This document provides a course syllabus for a class on teaching language skills. The course objectives are to familiarize students with theoretical and practical aspects of understanding and teaching language skills and subskills. Students are required to actively participate in class discussions, summarize course materials, and submit a term project. Required texts and additional readings are listed. Topics that will be covered include teaching listening comprehension, cognitive and social dimensions of listening, approaches to teaching listening like bottom-up and top-down processing, and learner-centered dimensions. Theories of listening, such as Nation's model and Swain's output hypothesis, are also discussed.

1. Teaching Methodology:
Language Skills
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2. Course Syllabus
 Course Objectives:
 The course attempts to get us familiar with the various theoretical and
practical aspects of understanding and teaching language skills and subskills. It will act as a foundation course for the related courses such as
Practical Teaching, Materials Preparation, Testing, and ESP.

 Course Requirement:
 Students are required to prepare for scheduled classes and actively
participate in the class discussions.
 They will be asked to summarize and comment on parts of the course
materials.
 They are to submit a term project concerning the course related
issues.
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3.  Required texts:
 Long, M. H., & Doughty, C. J. (ed.) (2009). The Handbook of language and
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teaching. West
Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
 Richards, J. C. & Renandya, W. A. (ed.) (2002). Methodology in language
teaching: an
anthology of current practice. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 Related Articles

 Additional texts:
 Brown, D. H. (2001). 2nd ed. Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to
language
pedagogy. NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. (Part
IV of the book).
 Celce- Murcia. M. (Ed.) (1991). Teaching English as a second or foreign language.
2nd ed.
Boston. MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.
 Harmer, J. (2001). The practice of English language teaching. Essex, UK: Pearson
Education
Limited. (Chapters 13-19).
 O'Malley, J. M., & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning strategies in second language
acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Ellis, R. (1990). Instructed second language acquisition. London: Basil Blackwell.

4. Teaching Listening Comprehension
The Communicative language teaching & Listening
Listening: a channel for comprehensible input (Krashen)
Listening: an important feature of interlanguage for
acquiring language
Sources of meaning in text comprehension:1. input
and 2. listener’s knowledge of language, general
knowledge and context of interaction (limited by
memory limitations)
In conversational listening, comprehension is the
result of joint action: listeners and speakers carry
out individual communicative acts coordinately.
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5. Three main topics involved in Teaching Listening:
Cognitive & social dimensions of listening
Approaches to teaching listening
Assessment of listening
Cognitive Dimensions of Listening:
 Anderson’s (1995) model of perceptual processing, parsing
& utilization ( a connectivist model). It explains interactive
processes taking place in short-term memory, listening
strategies, and listening problems
 Connectionist Model: Proposes processing through a vast
activation of interconnected and associative neural
networks in the brain.
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6. Cognitive Dimensions of Listening (Cont.)
The processing and storage of information have
been explained through Working memory which
includes:
The phonological loop and the visual-spatial
sketchpad responsible for short-term processing
The central executive directing attention to the
input and coordinates various cognitive processes
The episodic buffer integrating information
processed through previous processing systems
into a single mental presentation
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7. Cognitive Dimensions of Listening (Cont.)
Fundamental principles concerning cognition and
listening:
For processing to take place, attention must be
directed at the input and some amount of decoding
and analysis of the signals must occur.
2. As new information is being processed, it is acted upon
by existing knowledge or schemata retrieved from
long-term memory. (top-down)
3. The ability to process speech successfully depends on
how much linguistic information is processed quickly.
1.
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8. Social dimensions of listening
Listening happens in texts or utterances.
Face-face communication: gesture, other non-verbal /
culturally bound cues
The status relationships between interlocutors / power
relationship
Pragmatic comprehension: understanding speaker’s
intention (implicature), making inferences and
determining implied meaning
The important role of language proficiency in
processing both linguistic and contextual information
Psychological dimension: language classroom, anxiety
associated with listening and its effect on listening
performance, motivation
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9. Approaches to Teaching SL/FL
Listening
Bottom-up processing: Perception of sounds
and words in speech stream

The primacy of the acoustic signal in listening
comprehension

Adequate perception of lexical information as
the first stage of using background information for
interpreting the input

Word segmentation a major challenge for ESL
and EFL listeners

Parsing the stream of speech into meaningful
units and determining word boundaries are
difficult to do
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10. Solutions:
1. Native language segmentation procedure
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applicable to the new language with different
rhythm
2. Calling attention to prosodic features (stress and
intonation) useful for determining word
boundaries
3. Attending to pause-bounded units more useful
than syntactic units
4. Inserting word boundaries before stressed
syllables useful in identifying words
5. Using word-onset (initial phonemes of a word) a
useful word-recognition strategy
6. Using lexical information and stress cues

