Handout 3

The Macroskill- WRITING, LISTENING, and READING

(Teaching and Assessment of Macroskill (EL 107)
Second Semester, 2023-2024

THE EXPRESSIVE MACRO SKILLS – WRITING

Here are some of the questions that I want you to think about
before reading on:
1. How does writing differ from speaking as a productive skill?
2. What makes writing difficult for students? And what makes it
easier than speaking?
3. Why teach writing?
In classroom setting, writing can also be considered as what Riddell (2014) describes
it a ‘forgotten skill’ like listening because less time appears to be spent on this lesson type
than any other, except in exams or literacy classes.

Our students need the writing skill, and if they are learning it in their English subjects,
their interest in writing lessons may be minimal. This is because most of the learners do not
see the value of writing unless they need it for their job (for adult students), for an exam or
their studies. We also have to consider this age of social media because they are likely to be
texting, blogging, and ‘facebooking’ on a regular basis. This affects their motivation to
improve their skill in writing.
When it comes to the motivation of the learners, it is varied. Some students will need, or
will want, to do it, but for others, writing will be seen as a waste of time. However, as future
teachers, you should not allow this to your students. Writing should never be totally
neglected, and if it is an important part of the course or subject you are teaching, it should
be focused on extensively. It can be difficult to get students to write in class (or at home for
homework), but as with any other kind of activity, the teacher can ‘sell’ it. The lesson
staging can be such that the students are more inclined to write with at least some
enthusiasm.
As compared to speaking, written language can be more formal, though it is not always
the case. The different types of writing vary in their degree of formality, and each requires
specific skills and language. It is this variety which makes writing much more difficult than
speaking.

Nature and Purposes of Writing

Figure 1. A flowchart of the writing process (source: Hyland, 2008)

The chart of the writing process as shown in Figure 1 is familiar to teachers. Most
teachers are familiar with writing techniques which makes us of brainstorming, peer and
teacher feedback, multiple drafts, and so on. Writing is a process, and writers discover and
reformulate their ideas as they attempt to create meaning. When we compare this to
speaking skill, writing is “more of a problem-solving activity than an act of communication”
(Hyland, 2008). This is focused on a writer’s approach to a writing task – looking for a
solution to a series of problems. As you can see in the chart, the writer does not create texts
by thinking  writing  editing, but keeps jumping between these stages.

Writing is about discovering and formulating ideas as we create personal meanings.

The flow chart shows us that:
 writers have goals and plan extensively
 writing is constantly revised, often even before any text has been produced.
 planning, drafting, revising, and editing are recursive and potentially simultaneous
 plans and text are constantly evaluated by the writer in a feedback loop

As future teachers, you may need to help your learners acquire the appropriate
cognitive schema or knowledge of topics and vocabulary they will need to create an effective
text. Do not expect a learner to come up easily with a draft right after you have given them
a topic. You can help learners with schema development exercises, and these usually
include reading for ideas in parallel texts, reacting to photographs, and various
brainstorming tasks to generate ideas for writing and organizing texts.
To stimulate ideas for an account of a personal experience, you can use a spidergram or
mind map. This kind of activity is useful for not only building a list of issues, but also for
identifying relationships between them and prioritizing what it will be important to write
about. Check the model below.

Figure 2. A spidergram for brainstorming a writing task (source: White and Arndt, 1991)

Let us assume that your future students are Second Language (L2) learners, the model
above helps explain the difficulties their L2 students sometimes have because of the writing
task and their lack of topic knowledge, and we cannot deny that the quantity and impact of
the research into the writing process has been enormous. This advises teachers to:
 set pre-writing activities to generate ideas about content and structure
 encourage brainstorming and outlining,
 give students a variety of challenging writing tasks
 require multiple drafts
 give feedback on drafts and encourage peer response
 delay surface corrections until the final editing.

Writer-oriented approaches are influenced by cognitive psychology rather than applied

linguistics, emphasizing what people think about when they write rather than the language,
they need to do it. For me this creates some serious problems for teaching writing (Hyland,
2003).

First of all, by over-emphasizing psychological factors it neglects the importance of how

context influences writing. Process tends to represent writing as a decontextualized skill as
it focuses on the writer as an isolated individual struggling to express personal meanings.
There is little understanding of the ways language is used in particular domains or what it
means to communicate in writing. In fact, we don’t just write, we write for a purpose in a
particular context, and this involves variation in
the ways we use language, not universal rules.

Second, this is a discovery-based approach which doesn’t make the language students
need explicit when they need it. Feedback is withheld until towards the end of the process
and even then, teachers are often concerned about much intervention. Students are not
taught the language structures of the genre they are writing but are expected to discover
them in the process of writing itself or through the teacher’s feedback on drafts. This might
be sufficient for L1 students, but L2 writers find
themselves in an invisible curriculum as Delpit (1988: 287) points out: Adherents to
process approaches to writing create situations in which students ultimately find
themselves held accountable for knowing a set of rules about which no one has ever directly
informed them. Teachers do students no service to suggest, even implicitly, that ‘product’ is
not important. They will be judged on their product regardless of the process they utilized to
achieve it. And that product, based as it is on the specific codes of a particular culture, is
more readily produced when the directives of how to produce it are made explicit.

Third, it assumes that making the processes of expert writers explicit will make novices
better writers. But not all writing is the same; it doesn’t always depend on an ability to use
universal, context-independent revision and editing practices. Exam writing doesn’t involve
multi-drafting and revision for instance, and academic and professional writing is often
collaborative and time constrained. Different kinds of writing involve different skills.

Finally, process models disempower teachers. This is a model of learning based on

personal freedom, self-expression and learner responsibility, all of which might be stifled by
too much teacher intervention. This reduces us to well-meaning bystanders who just
assign tasks and give feedback. Because language and text organization tend to be tacked
on to the end of the process as "editing," rather than the central resources for constructing
meanings, students are given no way of seeing how different texts are written for particular
purposes and audience. So, while a process approach will help novice writers to become
more effective at generating texts, this cannot help them understand what their readers
expect to find in those texts

Writing skills (Riddell, 2014)

What Riddelle explained about teaching writing is that students need is to have specific
writing skills developed. It’s not enough for the teacher to say ‘OK, write about a country
you like’. This is writing for the sake of writing, but the teacher isn’t ‘doing anything’. For
the students’ writing to improve, they need to have help in particular areas. So, let’s
consider three different types of writing that a student might do in the classroom – a letter
and a discursive essay. We will take a letter of application for a job as an example of letter
writing. As for the discursive essay, (one which argues for and against a particular topic) we
will assume this is for an exam class who will
need to write this kind of essay.
What different skills are required to successfully complete a letter of application?
Before looking at this task, let’s consider some of the general skills required when
writing: correct use of punctuation, spelling, and style of language. To these we can add
correct structure, correct layout (on a letter), linking expressions (on the other hand,
nevertheless, firstly, etc.), paragraphing, organizing, appropriate vocabulary, language of
comparison and contrast (e.g., similarly, conversely, in conclusion), precise writing
(taking messages on the phone we need to summarize the main points), and presentation
(e.g., presenting a neatly and correctly filled-in form). Obviously, the skills required will
vary according to the task being set and the level being taught. When teachers ask students
to write a postcard writing at elementary level, the skills required are fairly basic. This is not
the case with the other types of writing mentioned.
For the letter of application, students will need to know how to correctly lay out the
letter – where to put their address, their name, the recipient’s address, etc. Layout
conventions vary and change from time to time, but there are basic layouts which can be
taught. Students also need to know about punctuation and capitalization. They need to
know how to organize the letter, and that each paragraph should have a specific purpose.
They need to know how to be economical with their language so as to keep the letter to a
reasonable length. They need to know about the style of language to use (formal), and about
how to use linking words and deconstructed forms (not I’m but I am). One way of helping
students to recognize an appropriate style of language for letters is to present a selection of
language from two different letters – one formal and one informal. So, phrases like ‘Dear Sir’,
‘Dear Marc’, ‘I’d like to have this job’, ‘I would like to apply for the position ...’ are all mixed
together, and students have to separate the formal from the informal. Maybe the different
examples could be from one complete letter so students can then put the letter together and
have a model of a complete letter.
For the discursive essay, students will need to know spelling, punctuation, language of
contrast and comparison, language of summing up, vocabulary related to the topic, how to
organize, how to develop and support ideas, and how to be concise. If we take, for example,
the language of contrast and comparison (including while, whereas, despite, etc.), the
teacher could present these expressions in sentences that are incorrect in some way, and
the students try to correct them. To practice the skill of organization, the teacher could
present a complete, but jumbled up, letter and ask the students to put the paragraphs in
the correct order.
By knowing which skills different writing tasks require, the teacher will be better able to
help her students with their writing. But jumbled up, letter and ask the students to put the
paragraphs in the correct order.
Writing in the Classroom (Scrivener, 2011)
Scrivener also pointed out some useful tips in teaching writing in the classroom. From
the tips that he mentioned, you can also see how they work in each stage of the writing
process. Apart from the points raised by Riddell, there are also good reasons why it is useful
to include other activities in a writing class:
 Many students have specific needs that require them to work on writing skills:
academic study, examination preparation and Business English are three common
areas where written work is still very important.
 At most basic level, your students are likely to be involved in taking down notes in
lessons such as yours; this is a skill that is worth focusing on.
 Writing involves a different kind of mental process. There is more time to think, to
reflect, to prepare, to rehearse, to make mistakes and to find alternative and better
solutions.
 It can give you a break, quieten down a noisy class, change the mood and pace of a
lesson, etc.
Much writing work in the classroom falls on a continuum of how much restrictions,
help and control is offered, from copying to unguided writing.
Here are the following steps that you can use in teaching writing to your students as
suggested by Scrivener (2011).
1 Copying Students practice forming letter shapes in a handwriting book,
note down substitution tables from the board, copy examples
from a textbook, etc.
2 Doing exercises Students write single words phrases, sentences, etc. in response
to very tightly focused tasks with limited options and limited
opportunities for creativity or getting things wrong
3 Guided writing You guide students to write longer texts in quite restricted or
controlled tasks by offering samples, models, possibly useful
language items, advice, organizational frameworks, etc.
4 Process writing Students write what they want to, with help, encouragement and
feedback from you and others throughout the process of
choosing a topic, gathering ideas, organizing thoughts, drafting,
etc.
5 Unguided Students write freely without overt guidance, assistance or
writing feedback during the writing process, though a title or task may be
set, and work may be ‘marked’ later
 The activities mentioned above are usually the activities that ESL and EFL classes do.
Though I want to assume that most of you will be teaching on a regular classroom where
English is one of the subjects of the curriculum, you can still find these activities useful for
students in a regular class. The aspect of writing is more on the advanced students who can
already compose paragraphs to convey their messages.
Aspects of Writing (Bowen & Cali, n.d.)
The five Features of Effective Writing are focus, organization, support and
elaboration, style, and conventions.
1. Focus
Focus is the topic/subject established by the writer in response to the writing task. The
writer must clearly establish a focus as he/she fulfills the assignment of the prompt. If the
writer retreats from the subject matter presented in the prompt or addresses it too broadly,
the focus is weakened. The writer may effectively use an inductive organizational plan
which does not actually identify the subject matter at the beginning and may not literally
identify the subject matter at all. The presence, therefore, of a focus must be determined in
light of the method of development chosen by the writer. If the reader is confused about the
subject matter, the writer has not effectively established a focus. If the reader is engaged
and not confused, the writer probably has been effective in establishing a focus.
2. Organization
Organization is the progression, relatedness, and completeness of ideas. The writer
establishes for the reader a well-organized composition, which exhibits a constancy of
purpose through the development of elements forming an effective beginning, middle,
and end. The response demonstrates a clear progression of related ideas and/or events
and is unified and complete

