could you pass me the sugar?
 Are you giving a presentation?
 Are you enjoying the presentations?

4.9.3. Functions In CLT

Reflect on these key points:
The concept of communicative language stresses that teaching grammar alone will not prepare learners for
using the language independently.
This method of teaching proposes that learners need to understand the meaning and the communicative
function of a language to learn the language.
Communication goals can be conveyed in terms of situations/contexts, functions and exponents. You plan
the situation (e.g. buying a ticket at the station) within which learners will be able to use their language for a
purpose in the classroom.
These functions represent the basic units underlying a communicative system more realistically than the
categories of lexis and grammar, which may be taught detached from communicative contexts.
Communicative functions are a big part of CLT since they promote authentic communication. As mentioned
before, you won’t need to worry about what lexis you need to cover once they are ready for learning
communicative functions.
When teaching functions and exponents, you need to:

 make the context (situation) clear to learners

 establish the relationship between the speakers in the activity
 highlight the grammatical form
  ensure the meaning is understood
 provide learners with plenty of controlled oral practice

A textbook grounded in the Communicative Approach will guide you through the situation/context, function
to be addressed and the exponents, i.e. the words used.
You must understand the concept of language functions. You also need to recognise the importance that is
placed on the learner’s need to be familiar with a wide range of functions and their exponents to communicate
effectively. Additionally, a functional approach to teaching language helps you leverage real-world, authentic
contexts in which to present and to have learners practise other language skills and systems, such as reading,
writing, lexis and grammar.
4.10 language Analysis (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson.

4.10.1. Form, Meaning And Use

Aim to balance form, meaning, and use. Learners must understand not only the mechanics of the language,
but also the how, why, when and where a particular structure, word, or phrase gets used.

1. Form
Form refers to the visible (what is seen)) and audible (what is heard) parts of lexis and functional expressions.
This includes the words in a phrase, the spelling, the phonemes, the syllable stress, the prefixes or suffixes, the
word order (syntax), the choice of noun or verb, etc. for a particular place in a sentence, and punctuation.
It refers to the mechanics of the language, either in terms of grammar or lexis. With regards to grammar,
learners (and you) must understand the sentence structure of a specific grammar rule.
It answers the question: How is the lexis unit, functional expression, or grammar structure formed?

2. Meaning
There are two aspects of meaning:

1. the literal meaning (the usual or most basic sense) of the word(s) or phrase or functional expression or
grammar structure
2. the meaning in the context (situation) it’s being used?
For example:
 He’s wearing a red shirt. (red=colour)
 His face is red; he’s been lying on the beach for too long. (red=sunburnt)

Meaning is the comprehension or mental image that is created by the word(s) or phrase or functional
expression or grammar structure. Learners connect the structure with the meaning. For example, the future
tense signals events that will take place in the future.
Once you have presented the structure, you should talk about the meaning too.
It answers the question: What meaning does the lexis, functional expression or grammar structure have in the
(specific) context?

3. Use
This is how the grammar or lexis gets used.
The word(s) or phrase or functional expression or grammar structure we choose to use are determined by the
situation (context) we are in and what we want to communicate to our listener(s). Use is interconnected with
meaning.
For example: As you know, Good morning! or Morning! is a typical greeting we use with family, friends, our
neighbours, our boss, etc. when we see/meet them before noon.
However, let’s shift the same greeting to the afternoon. If we say Good morning! or Morning! to a family
member, when he gets up in the afternoon (because he was out too late the night before), we are being ironic
or perhaps indicating a degree of disapproval. It’s unlikely we would ever say this to our boss when she comes
in late!
It answers the question: When or why is the lexis, functional expression or grammar structure used?
Remember! This does not mean you should stand in front of the class delivering one grammar point after
another in the hope that your learners will then be able to produce it. The form and meaning of a structure
need to be integrated into the lesson through topics, situations and functions for them to be learned
effectively and to be used.
But, the structure of a language item and its use are, of course, essential and will still need to be presented to
your class.

4.10.2. Analysing Language Items Before

And During Class
Hopefully, in this Section, you will see the value of the points we have included above on pronunciation, lexis,
functions and form, meaning and use.
We included all these areas not just to make you more informed. Together with other knowledge and tools you
will study in the grammar Sections, we intend to get you ready and confident for analysing language.
You don’t need to be an expert – all you need to have is the motivation to get to grips with all of it. A bit at a
time.
Why would you want to be able to analyse the language you are teaching?

1. Before A Lesson
Before introducing a new structure, you’ll want to do your analysis during your lesson planning stage. You
might consider some questions like these:

 What is the form?

 Is this a ‘rule’?
 Are there exceptions to the rule?
 Do I need to introduce new (grammar) terminology, i.e. metalanguage, language about
language, e.g. noun, determiner, etc. – or not?
 How can I take them from the past to the past perfect tense?
 Is the form static?
 Are there any irregularities in form?
 How can I best explain the meaning?
 How can it be used? How does the context affect it?

This kind of analysis will ensure you are fully prepared and have planned well to ensure the smooth running of
your lesson. The learners may still have some difficulty with the new item, but they’ll know they are in safe
hands with you.

2. During A Lesson
Being able to analyse language competently will help you to resolve quickly any language issues which arise.
Competence in this gives you a great feeling. Let’s imagine that any of the following come up out of the blue
during a lesson (they will!):
  She has many magasine.
 My father drives a car very big and fast.
 I needs some informations about the trip.
 My sister has got a long blond hair.
 Most of Canadians speak a few French.
 I go town this afternoon
 Horse is in field.
 I have an idea. It just came out of the black.