11. Word recognition:
Hulstijn’s (2003) six-step procedure in word
recognition:

1. Listening to the oral text without reading the
written version

2. Determining your level of comprehension

3. Replaying the recording as often as possible

4. Checking the written text

5. Recognizing what you should have
understood

6. Replaying the recording until you
understand it without written support
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12. Word recognition (Cont.):
Word-recognition training:
 Analysis of parts of the text transcription, dictation, and
analogy exercises
 Listening to “i-1 level” texts: texts where most words are
known
 Dealing with prosodic level e.g. understanding the
prominence (word stress in the context of discourse)
 Understanding phonological modifications (e.g. elision,
assimilation, liaison)
 Using dictogloss (noticing the differences between their
reconstruction of text and a written transcription of the
original after listening) Listeners focus on their problems,
consider reasons for their errors, and evaluate the
importance of these errors
 Repeating exactly and listening to reduced speech rate
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13. Top-down processing:
Teaching learners to reflect on the nature of
listening and to self-regulate their comprehension
processes
Developing learner’s metacognitive knowledge
about listening: individual’s understanding of the
ways different factors act and affect the course and
outcome of learning (listening)
Metacongition: attributes to effective self-directed
learning having positive effect on learning
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14. Top-down processing (Cont.):
Three levels of Metacongition knowledge
about listening:
 1. Person knowledge: Knowledge of personal factors
supporting or holding back one’s listening
 2. Task knowledge: Knowledge dealing with the purpose of
a listening task, its demands, text organization and
structure, factors hindering the task, and type of listening
skills needed to achieve the listening purpose
 3. Strategy knowledge: Strategies useful for improving
listening comprehension
 Tools to develop listening strategies:
Listening Diaries, process-oriented discussions, questionnaires
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15. Integrated Model for teaching SL/FL listening
Including both bottom-up and top-down processes
Listening curriculum to become affective involves an
active, strategic and constructive process.
Supporting individual listening through collaborative
activities
Including activities that involves the application of
strategies (e.g. scaffolding)

Stages of Listening Instruction & Related
Metacognitive Process (Vandergrift, 2004)
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16. Listening in Language Learning (P. Nation)
Listening and speaking : secondary skills , means to ends rather
than ends in themselves
 Listening fundamental to speaking: Without understanding input at
any level no learning might happen easily
 Top-down and Bottom-up: Two dominant language pedagogy since
early 1980’s
 Bottom-up: Listening as a process of decoding the sounds that one
hears from smallest meaningful units to complete texts in a linear
process
 Phonemic Units
Words
Phrases
Utterances
Complete Texts
 Listener viewed as a tape recorder: Takes in and stores messages
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17. Top-down: Listener actively constructs (reconstructs) the original
meaning of the speaker via using prior knowledge of the context and
situation in which the listening takes place.
 Context and situation: knowledge of topic at hand, the speaker/s,
their relationship to the situation, prior events
Types of Listening:
Listening Purpose
2. Role of Listener
3. Type of text being listened to
1.
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18. Listening Purpose
Listening to news broadcast for general idea
Listening to news broadcast for specific information
Listening to a sequence of instructions for operating a machine
Listening to a poem or short story
Practice: Listening text held constant listened to for various
purposes
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19. Role of Listener
Reciprocal Listening:
The listener a participant in the event
Nonreciprocal:
 No chance to ask questions, answer back, clarify understanding, or
check comprehension
Listening Practice
Personalizing the listening to enable learners have some
control over the content of the lesson
 Extension Tasks
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20. Learner-centered Dimension of Listening
 1. Tasked devised in a way that the classroom action centered around
learners
 2. Teaching materials can be given a learner-centered dimension
through involving learners in their underlying learning and making
them actively contribute to the learning:
Instructional goals made explicit to the learner
A degree of choice given to the students
Chances given to learners to bring their experience and background
knowledge to class
Learners encouraged to develop a reflective attitude to learning and
improve skills in self-monitoring and self-assessment
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21. Changing the Face of Listening (J. Field)
A standard format for listening lesson developed in the late
1960’s:
 Pre-listening: Pre-teaching of all important new vocabulary
 Listening:
Extensive (general questions to be followed)
Intensive (detailed questions to be followed)
 Post-listening:
Analysis of the language in the text
Listen and repeat
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22. The format of Listening now:
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23. 
The aims of pre-listening:
 To provide sufficient context to match what is available in real life
 To create motivation
Listening:
 Extensive/intensive
 Preset Questions
 Listening Tasks
 Authentic Materials
 Strategic Listening
Post-listening:


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No longer “examining the grammar of the text”
No longer “Listen-and-repeat phase”

24. Raising Student’s Awareness of the Features of Real-World
Listening Input (W. K. Lam)
 Features of Real-World Listening Input
The Use of Time-Creating Devices:
Pause fillers
The Use of Facilitation Devices
Use of less complex structures such as reduced clauses
e.g. Me too, So am I, …
The Use of Compensation Devices
Building Redundancy:

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Repetitions
Reformulation
Rephrasing

25. Classroom Implication
 Awareness Raising Exercises
 Differences between Spoken and Written texts
 Skills Enabling Exercises
 Listening Materials produced for learners are artificial, they do not have redundancy,
hesitations, repetitions, etc. , thus authentic materials are needed.
 Students can produced their own listening materials.
 They can be helped to write semi-scripted simulated authentic speech i.e. just the main
ideas are given to the students
 Students can be asked to give their own authentic speech on selected topics
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26. Listening Self-study
Nation, P. & Newton, J. (2007). Teaching ESL/EFL listening
and speaking.
Chapters 1-3
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27. Four roughly equal strands in a well-balanced language course:
Learning through meaning-focused input via listening and reading
where the learner’s attention is on the ideas and messages
conveyed by the language.
2. Learning through meaning-focused output via speaking and writing
where the learner’s attention is on conveying ideas and messages
to another person.
3. Learning through attention to language items and language
features (language-focused learning) via
1.
 direct vocabulary study,
 grammar exercises and explanation,
 attention to the sounds and spelling of the language,
 attention to discourse features
 the deliberate learning and practice of language learning and language use strategies.
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28. 4. Developing fluent use of known language items and features over
the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing (fluency
development)
 Meaning-focused Input: Learning through Listening and
Reading
 Certain conditions necessary for the existence of the strand:
 1. Most of what the learners are listening to or reading is already familiar to them.
 2. The learners are interested in the input and want to understand it.
 3. Only a small proportion of the language features are unknown to the learners. In
terms of vocabulary, 95 percent to 98 percent of the running words should be
within the learners’ previous knowledge, and so only five or preferably only one or
two words per hundred should be unknown to them (Hu and Nation, 2000).
 4. The learners can gain some knowledge of the unknown language items through
context clues and background knowledge.
 5. There are large quantities of input.
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29.  Meaning-focused Output: Learning through Speaking and
Writing
 The same kinds of conditions apply to meaning-focused output as
apply to meaning-focused input:
1. The learners write and talk about things that are largely familiar to
them.
2. The learners’ main goal is to convey their message to someone else.
3. Only a small proportion of the language they need to use is not familiar
to them.
4. The learners can use communication strategies, dictionaries, or
previous input to make up for gaps in their productive knowledge.
5. There are plenty of opportunities to produce.
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30. Swain’s (1985) output hypothesis clarifying the role of speaking
and writing in second language learning.
A reaction to Krashen’s (1985) input hypothesis and its failure in
explaining the effects of immersion education.
Definition: “Put most simply, the output hypothesis claims that
the act of producing language (speaking and writing) constitutes,
under certain circumstances, part of the process of second
language learning”.
Three functions for output:
(1) the noticing/triggering function,
(2) the hypothesis testing function,
(3) the metalinguistic (reflective) function.
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31. Three functions for Output
 1. The noticing/triggering function: when learners are
attempting to produce the second language and they consciously
notice gaps in their knowledge. That is, they do not know how
to say what they want to say.
The effect on acquisition of noticing a gap through output could be
significantly greater than the effect of noticing through input in two
ways:
 First, productive learning involves having to search for and produce a word
form, whereas receptive learning involves having to find a meaning for a word
form. Productive learning typically results in more and stronger knowledge
than receptive learning (Griffin and Harley, 1996).
 Second, generative use involves meeting or using previously met language
items in ways that they have not been used or met before and produces deeper
learning than the simple retrieval of previously met items (Joe, 1998)
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32. Three functions for Output
The full effect of the noticing/triggering function is complete
after learners have had the chance to make up for the lack that
they have noticed which can occur in several ways:
 First, having noticed a gap during output, the learners then notice items in input
that they did not notice before. If learners notice that there is something they do
not know when writing, they later “read like a writer” giving attention to how
others say what they wanted to say.
 Second, having noticed a gap during output, learners may successfully fill that gap
through a lucky guess, trial and error, the use of analogy, first language transfer,
or problem solving.
 Third, having noticed a gap during output, learners may deliberately seek to find
the item by reference to outside sources like teachers, peers, or dictionaries.
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33. Three functions for Output
 2 . The hypothesis-testing function involves the learner trying out
something and then confirming or modifying it on the basis of perceived
success and feedback. The function is particularly important in
interaction when learners negotiate with each other or a teacher to
clarify meaning. The feedback provided in negotiation can improve not
only the comprehensibility of input, but can also be a way for learners to
improve their output.
 3. The metalinguistic (reflective) function involves largely
spoken output being used to solve language problems in collaboration
with others.
Common classroom applications: activities like the strip story, and
dictogloss where learners work together to construct or reconstruct a text,
communication tasks (explicit structure-based tasks) involving learners in
solving grammar problems through meaning-focused output with grammar
structures being the topic of communication
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34. Language-focused Learning
 Various names—focus on form, form focused instruction, deliberate
study and deliberate teaching, learning as opposed to acquisition,
intentional learning, and so on
 Involving deliberate learning of language features such as
pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse.
 The ultimate aim: To deal with messages
 The short-term aim: To learn language items.
 Typical activities: pronunciation practice, using substitution tables and
drills, learning vocabulary from word cards, intensive reading,
translation, memorizing dialogues, and getting feedback about writing
and deliberate learning of strategies such as guessing from context or
dictionary
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35. Language-focused Learning
 Conditions for language-focused learning:
 1. Deliberate attention to language features
 2. Processing the language features in deep and thoughtful ways
 3. Having opportunities to give spaced, repeated attention to the same
features
 4. The features focused on should be simple and not dependent on
developmental knowledge that the learners do not have.
 5. Features studied in the language-focused learning strand should also
occur often in the other three strands of the course.
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36. Language-focused Learning
Language-focused learning possible effects:
it can add directly to implicit knowledge
it can raise consciousness to help later learning
it can focus on systematic aspects of the language
it can be used to develop strategies.
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37. Becoming Fluent in Listening, Speaking, Reading
and Writing
The fluency development strand is meaning-focused i.e. the
learners’ aim is to receive and convey messages
 Certain conditions needed for The fluency strand :
1. All of what the learners are listening to, reading, speaking or
writing is largely familiar to them. That is, there are no
unfamiliar language features, or largely unfamiliar content or
discourse features.
2. The learners’ focus is on receiving or conveying meaning.
3. There is some pressure or encouragement to perform at a
faster than usual speed.
4. There is a large amount of input or output.
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38.  Balancing the Four Strands
 Integrating the Four Strands
 Principles and the Four Strands:
 1. Provide and organize large amounts of comprehensible input through both
listening and reading.
 2. Boost learning through comprehensible input by adding a deliberate
element.
 3. Support and push learners to produce spoken and written output in a variety
of appropriate genres.
 4. Provide opportunities for cooperative interaction.
 5. Help learners deliberately learn language items and patterns, including
sounds, spelling, vocabulary, multi-word units, grammar, and discourse.
 6. Train learners in strategies that will contribute to language learning.
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39. 7. Provide fluency development activities in each of the four skills of
listening, speaking, reading and writing.
8. Provide a roughly equal balance of the four strands of meaning
focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and
fluency development.
9. Plan for the repeated coverage of the most useful language items.
10. Use analysis, monitoring and assessment to help address learners’
language and communication needs.
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40. Learning Goals
(1) language items such as sounds, vocabulary and grammatical
constructions,
(2) the content or ideas of the subject being studied such as
geography, English literature,
(3) language skills such as listening, writing, fluency in using
known items, and strategies for coping with language difficulties,
(4) the organization of discourse such as rhetorical
features and communication strategies
40