3. Support and Elaboration

Support and Elaboration is the extension and development of the topic/subject. The
writer provides sufficient elaboration to present the ideas and/or events clearly. Two
important concepts in determining whether details are supportive are the concepts of
relatedness and sufficiency. To be supportive of the subject matter, details must be related
to the focus of the response. Relatedness has to do with the directness of the relationship
that the writer establishes between the information and the subject matter. Supporting
details should be relevant and clear. The writer must present his/her ideas with enough
power and clarity to cause the support to be sufficient. Effective use of concrete, specific
details strengthen the power of the response. Insufficiency is often characterized by
undeveloped details, redundancy, and the repetitious paraphrasing of the same point.
Sufficiency has less to do with amount than with the weight or power of the information
that is provided.

4. Style
Style is the control of language that is appropriate to the purpose, audience, and
context of the writing task. The writer’s style is evident through word choice and sentence
fluency. Skillful use of precise, purposeful vocabulary enhances the effectiveness of the
composition through the use of appropriate words, phrases and descriptions that engage
the audience. Sentence fluency involves using a variety of sentence styles to establish
effective relationships between and among ideas, causes, and/or statements appropriate to
the task.

5. Conventions
Conventions involve correctness in sentence formation, usage, and mechanics. The
writer has control of grammatical conventions that are appropriate to the writing task.
Errors, if present, do not impede the reader’s understanding of the ideas conveyed.

Evidence-based Practices for Teaching Writing (Gillespie & Graham, 2011)

1. Teaching strategies for planning, revising, and editing
2. Having students write summaries or texts
3. Permitting students to write collaboratively with peers
4. Setting goals for student writing
5. Allowing students to use a word processor
6. Teaching sentence combining skills
7. Using the process writing approach
8. Having students participate in inquiry activities for writing
9. Involving students in prewriting activities
10. Providing models of good writing

Other Strategies in Writing in Class

Many teachers tend to leave students to do writing at home (assignment/ homework)
then collecting it and marking it. However, the difficult stage of writing is the writing itself,
not the setting up of task, collecting it and marking it. This stage is often done entirely at
home with the teacher doing nothing to help the students improve.
This is because some teachers doubt if there is any useful in class work that could be
done on writing, believing that is essentially an individual activity. However, Scrivener
suggests many possible steps that could go into the writing stage. A student can learn to
become a better writer by (a) being actively encourages and helped to follow through a series
of preparatory steps before the final text is produced, and (b) becoming more aware of that
preparation process, so that it can be done more independently and transparently in the
future.
Here are some examples that could help the learners (Scrivener, 2011):
 Choose a topic;  Study sample and model texts similar
 Choose a genre; to what they want to write;
 Get ideas;  Plan the organization of their texts;
 Discuss ideas with others to get new  Draft a rough text;
perspectives;  Get feedback on content;
 Select between ideas;  Get feedback on language use;
 Sequence ideas;  Co-write sections of text in group;
 Make notes, diagrams, etc to help  Make alterations and rewrites;
organize ideas;  Write a final version;
 Find grammar and lexis suitable for  Find appropriate readers.
the text;
 Do practice exercises on language
items that will be useful;

Planning Classroom Writing Work (Scrivener, 2011)

1 Introduce the topic Get students interested, maybe by reading a text

(article, letter, advert, etc.) showing pictures,
discussing some key issues, etc.
2 Introduce and Make sure students are clear on what they have to do.
summarize the main They need to know the genre (magazine article? Letter?
writing task Formal reported), who they are writing for and why.
Avoid bland, ‘genre-free text for no particular audience’
writing tasks.
3 Brainstorm ideas Whole class: Write on the board to collect as many
ideas as possible. Small group: speak and take notes
4 Fast-write A very good way to overcome ‘blank page’ terror and get
ideas flowing is to ‘fast-write’
5 Select and reject ideas What’s worth leaving out?
6 Sort and order ideas Start to plan structure of text by arranging ideas
7 Decide on specific How is the text to be laid out, paragraphed, organized?
requirements: style, Are they any special rules (e.g. If it’s a letter, report,
information, layout, etc. etc.)? Are there things that must be included or stated
in a certain way?
8 Focus on useful models Help students to study sample(s) of written texts
similar to the one they are writing. Focus on content,
message, organization, grammar, phrases, etc.
9 Plan the text Use notes, sketches or cut-up cards to start organizing
 a possible shape for the text.
10 Get feedback At various points, you, other students or groups can
read and make the helpful comments/ suggestions
about a text. This help may be on the content and
message, the organization, the language, etc.
11 Prepare draft (s) Students often benefit from preparing a draft a version
before the final one. This gives them the chance to get
reader reactions and corrections.
12 Edit Students carefully go through their own text, checking
if it says what they want it to, if it reads clearly and
smoothly, if its language is correct, etc.
13 Prepare final text Based on feedback, students write a finished text.
14. Readers! Rather than simply ‘mark’ a text, get other students to
respond to it in some more realistic ways.

When we give tasks to our students, make sure that the activities and lesson stages are
appropriate. Writing tasks like ‘write a story about’ is old school. It only represents a very
small (or non-existent) part of a normal person’s writing. Creative writing a great activity,
but we need to make sure that students get to practice mainly in the range pf real-life
writing tasks that they will face. Hence, select the tasks most relevant for their needs.

Real-world writing tasks:

Some well-known methods and approaches (Scrivener, 2005)

I mentioned some approaches in teaching language in Module 1 of this course. Let us
take a deeper look of the well-known methods and approaches in teaching language. All
this can help you decide which method or approach is more appropriate in you lesson
depending on the focus of your subject.

1. The Grammar-translation Method

Much traditional language teaching in schools worldwide used to be done in this way,
and it is still predominant classroom method in some cultures. The teacher rarely uses the
target language. Students spend a lot of time reading texts, translating them, doing
exercises and tests, writing essays. There is relatively little focus on speaking and listening
skills.

2. The Audio-Lingual Method

 Although based on largely discredited theory, the techniques and activities continue to
have a strong influence over many classrooms. It aims to form good habits through
students listening to model dialogs with repetition and drilling but with little or no teacher
explanation.

3. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Communicative Approach (CA)

This is the method or approach that most contemporary teacher would subscribe to,
despite that fact that it is widely misunderstood and misapplied. CLT is based on beliefs
that learners will learn best if they participate in meaningful communication. It may help if
we distinguish between a stronger and a weaker version of CLT:
Strong CLT: students learn by communicating, i.e., doing communication tasks with
limited roles for explicit teaching and traditional practice exercises.

Weak CLT: students learn through wide variety of teaching, exercises, activities and
study, with a bias towards speaking and listening work.

Most current coursebooks reflect a version of weak CLT.

Total Physical Response (TPR)

A method devised by Dr. J. Asher, mainly useful with beginner and lower-level students.
Learners listen to instructions from the teacher, understand and do things in response,
without being required to speak until they are ready.

Community Language Learning (CLL)

A method based around use of the learners’ first language and with teacher help in
mediating. It aims to lower anxiety and allow students to communicate in a more genuine
way than is typically possible in classrooms.

The Natural Approach

Devised by Stephen Krashen, this is a collection of methods and techniques from many
sources, all intended to provide the learners with natural comprehensible language so that
the learner can pick up language in ways similar to a child learning their first language.

Task-based Learning (TBL)

A variant of CLT which bases work cycles around the preparation for, doing of, and
reflective analysis of tasks that reflect real-life needs and skills.

The silent Way

Devised by Caleb Gattegno, this method requires the learner to take active ownership of
their language learning and to pay great attention to what they say. Distinctive features
include the relative restraint of the teacher and the use of specially designed wallcharts.

Person-Centered Approaches
Any approach that places learners and their needs at the heart of what is done.
Syllabus and working methods will not be decided by the teacher in advance of the course,
but agreed between learner ad teacher.

Lexical Approaches
Proposed by Michael Lewis and Jimmie Hill. On the back of new discoveries about how
language is really used, especially the importance of lexical chinks in communication,
proponents suggest that traditional present-then-practice methods are a little of use and
propose a methodology based around exposure and experiment.

Dogme
Scoot Thornbury’s proposed back-to-basics approach. Teachers aim to strip their craft
of unnecessary technology, materials and aids and get back to the fundamental
relationship and interaction of teacher and student in class.

4. Personal methodology
Despite the grand list of methods above, the reality is that very few teachers have ever
followed a single method in its entirety. Many teachers nowadays would say that they fo not
follow a single method. Teachers do not generally want to take someone else’s prescriptions
into class and apply them. Rather they work out for themselves what is effective in their
own classrooms. They may do this in a random manner or in a principle’s way, but what
they slowly build over the years is a personal methodology of their own, constructed from
their selection of what they consider to be the best and the most appropriate of what they
have learned about. The process of choosing items from a range of methods and
constructing a collage methodology is sometimes known as principled eclecticism.

Teaching of Writing

Something to think about before reading on

In real life, when we write something, how can we measure if the writing
was a success?
Think of how your language teachers before plan their lesson and
activities.