Some of these mistakes/errors are more serious than others. We’ll discuss the difference between ‘mistakes’
and ‘errors’ later in the course. For now, though, let’s agree that I needs some informations about the
trip needs to be resolved immediately.
There are two different issues, and you may choose only to tackle one of them at once. Most teachers would
agree that needs has to be addressed right away. In any case, you can’t cover two quite tricky concepts at the
same time. So, you can come back to informations later.
The point is this. How do you approach this if you don’t have the knowledge and the tools to do so?
You can’t just say: We say need, Huong. Will she think this is only for the word need or can she apply this rule
to other ‘’I’ situations with other verbs? Or might she think she shouldn’t ever say needs, so she may then
say he need.
By being able to express the reason, clearly, and succinctly, as to why she should say I need, both the learner
and you will be delighted. Your study in the analysis of language will have served you well.
What are the concepts and tools you need in your analytical toolbox? Well, you’ll need to have a solid grasp of
everything mentioned in this Module along with other concepts we have covered and will cover in the
grammar Module. Then you’ll be fine, and you’ll feel good.
You’ll hear some new and inexperienced teachers saying things like: I get by OK without much
language analysis or grammar knowledge. Oh really? What a lot of nonsense! We wonder then how the
learners will get by in their learning.
Well done! Another Module completed! What you have learned here will help you better understand
some critical English language essentials which will come up in your classroom.
And there’s lots more to come!
Time for a little break. Then, come back and have a go at Quiz 4.
It’s not too challenging. Good luck!
After that, we’ll move on to Module 5, where we will explore the world of grammar. We will be covering
a lot, so take your time and get it right the first time. You already speak and write the English
language, so it shouldn’t be too challenging. Much of grammar is simply common sense.
End of Module 4 (150)
Congratulations! You have passed this lesson's quiz achieving 87%
There is only one correct answer for each question. Select the correct answer.
Although you will not fail the whole course if you score below 40% in the End Of Module Quiz it will count
towards your final assessment. You will be able to retake this quiz. When you are finished be sure to look
over the questions again and take note of any errors and use this to learn, you may be asked similar questions in
your final assessment.

End of Module 4 (150) Quiz

Congratulations! You have passed this quiz achieving 87% NEXT LESSON

Phonological awareness should start with lots and lots of listening games that focus your
learners’ attention on words.1

 True

 False
Grade: 1
2. In relation to word formation, which of the following statements is correct?1

 The word postman is a good example of a word using the prefix post, representing after.

 The suffix is that part of a word that comes before the base or stem of the word.

 Compound words are typically formed by combining three lexical items.

 A morpheme is defined as the smallest linguistic unit that has meaning.

Grade: 1
3. When deciding what lexis to teach, you should first:1

 identify the key situations for your learners and include these in your content

 arrange a session with a teacher who has taught at the relevant level

 find out if there are local standards and a curriculum set down stating the relevant lexis
that you must teach

 ask your Head of Department/Director of Studies for ideas

Incorrect - Right Answer: find out if there are local standards and a curriculum set down
stating the relevant lexis that you must teach
4. In word stress, we can only stress consonants, not vowels.1
  True

 False
Grade: 1
5. Which one of these statements is correct?1

 Phonemic awareness refers to how a person articulates specific sounds.

 Phonemic awareness is an end goal in itself.

 Phonemic awareness relates to the correspondences between letters or groups of letters

and the words they represent.

 Decoding is breaking up a word into sounds.

Grade: 1
6. Regarding form, meaning and use, which of the following statements is correct?1

 There are two aspects to meaning: the literal meaning and the meaning in context.

 Use refers only to how the grammar is used.

 Use has no connection with meaning.

 Form refers only to the visible elements of language.

Grade: 1
7. Which of the following statements is untrue?1

 Antonyms are words with opposite meanings.

 Hyponyms are words that serve as specific examples of a general concept.

 A synonym is word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other
words.

 Synonyms are restricted to certain parts of speech.

Grade: 1
8. There are possible repercussions arising from a learner saying words that would be
viewed as inappropriate in another culture and society.1

 True

 False
Grade: 1
9. With regard to functions and exponents, which of the following statements
is incorrect?1

 A function is the communicative purpose we have for speaking.

  An exponent is the language we use to express the function.

 Functions are sometimes called ‘situational language’.

 In order to choose the right exponent, we need only think about the situation.
Grade: 1
10. With regard to lexis, which of the following statements is correct?1

 Lexis is studied in separate vocabulary and grammar sessions.

 Lexis focusses on single words only.

 Lexis links vocabulary and certain areas of grammar together.

 Lexis is exactly the same as vocabulary.

Grade: 1
11. With regard to cultural contextualisation, which of the following statements
is correct?1

 Teachers tend to stress the similarities when describing another culture’s language.

 The same speech act in one society's culture is likely to be considered appropriate in
another's.

 Appropriacy of a speech act is measured against sociocultural norms.

 Cultures do not vary internally and are not changeable.

Grade: 1
12. A lexical set is a group of words with the same topic, function or form.1

 True

 False
Incorrect - Right Answer: True
13. A phrasal verb consists wholly of a verb and a preposition.1

 True

 False
Grade: 1
14. In relation to pronunciation, which one of these statements is incorrect?1

 Ensure it’s an integral part of communication.

 Languages across the world have phonemic systems.

 When teaching pronunciation, aim for perfection.

  A key aim is to develop intelligibility.
Grade: 1
15. The words childish, childlike and youthful have the same connotative meanings.1

 True

 False
Grade: 1