41. Beginning to Listen and Speak in Another Language
The aims of a beginners course in listening and speaking:
(1) to help the learners to be able to cope with meaning-focused
input and meaning focused output as soon as possible;
(2) to motivate them in their language study by getting them to
engage in successful listening and speaking;
(3) to make the early learning as relevant as possible to their
language use needs.
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42. What Should Beginners Learn?
A set of learning priorities for a type of beginners:
1. Using a New Alphabet
2. Phrases for Talking about Yourself
3. Phrases and Vocabulary for Everyday Life
4. Sight Vocabulary
5. Classroom Expressions
6. High Frequency Words
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43. How Should the Teaching and Learning be Done?
 Five Principles for Teaching Beginners: MINUS
1 Meaning Focus on meaningful and relevant language
2 Interest Maintain interest through a variety of activities
3 New language Avoid overloading learners with too much new
language
4 Understanding Provide plenty of comprehensible input
5 Stress-free Create a friendly, safe, cooperative classroom
environment
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44. Activities and Approaches for Teaching and Learning
in a Beginners’ Course
Memorizing Useful Phrases and Sentences
The following list is ranked in order of importance.
1. The learners think of things they want to be able to say and
the teacher provides the second language phrase to say this.
2. The teacher thinks of the uses the learners need to make of the
language and thinks of useful phrases to meet these needs. In
some cases this may involve the teacher talking to the learners
about their language needs and observing their daily use of the
language.
3. The teacher consults lists of useful and frequent phrases that
researchers have developed.
4. The teacher follows a course book.
44

45. Practicing Sentence Patterns
Guiding Listening and Speaking through Techniques:
 What is it?
 Listening grids
 Surveys
 Interview
 Quizzes
 Puzzles
 Listen and do
 Bingo
 Listening to pictures
 Information transfer
45