Our writing can be considered as a success if it did what we wanted it to do, for example,
if we wrote a complaint email to an online shop, we would feel successful if they replied.
This is because it seemed that they understood our problem and they took steps to deal
with it. The facts that our writing could achieve such things is part of what motivates us to
put care into our writing. In many cases, we do not get such immediate, direct, tangible
feedback we have to be particularly careful in rereading and editing a text before we send it
to a reader. The ‘delayed response’ nature of much writing can be part of what makes it
hard to do (Scrivener, 2011). The existence of audience and purpose are worth bearing in
mind in class.

The process of learning usually involves five steps (Scrivener, 2005):

Experiential Learning Cycle
1. doing something;
2. Recalling what happened;
3. Reflecting on that;
4. Drawing conclusions from the reflection;
5. Using those conclusions to inform and prepare for future practical experience.

Figure 3. An experiential learning cycle (from Scrivener, 2005)

Considering the process of learning, it is important to distinguish between

learning and teaching. Information, feedback, guidance, and support from other people
may come in at any of the five steps of the cycle (see Figure 3.1). Most people learn better
when they do it themselves than being told what to do.
Figure 3.1 Teaching and the experiential learning cycle (Scrivener, 2005)

Lesson Design

With the teaching and learning process mentioned above, how should you plan your
lesson then?
Remember that no one area of skills or language system exists in isolation: there can be
no speaking if there is no vocabulary to speak with; there is no point learning words unless
you can do something useful with them. Sometimes traditional teaching methods have
seemed to emphasize the learning of language systems as goal in its own right and failed to
give learners an opportunity to gain realistic experience in actually using the language
knowledge gained.

Other areas that are part of language learning

The map of language systems and language skills is useful to keep in mind as an
overview of the subject matter of English language teaching; however, it may an
oversimplification (Scrivener, 2005). If we start using English in class to do more than
simple mechanical drills, then the subject matter becomes anything that we might do with
language, any topic that might be discussed with English, any feelings that might be
expressed in English, any communication that we might give or receive using English. The
people who use the language class in class, and their feelings, are, therefore, also part of
the subject. This might be daunting and may lead you to keep the uses of language in class
at a more mechanical, impersonal level, without allowing too much ‘dangerous’ personal
investment in what is said or heard. We need to give our students chances to feel and think
and express themselves in their new language.

First Lessons - hints and strategies (Scrivener, 2005)

When you made your lesson plan on speaking in Module 2 of this course, you would
want to teach well and for your students to learn and enjoy what happens, but more than
that you want something that you can prepare easily, somethings that is guaranteed to
work, something that will let you go into the classroom, do some useful work with the
learners and get out alive.

Key hints when planning your first lesson

 Use the coursebook (if there is one)

Don’t feel that you have to come up with stunning original lesson ideas and creative
new activities. If you have a coursebook, then you have an instant source material. Take
your time before the lesson to read carefully through the unit. There’s a reasonable chance
you will end up with workable lesson. This is like your ‘recipe book’, which gives you
everything you need to know to be able to walk into class with the right ingredients to ‘cook
up’ a good activity.
 A lesson is a sequence of activities
Think of the lesson as a series of separate but linked activities. Your first planning job is
to select some appropriate activities.
 Lear something about your students
If possible, talk to other teachers and find out something about the class and the people
in it.
 Plan student-focused activities
Don’t plan first lessons that will put you upfront in the spotlight feeling the need to
babble which leads to panic and muddle. Plan activities that are based on the following
route map:
1. Lead-in (a brief introduction to the topic, e.g., you show a picture to the class and
invite comments).
2. Set up activity (i.e., you give instructions, arrange the seating, etc.)
3. Students do the activity and in pairs or small groups while you monitor and help.
4. Close the activity and invite feedback from the students.
Steps 1,2, and 4 should take relatively little time. The heart of the sequence is Step 3.
 Make written plan of the running order of your activities
Write out simple list showing the activities in order. You do not need to include a lot of
detail, but make sure you have a clear idea of your intended sequence of stages, perhaps
with estimated timings.
 Consider aims
Think about what students will get from your lesson, i.e., what is the point of them
spending their time in this lesson?
 Fluency or accuracy?
Decide, for each stage in the lesson, if you are mainly working on fluency or accuracy -
this is a key choice for many activities.
 Get the room ready; get yourself ready
Take time before any students arrive to make sure everything is ready before the class
starts. Make sure the room is set up as you wish. Make sure you have everything you need
like chalk or board pens. Most importantly, just feel what it’s like to be in that room.
 Have at least one emergency activity
Prepare your own personal emergency activity. Keep this and add more emergency
ideas day by day.
Key hints when teaching your first lesson

 Talk to the students as they come into the class

Do not hide or do not-really-necessary ‘business’ while you wait for all students to
arrive. This quickly builds up a tension and distance between you and the students and
makes the start of the lesson much more demanding. You can calm your own nerves and
break the ice with the students very quickly by chatting with each of them as they come into
the room. Try sitting with them instead of standing in front of them.
 Learn names as soon as possible
There is a huge difference in comfort levels if you know people’s names. They stop being
scary anonymous entities and start to become humans. In class, it is a very important
teacher skill, and you should aim to internalize names as soon as possible.

 Be yourself
Don’t feel that being a teacher means you have to behave like a ‘teacher’. as far as
possible, speak in ways you normally speak, respond as yourself rather that as you think a
‘teacher’ should respond. Students, whether children, teens, or adults, very quickly see
through someone who is role-playing what they think a teacher should be. Authenticity in
you tends to draw the best out of those you are working with.
 Teaching doesn’t mean ‘talking all the time’
Don’t feel that when you are ‘in the spotlight’, you have to keep filling all the silences.
When you are teaching a language, the priority is for the learners to talk, rather than the
teacher. Start to notice the quantity of your own talk as soon as possible 0 and check out
how much is really useful. High levels of teacher talk is a typical problem for new teachers.

 Teaching doesn’t mean ‘teaching’ all the time

 Don’t feel that being a teacher means that you have to be doing things all the time. It
may feel a little odd, but it really is quite OK to sit down and do nothing when students are
working on a pair or group task. Take the chance to recover from your exertions, check your
notes, enjoy watching your class at work, etc.
 Slow down
A large number of new teachers tend to do things much too fast. They often seriously
underestimate how difficult things are for students, or are responding to a fear that
students will find things boring. Learning to really slow down takes time - but it’s worth
bearing in mind from your first lesson onwards.

Classroom Activities (Scrivener, 2005)

A key teaching skill is to successfully prepare, set up and run a single classroom
activity or task. In this lesson, we look at some typical classroom activities, and there is also
guidance on planning similar activities.

Running an activity
The building block of a lesson is the activity or task. This activity is something that
learners do that involves them using or working with language to achieve some specific
outcome. The outcome may reflect a ‘real-world’ outcome or it may be purely
‘for-the-purpose-of-learning’ outcome. By definition, the following are all activities or tasks:
 Learners do a grammar exercise individually then compare answers with each
other in order to better understand how a particular item of language is formed.
 Learners listen to a recorded conversation in order to answer some questions (in
order to become better listeners).
 Learners write a formal letter requesting information about a product.
 Learners discuss and write some questions in order to make a questionnaire
about people’s eating habits.
 Learners read a newspaper article to prepare for a discussion.
 Learners plat a vocabulary game in order to help learn word connected with cars
and transport.
 Learners repeat sentences you say in order to improve their pronunciation of
them.
 Learners role-play a shop scene where a customer has a complaint.

Teacher options using coursebook materials

Bear in mind that, even where coursebooks tasks include explicit instructions such as
‘Compare answers with a partner’ or ‘Work in pairs’, you always have the option as a
teacher to give a different organizational instruction. Even if you follow the book’s
instruction, you still have the possibility of manipulating the organization a little.

Some variations for running an activity

- Do it at speed, with a very tight time limit.
- When a group finishes, they disperse and join other groups.
- Each person makes a quick answer which is noted but not discussed; then hen all
have spoken, the discussion begins, using the motes as a starting point.
- Introduce task by dictating instructions/ problem, etc.; individuals dictate answers
back to the whole class.
- Students prepare a report-back presentation summarizing their solutions.
- Students prepare a role-play dialog incorporating their answers.
- Students do the exercise as homework.

Activity Route Map

Here is a basic route-map plan for running a simple activity. In some bigger
activities, there may be a number of clearly separate sections within a task, in which
case you would go through Steps 3, 4, and 5 a few times
1. Before the lesson: familiarize yourself with the material and activity.
-read through material and any teacher’s notes.
- try the activity yourself
- imagine how it will look in class
- do the learners know enough language to be able to make a useful attempt at
the activity?
- What instructions are needed? How will they be given?
 - Prepare any aids or additional material
- think any potential problems in the procedure
2. Lead-in/ Preparation
This may be to help raise motivation or interest, or perhaps to focus on language
items that might be useful in the activity. The typical lead-ins are:
- show/ draw a picture connected to a topic. Ask questions.
- write up/ read out a sentence stating a viewpoint. Elicit reactions.
- tell a short personal anecdote related to the subject.
- ask students if they have ever been/ seen/ done/ etc.
- hand out a short text related to the topic. Students read the text and comment.
- write a key word of a word-cloud on the board and elicit vocabulary from students
which is added to board.

3. Setting up the activity

- organize the students so that they can do the activity or section.
- give clear instructions for the activity. A demonstrations or example is usually
much more effective than a long explanation.
In some activities, allow some individual work before students get together with
others.

4. Running the activity

- monitor at the start of the activity or section to check that the task has been
understood and that students are doing what you intended them to do.
- Allow students to work on the task without too much further interference.
- if the task is difficult, give them the chance to rise to that challenge, without
leaning on you. This is their chance to work.

5. Closing the activity

- Allow the activity to close properly. Rather than suddenly stopping the activity at a
random point, try to sense when the students are ready to move on.
- If different groups are finishing at different times, make a judgment about when
coming together as a whole class would be useful to most people.
- If you want to close the activity while many students are still working, give a time
warning.

6. Post-activity
- it is usually important to have some kind of feedback session on the activity. This
stage is vital and is typically under-planned by teachers. This should not be the
case. It is worth careful planning of this in advance - specially to think up
alternatives to putting yourself in the spotlight answering a long list of
questions.
- groups meet up other groups and compare opinions/ answers.
- before class, anticipate what the main language problems will be and prepare a
mini-presentation on these areas.
- when checking answers, ask for group to exchange and compare their answers
across the room themselves.