46. Techniques for Early Meaning-focused Speaking
Descriptions
Stage one, two and three questions:
Stage one questions ask for an answer that can be pointed to either
in a picture or a reading passage
Stage two questions make the learners think
Stage three questions ask learners to use their imagination
Ask and move
Twenty questions
walk and talk
the same or different
odd one out
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47. Teaching Speaking
CLT: highlighted speaking as a central skill.
In all communicative models: Speaking as a medium
rather than a target skill to be considered
The problem Space:
Major questions:
1. How does a stretch of speech provide evidence of a
speaker’s proficiency?
2. What can be done to go beyond a specific level of
proficiency?
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48. 1. How does a stretch of speech provide
evidence of a speaker’s proficiency?
- The quality of the language repertoire used by the
speakers including the aspects of language needed to
complete a task: phonological, morpho-syntactic, lexical,
collocational, discoursal, and pragmatics evidence

- The ability to use the data to evaluate speaker’s
capacities (that depends on the evaluator’s capacity to
detect differences in grouping the features)

- The ability to distinguish between the proficiency
levels
People assessing speaker’s proficiency might be affected
due to:
 Their own data-based experience of the task
 Checking the presence of features likely to correlate with
a specific level of proficiency
 Knowing the circumstances of performance

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49. The Construct of Spoken Language
 Second Language Speaking construct:
1. The repertoire: the range of features and combinations of features that
it manifests, in addition to their respective probabilities
2. The range of conditions that explain the occurrence of these features
49

50. The Spoken Repertoire
The condition of production affecting the shape of speaking
Three main subgroups of linguistic features:
Phonological: segmental and super-segmental)
Lexico-grammatical: morphological and syntactic resources, a
lexical store, formulaic and pragmalinguistic units
Discourse: socio-pragmatic features, pragmatic discourse structures
50

51. Macro socio-pragmatic purposes determine the use of these
features to carry out a particular local social and informational
purpose.
Hierarchy of linguistic abilities based on the above mentioned
account:
Micro level: Phonemes serve the purpose of instantiating lexicogrammatical items
Mezzo level: Lexico-grammatical items in turn serve the purpose
of conveying meaning
Overarching macro level: achieving human convergence
51

52. Data from corpus studies confirming two main dimensions:
Fragmentation / integration
Involvement / detachment
Fragmentation: Relative lack of group modification and
subordination, the relative frequency of sub-clause level units or
fragments, and the occurrence of overt editing features
 Overt editing, paratactic utterance construction,
Involvement: features signaling personal identity and group
membership, features conveying personal feelings and attitudes to
the interlocutor or the content of dicourse
 Turn taking, adjacency pairs, exchanges, repairs,
52

53. Conditions of speech
Fragmentation and involvement are restricted by conditions of
speech
Presence condition: speech is used in the presence of
interlocutor
Two conditions due to the presence of interlocutor:
 Reciprocity: reflects the interlocutor’s speaking rights i.e. the speaker
should consider interlocutor’s knowledge, interests, and expectations and
his/her understanding and participation
 Time-pressure: the need to allow the interlocutor time to speak
53

54. Processes of oral language production
Four main phases of processing (usually called Intrapersonal and
information-oriented):
Conceptualization:
 Access of long term memory, tracking of the discourse, tracking of
interlocutor knowledge and expectations, overall pragmatic purpose, and
specific pragmatic-conceptual content of utterances
Formulation
 Principally lexico-grammatical selections, sequencing, phonological priming
Articulation
 The physical process of segmental and super segmental processing
Covert and overt monitoring
54

55. Two important aspects within this model:
1. The dimension of automated versus controlled modes of
processing
 Controlled is associated with conceptual and formulation phases of processing,
and effective speech monitoring
 Automated is associated with articulation and to some extent to formulation,
is associated with fluency, complexity and accuracy
2. If the control and automation are gradable or categorical
conditions
55

56. Construct of Oral Language Development
Based on cognitive psychology and cognition of language:
 Declarative knowledge:
factual (knowing that)
 Semantic memory (memory for concepts)
 Episodic memory (memory of events)
 Procedural knowledge:
how to do something (knowing how) Much
declarative knowledge is needed and accompanied with procedural
one to function in communication
The other perspective considers a distinction between repertoire
(declarative knowledge) and the person’s capacity to use it
(procedural knowledge)
56

57. Three major issues in development of approaches to
teaching oral language
1. Range of types of knowledge required for learners:
(declarative and procedural) including linguistic, pragmatic, and
discourse patterns
2. The ways in which procedural abilities can be developed in
classroom:
 How best to distribute pedagogical activities
 How best to use particular activities
3. The place of declarative work in managing oral language
development and the role of explicit instruction
57

58. Teaching Speaking
(Richards & Renandya)
Speaking is a hard task for EFL learners: appropriate use of
language in social interaction
Factors affecting adult EFL learners’ oral
communication
1. Age or Maturational Constraints
 Beginning learning a second language at an early age through natural exposure
different from learning at a later age (fluency and native like concerns)
2. Aural Medium
 Speaking feeds on listening
 Speaking is interwoven with listening
58

59. Teaching Speaking
 3. Sociocultural Factors
 Pragmatic perspective: lang. a form of social action i.e. linguistic communication
happens in the context of structured interpersonal exchange, and meaning
socially regulated
 Nonverbal communication
4. Affective Factors
 -self-esteem
 -empathy
 -anxiety
 -attitude
 -motivation
59

60. Teaching Speaking
Components Underlying Speaking Effectiveness
1. Grammatical Competence
 Grammar (morphology, syntax), vocabulary, & mechanics (the basic sounds of
letters, syllables, pronunciation of words, intonation, and stress)
2. Discourse Competence
 Intersentential relationship
3. Sociolinguistic Competence
 Knowing what is expected socially and culturally by users of target language,
acquiring the rules and norms governing the appropriate timing and realization
of speech acts
4. Strategic Competence
 The way learners manipulate language to meet communicative goals
60

61. Teaching Speaking
61

62. Teaching Speaking
Interaction as the key to improve EFL learners’ Speaking
Abilities
Speaking Functions:
 Interactional (maintaining social interactions)
 Transactional (conveying information & ideas)
Small Talk
Interactive Activities
62

63. 63

64. 64

65. 65

66. 66

67. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
 Research Foundation
 1. Letter-sound correspondences
 Beginning readers need to build strong linkages between orthographic forms and
the sounds of the language.
 All young learners benefiting from explicit instruction in letter-sound
correspondence being also very important in L2 reading.
 A strong relationship bet. Phonological awareness and text reading efficiency
 Good Readers:
 Recognize words on average in about 200-250 milliseconds
 Move their eyes ahead about 8 letter spaces per focus
 Make regressive eye movements about 12 percent of time
 Focus on more than %80 of content words and about %35 on function words
67

68. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
2. Vocabulary Knowledge
Fluent readers (both L1 & L2) have very large recognition-
vocabulary knowledge which is highly correlated with reading
ability
Vocabulary learning can lead to reading comprehension
improvement
3. Morphology, syntax, & discourse knowledge
Morphological knowledge much more important to advanced word
recognition and reading development
Strong relationships between syntax and discourse knowledge and
reading comprehension
68

69. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
4. Strategic Processing
Strategic processes ( inferencing, goal setting, ..) and meta-
cognition affecting reading comprehension
A low to moderate effect existing between strategy training and L2
reading comprehension
5. Extended Exposure to Print
Extended Reading over a long period of time improving reading
comprehension abilities.
6. Fluency
Existing a moderate correlation between word reading fluency and
reading comprehension
69

70. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
L1 and L2 Reading Differences
1. L2 learners having much smaller linguistic knowledge base of
the L2 when starting to read
2. L2 learners having much less experience with reading
exposure
3. L2 learners experiencing L2 reading differently due to having
experiences reading in two languages
4. L2 learners experiencing a range of transfer effects, some
interfering while some facilitating
5. L2 learners relying on a different combination of general
background knowledge
6. L2 learners facing distinct social and cultural assumptions in
L2 texts
70

71. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
 Implications for L2 Reading Instruction and Assessment
The skills and knowledge resources required for RC:
 1. The ability to decode graphic forms for efficient WR
 2. The ability to access the meaning of a large number of words
 3. The ability to draw meaning from phrase- and clause level grammatical
info.
 4. The ability to combine clause-level meanings to build a larger network
of meaning
 5. The ability to recognize discourse-level relationships
 6. The ability to use reading strategies
 7. The ability to set goals for reading
 8. The ability to use inferences of various types
71

72. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
 9. The ability to draw on prior knowledge
 10. The ability to evaluate, integrate, and synthesize information from
the text
 11. The ability to maintain these processes fluently
 12. The ability to maintain motivation in persisting reading
Teaching Reading
A set of more general curricular principles when building a
reading curriculum:
 1. Integrating four skills and conceptualizing L2 reading instruction
including extensive practice and exposure to print
72

73. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
 2. Reading materials required to be interesting, varied, good-looking,
accessible, ..
 3. Some degree of reader’s choice
 4. No need for special materials to introduce reading skills
 5. Lessons including pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading
activities
 6. The developmental goals to be followed through curriculum:
 a) Developing WR skills
 b) Building a large recognition voc.
 c) Building awareness of discourse structure
 d) Practicing comprehension skills
 e) Promoting strategic reading
73