- collect in all answer sheets then redistribute them for ‘correcting’ by other students.

When everything has been checked, students pair up with those who marked their
paper and listen/ explain/ justify/ argue, etc.
-
Setting relevant writing tasks
This is mentioned in activity route map; however, that is generic which can be applied
to any lessons in language teaching. Below, let us take a deeper look on how to set up tasks
for writing lessons.

There are classroom writing tasks which are audience-less and directionless. If
students are only writing to ‘please the teacher’. there is probably a low motivation, and the
quality of writing may be compromised. So how can we provide and audience and purpose
in a writing task?
 Here are some key strategies as suggested by Scrivener (2011):
1. If you have done a Needs Analysis with your students, base writing work on stated
needs, i.e. using task types, contexts and situations directly relevant to students.

2. Even before writing start writing, think carefully about what will happen with the
finished piece of text. If students know who will read their text and what that reader
may need or expect from it, then they have a clear idea of the purpose of the writing,
which will strongly affect many other decisions they take in writing.

3. Make sure you do not mark and give feedback only on accuracy of language. Include
attention to the question of whether the writing is appropriate for the task type and
is well targeted at the probable reader.

4. Even if you feel that you have relatively little idea of your class’s needs (for example,
if your class is studying on a short general English course), you can still select
writing tasks that are likely to reflect things that many students may need to write in
real life.

Teaching the Writing Process (Implementing the writing process, 2016)

The writing process is already discussed in Lesson 1 of this module. Here, it will tell you
how it is implemented in the classroom.
The writing process—prewriting, drafting, revising and editing, rewriting,
publishing—mirrors the way proficient writers write. In using the writing process, your
students will be able to break writing into manageable chunks and focus on producing
quality material. The final stage, publishing, ensures that students have an audience.
Students can even coach each other during various stages of the process for further
emphasis on audience and greater collaboration during editing

The following are ways to implement each step of the writing process:
1. Prewriting—This step involves brainstorming, considering purpose and goals for writing,
using graphic organizers to connect ideas, and designing a coherent structure for a writing
piece. For kindergarten students, scribbling and invented spelling are legitimate stages of
writing development; the role of drawing as a prewriting tool becomes progressively less
important as writers develop. Have
young students engage in whole-class brainstorming to decide topics on which to write. For
students in grades 3-5, have them brainstorm individually or in small groups with a
specific prompt, such as, “Make a list of important people in your life,” for example. Online
graphic organizers might help upper elementary students to organize their ideas for specific
writing genres during the prewriting stage. Examples are the Essay Map, Notetaker, or
Persuasion Map.

2. Drafting—Have students work independently at this stage. Confer with students

individually as they write, offering praise and suggestions while observing areas with
which students might be struggling and which might warrant separate conference time or
mini lessons.
3. Revising and Editing—Show students how to revise specific aspects of their writing to
make it more coherent and clearer during mini lessons. You can model reading your own
writing and do a think aloud about how you could add more details and make it clearer.
Teach students to reread their own work more than once as they think about whether it
really conveys what they want to their reader. Reading their work aloud to classmates and
other adults helps them to understand what revisions are needed. Your ELLs will develop
greater language proficiency as they collaborate with their peers when revising.
4. Rewriting—Have students incorporate changes as they carefully write or type their final
drafts.
5. Publishing—Encourage students to publish their works in a variety of ways, such as a
class book, bulletin board, letters to the editor, school newsletter, or website.
Staging writing lessons
Combined product & process approaches
In Module 2, I have given you an outline of how staging of the lessons for speaking can
be done. In this lesson, follow the table below on how writing lessons are staged. This will
give you a clear idea how you can move from one activity/ stage/ section of the lesson to the
next. For longer activities, there can be steps that you can repeat without confusing your
learners. Only when you are already comfortable with this process then it will be easy for
you to combine other approaches.

Stage Stage Aim

Lead In to engage the students (Ss); to establish the

general context

Product Reading for Gist to provide a model text

Approach / (and/or Detail)
Model Text
Approach Language focus to clarify useful lexis, grammar, punctuation,
etc

Layout focus to clarify conventional layout, paragraphing,

organization, etc

Controlled practice to check and reinforce understanding of the

target language/layout; to build confidence
and prepare the Ss for writing a full text

Process brainstorming to develop idea gathering skills

Approach
organization to develop planning & outlining skills

first/Rough Draft to develop writing skills with a focus on

fluency and communicative effect

Editing to develop editing skills

production / to develop writing skills with a focus on

Final Draft* accuracy

Publication & to ensure Ss’ writing is valued, read and

Feedback responded to;
to provide feedback on Ss’ writing (content &
language use)

(Optional) to ensure Ss pay careful attention to feedback

Fair Copy & correction;
to reinforce effective models of language use

* Based on a task with an appropriate stimulus and cues/prompts for ideas.

REFERENCES

Bowen, K., & Cali, K. (n.d.). Teaching the features of writing. Learn NC.
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/686
Gillespie. A., & Graham, S. (2011). Evidence-based practices for teaching writing. John
Hopkins School of Education.
http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/Better/articles/Winter2011.html
Hyland, K. (2003) Second Language Writing. Cambridge University Press.
Hyland, K. (2008). Genre and academic writing in the disciplines. Language Teaching, 41(4),
543-562. doi:10.1017/S0261444808005235
Implementing the writing process. (2016). readwritethink.
http://www.readwritethink.org/professionaldevelopment/strategy-guides/implement
ing-writing-process-30386.html
Riddell, D. (2014). Teach EFL: The complete guide. John Murray Learning.

Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning teaching: A guide book for English language teachers. 2nd
Edition. Macmillan Publishers Limited.
Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning teaching: The essential guide to English language teaching.
3rd Edition. Macmillan Publishers Limited.
White, R. & Arndt, V. (1991). Process writing. Longman.
 THE RECEPTIVE MACRO SKILLS
(LISTENING and READING)

Teaching Listening

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice
as much as we speak. ~ Epictetus

Listening is the language modality that is used most frequently. It has been
estimated that adults spend almost half their communication time listening, and
students may receive as much as 90% of their in- school information through
listening to instructors and to one another. Often, however, language learners do
not recognize the level of effort that goes into developing listening ability.

Far from passively receiving and recording aural input, listeners actively involve
themselves in the interpretation of what they hear, bringing their own background
knowledge and linguistic knowledge to bear on the information contained in the
aural text. Not all listening is the same; casual greetings, for example, require a
different sort of listening capability than do academic lectures. Language learning
requires intentional listening that employs strategies for identifying sounds and
making meaning from them.

Listening involves a sender (a person, radio, television), a message, and a

receiver (the listener). Listeners often must process messages as they come, even if
they are still processing what they have just heard, without backtracking or looking
ahead. In addition, listeners must cope with the sender's choice of vocabulary,
structure, and rate of delivery. The complexity of the listening process is magnified
in second language contexts, where the receiver also has incomplete control of the
language.

Nature and Purposes of Listening

Listening : An Important Skill and Its Various Aspects

Listening skill is key to receiving messages effectively.
It is a combination of hearing what another person says and psychological
involvement with the person who is talking. It is a skill of Language that requires a
desire to understand another human being, an attitude of respect and acceptance,
and a willingness to open one's mind to try and see things from another's point of
view. It also requires a high level of concentration and energy. It demands that we
set aside our own thoughts and agendas, put ourselves in another's shoes and try to
see the world through that person's eyes.

Listening is a language modality.

It is one of the four skills of a language i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. It
involves an active involvement of an individual. Listening involves a sender, a message
and a receiver. It is the psychological process of receiving, attending to constructing
meaning from and responding to spoken and/or non-verbal messages. Listening
comprises of some key components, they are:
• discriminating between sounds
• recognizing words and understanding their meaning
• identifying grammatical groupings of words,
• identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning,
• connecting linguistic cues to non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues,
• using background knowledge to predict and to confirm meaning and
• recalling important words and ideas.
A. Process of listening
The process of listening occur in five stages. They are hearing,
understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding.

1. HEARING – It is referred to the response caused by sound waves stimulating the

sensory receptors of the ear; it is physical response; hearing is perception of sound waves;
you must hear to listen, but you need not listen to hear (perception necessary for
listening depends on attention). Brain screens stimuli and permits only a select few to
come into focus- these selective perception is known as attention, an important
requirement for effective listening.

2. UNDERSTANDING- This step helps to understand symbols we have seen and heard,
we must analyze the meaning of the stimuli we have perceived; symbolic stimuli are not
only words but also sounds like applause…and sights like blue uniform…that have
symbolic meanings as well; the meanings attached to these symbols are a function of our
past associations and of the context in which the symbols occur. For successful
interpersonal communication, the listener must understand the intended meaning and
the context assumed by the sender.

3. REMEMBERING- Remembering is important listening process because it means that

an Individual has not only received and interpreted a message but has also added it to
the mind’s storage bank. In Listening our attention is selective, so too is our memory-
what is remembered may be quite different from what was originally seen or heard.

4. EVALUATING- Only active listeners participate at this stage in Listening. At this point
the active listener weighs evidence, sorts fact from opinion, and determines the presence
or absence of bias or prejudice in a message; the effective listener makes sure that he or
she doesn’t begin this activity too soon; beginning this stage of the process before a
message is completed requires that we no longer hear and attend to the incoming
message-as a result, the listening process ceases.

5. RESPONDING- This stage requires that the receiver complete the process through
verbal and/or nonverbal feedback; because the speaker has no other way to determine if
a message has been received, this stage becomes the only overt means by which the
sender may determine the degree of success in transmitting the message.

Importance of Listening Skill

Good listening skills make workers more productive. The ability to listen
carefully will allow a person to:
• understand assignments in better way and find and what is expected from him.
• build rapport with co-workers, bosses, and clients;
• show support;
• work better in a team-based environment;
• resolve problems with customers, co-workers, and bosses;
• answer questions; and
• find underlying meanings in what others say.

B. Strategies of Listening
Listening strategies are techniques or activities that contribute directly to the
comprehension and recall of listening input. Listening strategies can be classified by how
the listener processes the input.