74. Teaching and Testing Reading (Long &.)
 f) Practicing reading fluency
 g) Developing extensive reading
 h) Developing motivation
 i) Combing language learning with content learning
74

75. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya) 26
Nine Dilemma concerning reading research and instructional
practices:
 1. Many different contexts for L2 reading instruction
 2. The irrelevance of much of SLA research for L2 reading research
 3. Lack of sufficient formal aspects of language and genre structure
contributing to reader’s developing comprehension and inferencing
abilities
 4. The difficulty with learning large amount of voc.
 5. The social context of student’s home environment strongly
influencing reading development (e.g. social class)
 6. Learning to read by reading a lot (i.e. extensive reading)
 7. Using appropriate reading strategies, when and with what
combinations
75

76. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya)
8. Schema theory is hardly a theory, very little research indicate
how it works and how it helps reading
9. Students must learn transition from learning to read to
reading to learn other information
76

77. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya) 27
Teaching Strategic Reading
Plans for solving problems faced in constructing meaning
A comprehensive Approach (transactional)
1. Embedded in content area
2. Strategies taught via direct explanation, teacher modeling, and
feedback
3. Strategies constantly recycled over new texts and tasks
4. Strategy use developing over the long time
77

78. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya) 27
78

79. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya) 27 Analysis
of Strategy Use
79

80. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya) 28
Reading (ER)
80
Extensive

81. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya) 28
Students read large amount of material
Students usually choose what they want to read
Reading materials vary in terms of topic and genre
The materials are within their level of comprehension
Students usually take part in post-reading activities
Teachers read with their students
Teachers and students keep track of student progress
81

82. Teaching Reading (Richards & Renandya) 28
The benefits of ER
82

83. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
Lack of coherent theory of writing, none of the existing ones are
comprehensive
The focus:
L2 writers’ processes
L2 writers’ knowledge ( that the writers bring to the writing task)
L2 writing needs:
Learning an L2
Creating a text
Adapting it to a specific discourse community
83

84. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
Cognitive Factors in Learning to Write
L2 should be acquired and generated to write into it
Writing can help L2 in return
1. Writing as focus on form and pushed output
Teacher’s attempt to draw students’ attention to form, however
paying attention to form is possible without teacher’s help
Attention to form and meaning at the same time is possible
Collaborative writing activities (e.g. dictogloss) cause the increase of
attention to form
Swain believes learners need to complete tasks that helps them go
beyond their current levels by producing pushed output.
84

85. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
Planning opportunities causes effectiveness of form focused and
pushed output activities
2. Grammar Error Correction
Its effectiveness is under question
It facilitates language acquisition
The Writing Process & Process Approach
The expressivists consider writing as a process of discovering
85
meaning and personal voice
The cognitive approach consider writing as a problem-solving
activity

86. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
Process writing:
 an exploratory & recursive, rather than linear, pre-determined
process
 1. Second Language Learners’ Composing Processes
Think aloud protocol (the writers talk about what they are writing as they
do it)
Writing process after a specific kind of instruction such as Pre-writing (e.g.
generating ideas before writing)
2. Teacher Feedback
More research on Teacher’s feedback on content and organization
Usually students respond to feedback when rewriting their papers
Teachers and students should communicate on feedback
86

87. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
3. Peer Response
Attitude: Ss prefer feedback by Teacher’s rather than learner’s,
sometimes both preferred
The quality of feedback: Learners started negotiations when did not
understand the meaning but never corrected grammar
Peer response training on the quality of writing: not a great
difference between those trained and the ones not trained.
Peer response instruction (not the peer response) is beneficial
87

88. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
Post-Process Approaches
1. Genre-based Writing Instruction
The early emphasis of process writing on individual voice and self-
discovery is objected, due to lack of knowledge on the part of most
learners, and also less attention to form
 Genres are socially constructed and goal-oriented.
Written genres to be only understood within a specific context and
are produced for specific social purposes.
Different schools:
 Some focus on linguistic features (Sydney School & Halliday)
 How registers are constructed from linguistic resources
 New Rhetoric: language is inherently dialogic connecting the past to the
present new texts to previous texts, speakers and writers to their social
context,(their audience)
88

89. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
Situated learning approaches: learning is viewed as a social process,
embedded in relationships between experts and novices, rather than
as the transfer of knowledge
Advantages of genre-based over process based
 Genre -based is explicit and systematic
 The Genres chosen for instruction are based on students’ need
Disadvantages:
 Genres are so embedded in their contexts that it is too complex to divorce
them from these contexts and teach them
 Genres are merely recipes. No communicative purposes were given.
 Very little research exists in the field.
89

90. Teaching Writing (Long & …)
2. Sociocultural Approaches
The most important forms of human cognitive activity develop
through interaction within these social and material environments
Internalization: the process of making what was once external
assistance a resource that is internally available to the individual
 Assistance is called scaffolding
 Collaborative learning precedes and promotes individual development
3. Critical Pedagogy
 Previous pedagogies reinforce power relationships and simply teach writers to
adopt stances and genres that maintain their powerless positions, however,
Critical Pedagogy helps learners get familiar with these relationships, articulate
them, and challenge them. Classroom is seen as a social and political context
with its own power relationships .