Top-down strategies are listener based. The listener taps into background knowledge of
the topic, the situation or context, the type of text, and the language. This background
knowledge activates a set of expectations that help the listener to interpret what is heard
and anticipate what will come next. Top-down strategies include
• listening for the main idea
• predicting
• drawing inferences
• summarizing
Bottom-up strategies are text based. The listener relies on the language in the message,
that is, the combination of sounds, words, and grammar that creates meaning.
Bottom-up strategies include
• listening for specific details
• recognizing cognates
• recognizing word-order patterns

C. Three Basic modes of Listening

Active or Reflective Listening

It is the single most useful and important listening skill. In active listening, the
listener is genuinely interested in understanding what the other person is thinking,
feeling, wanting or what the message means. The person is active in checking his
understanding before he responds with his new message. The listener restates or
paraphrases our understanding of the message and reflects it back to the sender for
verification. This verification or feedback process is what distinguishes active listening
and makes it effective.

Passive or Attentive Listening

The listener is genuinely interested in hearing and understanding the other person’s
point of view. He will be attentive and will passively listen. The Listener assume that what
he heard and understand is correct but stay passive and do not verify it.
It happens when the Listener is more interested in promoting his own point of view
than in understanding or exploring someone else’s view. He either listens for openings to
take the floor, or for flaws or weak points.

D. Essentials of Active Listening

1. Intensity
2. Empathy
3. Acceptance
4. Recognizing responsibility for completeness

E. Types of Listening
Based on objective and manner in which the listener takes and responds to the process
of listening D
Different types of Listening are:
1. Active listening - Listening in a way that demonstrates interest and encourages
continued speaking.
2. Appreciative listening - Looking for ways to accept and appreciate the other person
through what they say. Seeking opportunity to praise. Alternatively listening to
something for pleasure, such as to music.
3. Attentive listening - Listening obviously and carefully, showing attention.
4. Biased listening - Listening through the filter of personal bias i.e the person hears only
what they want to listen.
5. Casual listening - Listening without obviously showing attention. Actual attention
may vary a lot.
6. Comprehension listening - Listening to understand. Seeking meaning (but little more).
7. Critical listening - Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass judgment
on what someone else says.
8. Deep listening - Seeking to understand the person, their personality and their real and
unspoken meanings and motivators.
9. Discriminative listening - Listening for something specific but nothing else(eg. a baby
crying).
10. Empathetic listening - Seeking to understand what the other person is feeling;
demonstrating empathy.
11 Evaluative listening - Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass
judgment on what someone else says.
12. Inactive listening - Pretending to listen but actually spending more time thinking.
13. Judgmental listening - Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass
judgment on what someone else says.
14. Partial listening - Listening most of the time but also spending some time
daydreaming or thinking of a response.
15. Reflective listening - Listening, then reflecting back to the other person what they
have said.
16 Relationship listening - Listening in order to support and develop a relationship with
the other person.
17. Sympathetic listening - Listening with concern for the well-being of the other person.
18 Therapeutic listening - Seeking to understand what the other person is feeling.
19. Total listening Paying - Very close attention in active listening to what is said and the
deeper meaning found through how it is said.

G. Ways to improve Listening skill

Hearing and Listening are two different activities. Hearing is passive whereas
listening is active. Listening is a psychological process. It can therefore be improved by
regular practice. Listening is a very helpful skill. Active listening is really an extension of
the Golden Rule. Here are some of the tips which can help the person to improve his
Listening skill:

1. Face the speaker. Sit up straight or lean forward slightly to show your attentiveness
through body language.
2. Maintain eye contact, to the degree that you all remain comfortable.
3. Minimize external distractions. Turn off the TV. Put down your book or magazine, and
ask the speaker and other listeners to do the same.
4. Respond appropriately to show that you understand. Murmur (“uh-huh”and
“um-hmm”) and nod. Raise your eyebrows. Say words such as
“Really,”“Interesting,”as well as more direct prompts: “What did you do then?”and
“What did she say?”
5. Focus solely on what the speaker is saying. Try not to think about what you are going
to say next. The conversation will follow a logical flow after the speaker makes her
point.
6. Minimize internal distractions. If your own thoughts keep horning in, simply let them
go and continuously re-focus your attention on the speaker, much as you would
during meditation.
7. Keep an open mind. Wait until the speaker is finished before deciding that you disagree.
Try not to make assumptions about what the speaker is thinking.
8. Avoid letting the speaker know how you handled a similar situation. Unless they
specifically ask for advice, assume they just need to talk it out.
9. Even if the speaker is launching a complaint against you, wait until they finish to
defend yourself. The speaker will feel as though their point had been made. They
won’t feel the need to repeat it, and you’ll know the whole argument before you
respond. Research shows that, on average, we can hear four times faster than we can
talk, so we have the ability to sort ideas as they come in…and be ready for more.
10. Engage yourself. Ask questions for clarification, but, once again, wait until the
speaker has finished. That way, you won’t interrupt their train of thought. After you
ask questions, paraphrase their point to make sure you didn’t misunderstand. Start
with: “So you’re saying…”

H. Barriers to Listening
Listening is not easy and there are a number of obstacles that stand in
the way of effective listening, both within outside the workplace. These barriers
may be categorized as follows.
1. Physiological Barriers: - some people may have genuine hearing problems or
deficiencies that prevent them from listening properly. It can be treated. Some people
may have problems in processing information or retaining information in the
memory.

2. Physical Barriers: - These referred to distraction in the environment such as the sound
of an air conditioner , cigarette smoke, or an overheated room. It can interfere the
Listening process. They could also be in the form of information overload. For
example, if you are in meeting with your manager and the phone rings and your
 mobile beeps at the same time to let you know that you have the message. It is very
hard to listen carefully to what is being said.

3. Attitudinal Barriers :- pre occupation with personal or work related problems can
make it difficult to focus one’s attention completely on what speaker is saying, even
what is being said is of very importance. Another common attitudinal barrier is
egocentrism, or the belief that the person is more knowledgeable than the speaker, or
that there is nothing new to learn from the speaker’s ideas. People with this kind of
close minded attitude are very poor listeners.

4. Wrong Assumptions :- The success of communication depend on the both the sender
and receiver. It is wrong to assume that communication is the sole responsibility of
the sender or the speaker and that listeners have no role to play. Such an assumption
can be big barrier to listening. For example, a brilliant speech or presentation,
however well delivered, is wasted if the receiver is not listening at the other end.
Listeners have as much responsibility as speakers to make the communication
successful. The process should be made successful by paying attention seeking
clarifications and giving feedback.

5. Cultural Barriers :- Accents can be barriers to listening, since they interfere with the
ability to understand the meaning of words that are pronounced differently. The
problem of different accents arises not only between cultures, but also within a
culture. For example, in a country like India where there is enormous cultural
diversity, accents may differ even between regions states.

6. Gender Barriers :- communication research has shown that gender can be barrier to
listening. Studies have revealed that men and women listen very differently and for
different purposes. Women are more likely to listen for the emotion behind a
speaker’s words, when men listen more for the facts and the content.

7. Lack of Training :- Listening is not an inborn skill. People are not born good listeners. It
is developed through practice and training. Lack of training in listing skills is an
important barrier.

8. Bad Listening Habits : Most people are very average listeners who have developed poor
listening habits that are hard to said and that act as barriers to listening. For
example, some people have the habits of “faking”attention, or trying to look like a
listeners, in order to impress the speaker and to assure him that they are paying
attention. Others may tend to listen to each and every fact and, as a result, miss out
the main point.

I. Benefits of Effective Listening Skills

Learning the skill of effective listening benefits personal growth and

development in the following ways:

Effective Communication –Clear and concise transmission of information is an important

component of effective human interaction. Though the onus is often placed on presenting
clear and concise written or spoken directions, the listener also bears a responsibility to
hear and understand messages.

Fewer Misunderstandings –Regardless of the clarity of written or spoken messages, the

effective listener can prevent misunderstandings and salvage what otherwise might be a
miscommunication by practicing active listening skills.

Improved Relationships –Relationships are damaged by misunderstandings that can lead

to unsatisfactory business transactions as well as hurt feelings in personal relationships.
Excellent listening practices tell others that they are important, special, and what they
have to say is valued. That is very attractive and contributes to strong relationships.

Personal Growth – A person learns and grows by listening and understanding other
viewpoints, differing ideas, and exploring conflicting viewpoints. Learning the skill of
active and effective listening not only adds a tool to the personal development portfolio,
but equips you to continue growing with tools for exploring new ideas.

J. Common Listening Mistakes

1. Interrupting the speaker.
2 Completing the speakers sentences in advance.
3.Habit of topping another person's story with your own is demeaning and relegates the
speaker's story to something less important.
4. Dominating Conversations –A person who dominates conversations probably commits
all of the above mistakes and is not listening at all.

Microskills and Macroskills of Listening

Listening is a macroskill, and Richards (1983) as cited by Ayuanita (2013) provided a

comprehensive taxonomy of aural skills, which he called microskills, involved in
conversational discourse level. The former pertain to skills at the sentence level. Let us
consider then what Richards and other sources suggest on what our learners need to
actually perform to acquire effective listening strategies. We have mentioned earlier in this
lesson on the ways to improve our listening skill, so we can go through the checklist of
micro and macro skills so we can get a good idea of what our techniques need to cover in the
domain of listening comprehension. From these skills of listening, may it be micro or macro,
we can have them for testing criteria. From these skills, you can now have ideas on what
possible activities that you can give your students to improve their listening skills.

Microskills (Ayuanita, 2013)

1. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory.
2. Discriminate among the distinctive sounds of English.
3. Recognize English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions,
rhythmic structure, international contours, and their role in signaling information.
4. Recognize reduced forms of words.
5. Distinguish word boundaries, recognize a core of words, and interpret word order
patterns and their significance.
6. Process speech at different rates of delivery.
7. Process speech containing pauses, errors, corrections, and other performance variables.
8. Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), system (e.g., tense, agreement,
pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
9. Detect sentence constituents and distinguish between major and minor constituents.
10. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms.

Macroskills (Ayuanita, 2013)

11. Recognize cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
12. Recognize the communicative functions of utterances, according to situations,
participants, goals.
13. Infer situations, participants, goals using real-world knowledge.
14. From events, ideas, etc., described, predicts outcomes, infer links and connections
between events, reduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea,
supporting idea, new information, give information, generalization, and
exemplification.
15. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
16. Use facial, kinesic, body language, and other nonverbal clues to decipher meanings.
17. Develop and use a battery of listening strategies, such as detecting key words, guessing
the meaning of word from context, appealing for help, and signaling comprehension or
lack thereof.

It is important to note that these 17 skills apply to conversational discourse. Less

interactive forms of discourse, such as listening to monologues like academic lectures,
include further, more specific micro and macro skills5. Students in academic setting need
to be able to perform such things as identifying the structure of a

Assessing Listening in the Classroom

 Before we discuss how we could assess listening in the classroom, let us define
assessment first. In recent years, there has been a consensus among scholars that the
terms ASSESSMENT and TEST are NOT synonymous (Brown, 2007). Brown defined test
as a subset of assessment; assessment is an ongoing pedagogical process that includes a
number of evaluative acts on the part of the teacher. He further added that assessment is
an ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain. Whenever a student responds
to a question, offer a comment, or tries out a new word or structure the teacher
subconsciously makes an assessment of the student’s performance. Listening activities
usually require some sort some productive performance that the teacher implicitly judges,
however peripheral that judgment may be. A good teacher never ceases to assess students
whether those assessments are incidental or intentional.
Ayuanaita (2013) also explained that when a student responds to a question, offers a
comment, or tries out a new word or structure, the teacher subconsciously makes an
evaluating of the student’s performance. A student’s written work, from notes or short
answers to essays, is judged by the teacher in reading and listening activities, student’s
responses are implicitly evaluated. All that is assessment. Technically it is referred to as
informal assessment, because it is usually unplanned and spontaneous and without
specific scoring or grading formats, as opposed to formal assessment, which is more
deliberate and usually has conventionalized feedback. Tests fall into the latter category.
They are planned sets of tasks or exercises, with designated time frames, often announced
in advance, prepared for (and sometime feared) by students, and characteristically offering
specific scoring or grading formats.
Considering what is mentioned above, in classroom assessment, then, be prepared to
entertain a range of possible pedagogical procedures. One of the first observations that
needs to be made in considering assessment is that listening is unobservable. We cannot
directly see or measure or otherwise observe either the process or the product of aural
comprehension. This is why you wonder that it is less explored in research, and it is also
neglected in teaching language skills.
Though listening is unobservable, considering the micro and macro skills of listening
mentioned earlier, these skills are indispensible to valid, reliable assessment of student’s
listening comprehension ability. The more closely we can pinpoint exactly what we want to
assess, the more reliably will we draw our conclusions.

What assessment method (tasks, item formats) are commonly used at the various level?
Consider the following list of sample tasks (Ayuanita, 2013):
Table 1. Assessment methods used in listening
Tasks Item formats Example
1. Intensive listening Distinguishing phonemic Grass – glass; leave – live
tasks pairs
Distinguishing Miss – missed;
morphological pairs
Distinguishing stress I can go; I can’t go
patterns
Paraphrase recognition Repetition (s repeat a
word)
2. Responsive listening Question What time is it? – Multiple
tasks choice responses
What time is it? – open
ended response
Simple discourse Hello, nice weather. Tough
sequences Test
3. Selective listening Listening cloze (students fill in the blanks)
tasks Verbal information transfer (students give MC verbal
response)
 Picture cued information (students choose a picture)
transfer
Chart completion students feel In a grid)
Sentence repetition (students repeat stimulus
sentence)
4. Extensive listening Dictation (students listen (usually 3
tasks times) and write a
paragraph
Dialogue (students hear dialogue –
MC
comprehension questions)
(students hear dialogue –
open –ended response)
Lecture (students take notes,
summarize, list main
points, etc)
Interpretive tasks (students hear a poem –
interpret meaning)
Stories, narrative (students retell a story

From the sample tasks presented in table 1, figure 1 gives you a glimpse of how
listening activities are conducted in the classroom so listening skills will be improved. You
could also see from the figure that feedback is important. If learners could not do the
activity or if they have difficulty doing the activity, some steps in the activity will be
repeated.

Figure 1 Task-feedback circle (Scrivener, 2005)

Receptive Skills
Staging for lessons with reading or listening as the main aim.

Lead in
Activate background knowledge: orient the
students to the central themes of the stimulus.
Engage: create interest in the stimulus.


Pre-teach lexis
Remove ‘blocking’ vocabulary: clarify vocab that
is essential to completing the reading/
listening tasks, yet is both unlikely to be familiar
to the students and is difficult to guess from
context.


Gist reading/listening
Encourage students to skim read or listen for
global comprehension: what matters is the
rough gist and/or the way the reading or
listening text is organised.


Selective reading/listening
Encourage students to scan the text or listen
selectively: they can ignore everything else as
long as they can find the specific information
they need. This is especially common with
numbers, prices, times, names, items, etc.


Careful reading/listening
Encourage students to read or listen closely and
intensively. Focus on inferring implied
meanings, deep comprehension of particular
sections, or understanding connections such as:
fact vs opinion; main vs supporting ideas; etc.

Noticing / awareness raising
Draw students attention to interesting lexical
patterns: collocations, phrases, idiomatic
expressions, verb patterns, etc. Keep it brief
and light: noticing activities or noticing with
brief ‘language play’.

Productive follow on
Use the ideas in the reading or listening text as a
springboard into spoken and/or written
communication. Students practise speaking or
writing with a focus on fluency and interaction
based on either the themes or text types, etc, of
the reading/listening.
 TEACHING READING

Some questions to think about before you read any further:

1. Think about your own schooldays – How much did you enjoy or
not enjoy reading lessons (in any subject)? Why? What was the
role of the teacher in these lessons?
2. Is a reading lesson going to be boring? What can prevent
potential boredom?
3. Should students be given tasks before or after they read the text?
Why?
4. Do you think it is necessary or desirable for your students to
understand all the vocabulary in a text? If not, how do you
decide what they need to know?
5. How will you find texts to use in your lessons? What factors
affect the selection of texts?
6. Could one text be used at two quite different levels? If so, how?

Nature and Purposes of Reading

Reading is a complex activity that involves both perception and thought, a conscious
and unconscious thinking process. It is a receptive skill that involves interactive processes
between the reader and the text, in which the reader uses a number of strategies to build, to
create, and to construct meaning. The reader does this by comparing information in the
text to his or her background knowledge and prior experience (Mikulecky, 2008). For
beginning readers, the complex process also requires the skill of speaking thus in this
sense, reading is also a productive skill. Reading requires one to identify and understand
strings of words in a fluid manner. It is a detailed process that includes comprehension,
word recognition, engagement, and fluency.

A. Components of Reading (Read Naturally, 2016)

1. Phonemic Awareness. This is the understanding that spoken language words can be
broken into individual phonemes—the smallest unit of spoken language. It focuses on the
individual sounds in spoken language. As students begin to transition to phonics, they
learn the relationship between a phoneme (sound) and grapheme (the letter(s) that
represent the sound) in written language.

2. Phonics. It is a system of teaching reading that builds on the alphabetic principle, a

system of which a central component is the teaching of correspondences between letters or
groups of letters and their pronunciations. Decoding is the process of converting printed
words to spoken words. Readers use phonics skills, beginning with letter/sound
correspondences, to pronounce words and then attach meaning to them. As readers
develop, they apply other decoding skills, such as recognizing word parts (e.g., roots and
affixes) and the ability to decode multi syllable words. Students also learn to apply decoding
skills to irregular words that are almost decodable.

3. Fluency. It is the ability to read text accurately and quickly, either silently or orally.
Researchers have found that fluent reading at the word level is established after an
individual reads a word at least four times using accurate phonologic processing. Fluency
is built word by word and is based on repeated, accurate sounding out of the word. Fluency
is not established by “memorizing” what words look like but rather by developing correct
neural-phonologic models of the word

Why is fluency important? Since fluency depends on higher word recognition skills, it
helps children move from decoding words to sight-reading. This means that less energy is
spent on deciphering each word and more is spent on comprehending what is read. If
children are struggling to decode individual words, they cannot concentrate on other
strategies that support their overall understanding of what they read.

We can increase the reading fluency of students through practice, practice, and
practice. Repeated oral reading is the best way for children to improve their fluency. This
can include re-reading a familiar text several times, listening to models of fluent reading, or
engaging in choral, or unison reading with a big book. Choose books that children can read
with a high degree of success. If the book is too difficult, children will be bogged down with
vocabulary and comprehension questions and their fluency will be hindered.

4. Vocabulary. It is an expandable, stored set of words that students know the meanings
of and use. Vocabulary development is closely connected to comprehension. The larger the
reader’s vocabulary (either oral or print), the easier it is to make sense of the text.
Vocabulary can be learned incidentally through reading or listening to others, and
vocabulary should be taught both directly and indirectly.

You might wonder what role does vocabulary play in learning to read?
When children learn to read, they begin to understand that the words on the page
correspond to the words they encounter every day in spoken English. That’s why it’s much
easier for children to make sense of written words that are already part of their oral
language. While we don’t have to know every word on the page to understand what we are
reading, too many new or difficult words make comprehension impossible. As children’s
reading level improves, so does the number of words they need to know.
How do children learn new words?
Children increase their vocabulary through both direct and indirect instruction. Children
continually learn new words indirectly through listening and speaking to the people around
them, being read to by others, and reading on their own. Sometimes children need to be
taught new words explicitly, especially when they are crucial to their understanding of a
story or concept. Study in content areas, such as science and social studies, adds to a
child’s vocabulary development.

5. Text Comprehension. It is the ability to understand, remember, and communicate

meaning from what has been read. Comprehension is the purpose and the goal of reading,
but comprehension depends on students being able to access the text, which can only
happen after they have already mastered certain phonemic awareness and phonics skills.
More than merely decoding words on a page, comprehension is the intentional thinking
process that occurs as we read — it’s what reading is all about!

What strategies support comprehension?

Good readers are purposeful and active. They use a wide variety of strategies, often
simultaneously, to create meaning from text. Some of the most important are:
1. Monitoring comprehension: Successful readers know when they understand a
passage and when they don’t. When they don’t understand, they know to pause and
utilize strategies to improve their understanding.
2. Using prior knowledge: Thinking about what is already known about the subject
helps readers make connections between the story and their knowledge.
3. Making predictions: Good readers often make predictions as they read through a
story, using both the knowledge they bring to a text as well as what they can derive
from the text.
4. Questioning: When children ask questions about what they read and subsequently
search for answers, they are interacting with the text to construct meaning. Good
questions are based on a child’s knowledge base and what further information she
desires.
5. Recognizing story structure: Children will understand a story better if they
understand how it is organized (i.e., setting, plot, characters, and themes).
6. Summarizing: When they summarize a story, readers determine the main idea and
important information and use their own words to demonstrate a real understanding
of the text.

When does comprehension instruction begin?

Since the ultimate goal of reading is to interact with the text, comprehension should be
emphasized from the very beginning, not only after a child/ learner has mastered decoding
skills.
For example, reading aloud provides an opportunity for children to hear a story and
respond to the content — the characters, their feelings and motivations, and the setting,
and to relate it to their own experiences. Children begin from an early point to understand
that comprehension is the point of reading.

B. Process of Reading (Hughes, 2007)

Reading is a process that involves recognizing words, leading to the development of

comprehension. During reading the meaning does not go from the page to readers. Instead,
reading is a complex negotiation among the text, readers, and their purpose for reading that
is shaped by factors such as:
 Readers’ knowledge about the topic
 Readers’ knowledge about reading and about written language
 The reading process involves five stages
 The language community to which readers belong
 The match between readers’ language and the language used in the text
 Readers’ culturally based expectations about reading
 Readers’ expectations about reading based on their previous experiences

The reading process comprises five (5) stages:

1. Pre-reading is where the teacher activates background knowledge, sets purposes,

introduces key vocabulary terms, and previews the text with the students. It connects the
readers to prior personal and literary experiences, associate to thematic units or special
interests make predictions. This stage also allows reader to have a preview of the text and
use index to gather information on the reading activity.

2. Reading is where the students begin reading the material through any type of reading
(independent, buddy, shared, guided, etc.). It includes reading strategies and skills,
examination of illustrations, reading from beginning to end, and notes taking.

3. Responding is the stage where the students react to what they read and continue to
negotiate the meaning. It reflects reader’s response to theory. Reader’s tentative and
exploratory comments are constructed by writing reading logs and participating in grand or
instructional conversation.

4. Exploring is where the students go back into text to explore it more analytically. It is
more teacher directed than other stages. Students reread the selection, examine authors
craft (genre, text structure and literacy devices), focus on words from the selection.
Teachers also present mini lessons on procedures, concepts, strategies, and skills.

5. Applying is where readers extend their comprehension, reflect on their understanding

and value the reading experience. Building on the initial and exploratory responses they
made immediately after reading, students create projects. Projects may include visual,
written, reading, drama projects, literary analysis and social action papers.

C. Cognitive Elements of Reading (Hoover & Gough, 2015)

 Reading comprehension or the ability to construct linguistic meaning from written
representations of language is based upon two equally important competencies:

Language comprehension and decoding.

1. Language comprehension. The ability to construct the meaning of spoken language
requires two large domains of knowledge, the combination of which allows us to make
inferences from language.

(a) Linguistic knowledge or knowledge of the formal structures of a language. It has three
domains.
Phonology describes knowledge of the sound structure of a language and of the basic
elements that convey differences in meaning, including their internal structure and their
relationships to each other. The child who cannot produce or hear the sounds that
distinguish one word from another will not be able to use language effectively to
communicate.

Semantics deals with the meaning components of language, both at the level of
individual units (words and their meaningful parts, or morphemes, such as "pre" in the
word "preview") and at the higher levels that combine these units (morphemes into words,
words into sentences, sentences into discourse). Thus, part of linguistic knowledge involves
learning the individual meanings of words (or vocabulary) as well as the meaning of larger
segments–sentences and discourse structures (e.g., narratives and expositions).

Syntax constitutes the rules of language that specify how to combine different classes of
words (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives) to form sentences. In short, syntax defines the
structural relationship between the sounds of a language (phonological combinations) and
the meaning of those combinations.

(b) Background knowledge or knowledge of the world is the knowledge acquired through
interactions with the surrounding environment. One way to describe such knowledge is in
terms of schemas–structures that represent our understandings (e.g., of events and their
relationships).

Schemas can represent fairly common knowledge (e.g., dining in a restaurant,

including being seated, ordering, being served, eating, and finally paying a bill) or fairly
esoteric knowledge (e.g., how computer programs complete searches for information). If you
have a well-developed schema in a particular domain of knowledge, then understanding a
conversation relevant to that domain is much easier because you already have a
meaningful structure in place for interpreting the conversation.

2. Decoding. This refers to the ability to recognize systematic and unsystematic

relationships of the written and spoken form of words. Knowledge of these relationships
allows us to read many new words that we have never encountered before.

(a) Cipher Knowledge refers to the awareness of the systematic relationships between the
letters of the alphabet and the phonemes. If a child learns the systematic relationships, she
can recognize words she has never before encountered in print, but whose meaning she
already knows from the course of language acquisition. This is the typical situation for the
child learning to read.

(b) Lexical Knowledge. Beyond the systematic relationships captured in cipher knowledge
are the exceptions–those instances where the relationships between the units of the spoken
and written word are unique and do not follow a systematic pattern. Knowledge of these
exceptions, or lexical knowledge, is necessary for a child to be able to access the meaning of
words she knows (e.g., "stomach") but that do not entirely follow the patterns captured in
her cipher knowledge. To learn the two types of relationships upon which decoding ability
depends, a number of other abilities are needed.

Letter Knowledge
The first is letter knowledge, or the ability to recognize and manipulate the units of
the writing system. In English, these units are the letters of the alphabet. Knowing
the names of letters is not what is crucial here (although most children learn to
 distinguish letters by learning letter names); rather, what is important is being able
to reliably recognize each of the letters.

Phoneme Awareness
In a similar fashion, one must be consciously able to recognize and manipulate the
units of the spoken word–the phonemes that underlie each word. The knowledge
behind this ability must be explicit, not implicit. That is, any child who knows a
language can implicitly recognize and manipulate the sounds of the language that
mark differences in meaning between words (e.g., "bat" and "bag" as different words
with different meanings). However, knowing explicitly that this distinction in
meaning is carried by a particular unit in a particular location (i.e., by the last unit
in the preceding example) does not come automatically with learning the language.
It is something that in most cases must be taught in order to be learned. This
knowledge is phoneme awareness: the conscious knowledge that words are built
from a discrete set of abstract units, or phonemes, coupled with the conscious
ability to manipulate these units.

In connection to this, commonly asked question is that if learning phonics inhibit

reading comprehension?
The answer is NO. If a child learns to identify the relationship between the sounds of
our language and letters, he will have an easier time identifying words, leading to
improved reading comprehension. Failure to master phonics is the number one
reason that children have difficulty learning to read. However, phonics instruction
does have limitations, especially since English does not have a pure phonetic base. The
most obvious example of this is sounding out the words cough, though, tough, and
through. A successful reading program should include both explicit phonics
instruction and comprehension instruction. One without the other can delay or
impede success in learning how to read. This is important for primary learners and
even adult learners who wish to learn English.

Knowledge of the Alphabetic principle

It is not enough to simply know and be able to manipulate the units of the written
and spoken word. To master both the cipher and lexical knowledge components
of decoding, one must understand that there is, in general, a systematic relationship
between these units, and that discerning the particular relationship is what is
required to master decoding. Without the intent to discover this relationship, the
would-be reader will not understand the task before her. This intent is captured in
knowledge of the alphabetic principle: knowing that a systematic relationship exists
between the internal structure of written and spoken words, and that the task of
learning to recognize individual words requires discovering this relationship.

Concepts about Print

Finally, the basis for knowledge of letters and the alphabetic principle is knowledge
of the mechanics of the printed word, or concepts about print. This includes
knowing that printed text carries a linguistic meaning, that there is a correspondence
between printed and spoken words, and that text in English runs left-to-right and
top-to-bottom on a page.

D. Strategies of Reading (Hughes, 2007)

Effective language teachers must be able to use strategies to develop the reading skills
of the students. The strategies that can help student read quickly and efficiently are:

1. Activating Prior Knowledge. This strategy involves activating and using background
knowledge to aid in comprehension. Background knowledge is made up of a person's
experiences with the world (including what he or she has read), along with his or her
concepts for how written text works, including word identification, print concepts, word
meaning, and how text is organized. This is also called schema, good readers often connect
their background knowledge to new knowledge they encounter in a text.
2. Predicting. This involves the ability of readers to get meaning from a text by making
informed predictions. Good readers use predicting as a way to connect their existing
knowledge to new information from a text to get meaning from what they read. A good
reader may predict about what’s going to happen next or what ideas the author may
present, they tend to evaluate predictions continuously and revise any that is not confirmed
by the reading.

3. Visualizing. This involves the ability of readers to make mental images of a text as a way
to understand processes or events they encounter during reading. This ability can be an
indication that a reader understands a text. Some research suggests that readers who
visualize as they read are better able to recall what they have read than are those who do
not visualize. It is especially valuable when used in narrative texts.

4. Questioning. This strategy involves readers asking themselves questions throughout

the reading of a text. The ability of readers to ask themselves relevant questions as they
read is especially valuable in helping them to integrate information, identify main ideas,
and summarize information. Asking the right questions allows good readers to focus on the
most important information in a text

5. Drawing inferences. This requires readers to evaluate or draw conclusions from

information in a text. Authors do not always provide complete descriptions of, or explicit
information about a topic, setting, character, or event. However, they often provide clues
that readers can use to "read between the lines"-by making inferences that combine
information in the text with their background knowledge.

6. Summarizing. This is the ability of readers to pull together or synthesize information in

a text so as to explain in their own words what the text is about. Summarizing is an
important strategy because it can enable readers to recall text quickly. It also can make
readers more aware of text organization, of what is important in a text and of how ideas are
related.

7. Synthesizing. Readers create original insights, perspectives and understandings by

reflecting on text(s) and merging elements from text and existing schema.

8. Monitoring comprehension. It involves the ability of readers to know when they

understand what they read, when they do not understand, and to use appropriate
strategies to improve their understanding when it is blocked. Comprehension monitoring is
a form of metacognition. Good readers are aware of and monitor their thought processes as
they read. In contrast, poor readers "just do it.

9. Evaluating. Readers judge, justify, and/or defend understandings to determine

importance based on stated criteria

E. Types of Reading and Reading Techniques (MacLeod, n.d.) (McDonald, 2012)

Different types of reading maybe utilized for developing reading skills. These are:

1. Oral Reading. It is reading aloud and is necessary to provide an opportunity for practice
and help the teacher find out whether the student is reading with correct pronunciation.

2. Silent Reading. It is a complex set of skills that is more than recognizing and
understanding isolated words. It requires thinking, feeling and imagination. It consolidates
vocabulary skills, pronunciation, meaning and structure of texts.

(a) Skimming. It is sometimes referred to as gist reading. Skimming is a quick

reading to know the general meaning of a passage, how the passage is
organized, that is, the structure of the text and to get an idea of the intention
of the writer. It is used when reading some general questions in mind and in
making decisions on how to approach a text such as if careful reading is
deserving. Skimming is a more complex task than scanning because it
requires the reader to organize and remember some of the information given
by the author, not just to locate it. It is a tool in which the author's sequence
 can be observed, unlike scanning in which some predetermined information
is sought after.

(b) Scanning. It is quick reading, focusing on locating specific information.

Scanning involves quick eye movements, not necessarily linear in fashion, in
which the eyes wander until the reader finds the piece of information needed.
It is used when a specific piece of information is required, such as a name,
date, symbol, formula, or phrase, is required.
(c) Intensive Reading. Sometimes called "Narrow Reading". Brown (1989)
explains that intensive reading "calls attention to grammatical forms,
discourse markers, and other surface structure details for the purpose of
understanding literal meaning, implications, rhetorical relationships, and
the like." He draws an analogy to intensive reading as a "zoom lens" strategy.
Long and Richards (1987) say it is a "detailed in-class" analysis, led by the
teacher, of vocabulary and grammar points, in a short passage.
(d) Extensive Reading. It is carried out "to achieve a general understanding of
a text and occurring when students read large amounts of high interest
material, usually out of class, concentrating on meaning, "reading for gist"
and skipping unknown words. The aims of extensive readings are to build
reader confidence and enjoyment. Extensive reading is always done for the
comprehension of main ideas, not for specific details.

F. Common Reading Mistakes (Treick-Shipman, n.d.)

Behavior Error Instructional Strategy

1. Substituting words Student is paying more Use nonsense word

that make sense attention to meaning than activities, where student
matching sounds to letters has to attend to the
letters instead of
meaning
2. Substituting Student is not attending to Buddy reading, tutor
meaning reading, guided reading
where the buddy/ guide
asks: did that sentence
make sense to you? Have
students stop at the end
of each sentence and ask
it it makes sense.
3. Substituting words Not attending to meaning or Decrease level of book
randomly text until accuracy = 94% or
better. Choose either skill
1 or 2 to work on and
follow strategies above.
Teach only one strategy
at a time.
4. Substituting words Student understands Ask student to reread
that make context fit language structure, and carefully, slowly, etc. If
missed a word earlier in the the same mistake is
sentence and is now trying made, ask them to make
to make the sentence sure the words they read
correct grammatically, or is are the words on the
trying to find a word that page, or do a 1:1 match
fits their (incorrect) as they read (touch each
grammar structure. word.) Usually they will
self-correct.

G. Barriers to Reading (Marzola, 2014)

In teaching reading, you should not only be giving activities to your learners like more
materials that learners are exposed to will help them be better readers. It is important that
you observe your learners since they may affect their understanding of the text they are
reading. This will result to non-participation in class, and could make learners hate reading.
The following are barriers to reading:

1. Poor speed and accuracy of decoding

2. Limited vocabulary
3. Lack of prior knowledge
4. Failure to attend to text structures
5. Lack of strategy used during reading process

H. Importance of Reading Skill

1. Reading is fundamental to function in today's society. Filling out forms, reading road
signs, following maps and other day-to=day activities are often linked to reading.

2. Reading is a vital skill in finding a good job. Many well-paying jobs require reading as a
part of job performance. There are reports and memos which must be read and
responded to. Poor reading skills increases the amount of time it takes to absorb and
react in the workplace. A person is limited in what they can accomplish without good
reading and comprehension skills.

3. Reading is important because it develops the mind. Understanding the written word is
one way the mind grows in its ability. Teaching young children to read helps them
develop their language skills. It also helps them learn to write, listen and speak.

4. Reading helps us discover new things. Books, magazines and even the Internet are
great learning tools which require the ability to read and understand what is read. A
person who knows how to read can educate themselves in any areas of life.

5. Reading develops the imagination. As reading feeds the mind creativity grows and
visualization of texts develops.

Teaching Reading

In the language classroom, reading tasks can be used in a variety of ways. The following can
be used:

 to introduce or reinforce vocabulary

 as input for discussion, debate, or role play
 to help students develop skills such as reading for gist, scanning for details
or close reading for deep comprehension
 as instructions for classroom activities
 to equip students with specific functional skills such as reading: technical
instructions, visa forms, bank account/credit card applications, etc.
 to provide a context in which the rules and usage of new grammar can be
deduced by students.

So what should we consider when we are planning a lesson? As a guide, we can ask these
ourselves:

1. What skills, words or phrases do students need to use?

2. When do students need to use them?
3. Why do students need to use them?
4. With whom do the students need to use them?
5. What are the biggest problems students have?

Always try and base your lesson ideas on the students’ problems, interests or concerns.
This provides guaranteed motivation which will make the lesson engaging and more fun for
all concerned.

Presentation Materials
 When choosing materials for our reading lesson, we can consider how we present our
materials or the purposes of these materials.
Reading for pleasure:
Letters, articles, short stories, poetry, novels, etc.

Reading for information:

Newspapers, magazines, guide books, brochures, ads, reviews, recipes, instructions,
signs, labels (soup packets, etc.), bills, catalogues, schedules, phone, directories,
etc.

Tips to Successfully Teach Reading

Based on the nature of reading that we have discussed earlier, here are some tips to
teach reading:

1. Be sure the text is appropriate to the interests and language level of the class.
2. Give out any handouts after instructions and modeling are finished.
3. Give pairs or groups only one handout per group/pair.
4. Vary verbal and written comprehension tasks and activities.
5. Grade comprehension activities from easy to difficult and gist to detail.
6. Use visuals, props, and authentic materials as much as possible.
7. If a text is too long, break it up and plan a second Focus Question for part two of the
text.
8. Suggested presentation line numbers:
1. Beginner: 20-25 maximum
2. Intermediate: 30-35 maximum
3. Advanced: 40-45 maximum
9. Make the presentation short and difficult or long and easy, but not both.

Ideas for Reading Lessons:

These are already mentioned in the reading techniques, and you can use them to
improve reading skills; hence you can use them as aims in your lessons

Aims for a Reading Lesson

1. Lexis
2. General comprehension
3. Detailed comprehension
4. Skimming
5. Scanning

Production Activities: Reading is a receptive skill, but as teachers, we need to

check if they have understood the text. To do this, we can give production activities.
Do not be confused here. As I have mentioned in the last modules, teaching language
skills are rarely taken into isolation. These skills may be individual skills but are all
linked. Consider the activities below for your lessons.

i. Role-play
1. Interview
2. Survey
3. Discuss differences between two texts
4. Describe a picture / process
5. Act a short drama / skit
6. Present an argument
7. Give a speech
8. Debate
9. Write a short story / poem / letter / summary
10.Make a poster or display
11.Fill out an application form
12.Creative writing
13.Continue the story
 14.Retelling
15.Inventing dialogs

Practice Activities
Related to a Comprehension Aim

1. Fill in the blank (cloze)

2. Answer specific and general questions
3. Write questions for answers
4. True / False
5. Match two halves of sentences
6. Multiple sentences from words
7. Put sentences / paragraphs in order (strips)
8. Match parts of text with pictures
9. Write headings for parts of texts
10.Draw a picture
11.Find and correct errors in a summary of the text
12.Find differences between texts
13.Work on punctuation
14.Work on conjunctions
15.Check which topics are mentioned

Related to a Lexical aim

1. Find a word with a similar meaning

2. Match words from two lists
3. Make lexis /words from letters
4. Label pictures
5. Write definitions
6. Match definitions
7. Multiple choice definitions
8. Write a sentence containing the word
9. Write a story containing all the words

When you create a lesson plan for reading, you can use the Text-Based approach. The
staging lesson for text-based approach below clearly give you how you can use your
teaching material. This will also provide a clear flow of the lesson. The staging lesson for
receptive skills can also be used. Check Lesson 1 of this module.

Language in Context: Text-Based

Staging for lessons with lexis or grammar as a main aim and
a reading or listening text to explore it in.
Lead in
Activate background knowledge: orient the
students to the text type and/or central
themes.
Engage: create a desire to read/listen.


Pre-teach lexis
Remove ‘blocking’ vocabulary: clarify vocab
that is essential to completing the reading/
listening tasks, yet is both unlikely to be
familiar to the students and is difficult to
guess from context.

Gist reading/listening
Encourage the students to pay attention to
the general themes and/or the overall
organization of themes. Getting the rough
gist is ideal at this stage.


Scan reading / listening for specific
information
Encourage the students to read or listen in a
way that targets specific details. Ideally,
they’ll ignore everything else to home in on
just the pieces of information they need.

Clarification of MPF
Extract the target language (the lexis or
grammar) from the reading or listening text
Clarify meaning. Clarify pronunciation.
Clarify form. Check understanding.

Controlled Practice
Highly controlled drills at first as necessary.
Then slightly more communicative
controlled practice - using the target
language meaningfully in sentences or brief
exchanges.

Freer Practice
Increasingly less controlled practice,
emphasizing communication and fluency.
Ideally students will choose when to use the
target language and when not based on
context and what they really mean to say.

REFERENCES

Ayuanita, K. (2013). Assessing listening in language classroom. OKARA Journal of

Languages and Literature. Vol. 1, Tahun 8, Mei 2013.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy.
3rd Edition. Allyn & Bacon.
Macleod, M. (2013). Types of Reading. fis.ucalgary.ca/Brian/611/reading type.Html
#references.
McDonald, K. (2012, August 23). Different types of reading techniques and when to use
them. Retrieved November 3, 2016, from How to learn.com:
http://www.howtolearn.com/2012/08/different-reading-techniques-and-when
to-use-them/
Read Naturally. (2016, November 2). Essential components of reading.
https://www.readnaturally.com/research/5-components-ofreading

Treick-Shipman, S. (n.d.). Common reading errors.

https://staticfiles.psd401.net/staff/Documents/CurriculumResources/Literacy/Ele
mentary/ReadingInterventions/Interventions/Common_Reading_Errors.pdf