90

91. Teaching Writing (Richards & Renandya)
Ten steps in planning writing course and training
teachers of writing
1. Ascertaining goals and institutional constraints
2. Deciding on theoretical principles
3. Planning content
4. Weighing the elements
5. Drawing up a syllabus
 1. Structural
 2. Functional
 3. Topical
 4. Situational
 5. Skills and processes
 6. Tasks
91

92. Teaching Writing (Richards & Renandya)
6. Selecting Materials
Topics, Types of writing, Opportunities for and instruction in
methods of generating ideas, instruction on principles of rhetorical
organization, opportunities for collaboration, opportunities for
revision, instruction in editing and proofreading
7. Preparing activities and roles
8. Choosing types and methods of feedback
9. Evaluating the course
10. Selecting the teacher’s experience
92

93. Selecting type of feedback (by teachers)
93

94. The writing Process and process writing
94

95. A genre-based approach to content writing instruction
Teaching students to self-edit
95

96. Teaching Grammar
 Formal grammarians assume a faculty of language must provide
 first a structured inventory of possible lexical items
 second the grammatical rules or principles that allow infinite combinations of symbols,
hierarchically organized
 Functional grammarians believe that the USE determines the FORM that is used for
a particular Purpose.
 Pragmatics and meaning are central
 Three types of meaning in grammatical structure:
 1. Ideational meaning: how our experience and inner thoughts are represented
 2. interpersonal meaning: how we interact with others through language
 3. textual meaning: how coherence is created in spoken and written texts
 Newer functional and cognitive linguistics focus on the use. These theories are called
usage-based holding the idea that grammatical rules do not precede but emerge from
language use.
 Grammar defined pedagogically which consider both traditional and newer
approaches: A system of meaningful structures and patterns that are governed by particular
pragmatic constraints. (Form, Meaning, Use)
96

97. Teaching Grammar
Approaches to Teaching Grammar:
PPP, Input-processing, Focus on form, grammaring
PPP
 An understanding of the grammar point is presented
 Students practice the grammar structure
 Automatic and accurate use of grammar is promoted through communication
 Non-interventionist: explicit grammar instruction has very little impact on the
natural acquisition process, since studying grammar rules can never lead to
unconscious use in fluent communication. So being exposed to
comprehensible input in an affectively non-threatening situation is the only
way to acquire language.
97

98. Teaching Grammar
Input-processing
Due to the problem of difficulty in attending simultaneously to
meaning and form, VanPatten believes that learners are guided to
pay attention to a feature in the target language input that is likely
to cause a problem.
Focus on Form
Due to the need for awareness to some aspects of L2 to learn them,
there is a call for the focus on form within a communicative or
meaning-based approach to language teaching such as task-based or
content-based language teaching
 Input enhancement: attempts to make certain features of the input more
outstanding e.g. visual enhamncement
98

99. Teaching Grammar
 Output production: comprehensible input alone is not adequate for L2
acquisition, comprehensible output forces learners to move from semantic
processing of input to syntactic processing in order to produce target output.
Grammaring:
The ability to use grammar structures accurately, meaningfully, and
appropriately.
Explicit versus implicit revisited
Metalanguage
Syllabus Design
Individual Differences
Error Correction/feedback
Spoken vs. Written Grammar
99

100. Teaching Grammar ( Richards & Renandya)
Seven Bad Reasons for Teaching Grammar-and Two
Good ones
1. Because it’s there
2. It’s tidy
3. It’s testable
4. Grammar as a security blanket
5. It made me who I am
6. You have to teach the whole system
7. Power
Two Good Reasons:
Comprehensibility
100
Acceptability

101. Addressing the Grammar Gap in Task Work
101

102. 102

103. 103

104. Teaching Pronunciation
104

105. 105

106. An Outline of one way to incorporate phonological components
into ESL lessons:
1. Speaking involves two or more people who use language for
international or transactional purposes. It is not the oral expressions
of written language.
2. Spoken language imparts referential and effective meaning.
Revealing our interest, attitudes, towards topics or people we talk
to via prosodic features: stress, intonation, pitch variation and
volume.
3. Native like speech takes time.
4. Not all problems will be at the level of production, some are
associated with perception.
5. Learners should have some understanding of the role of
phonology plays in language leaning.
106

107. 107

108. 108

109. 109

110. 110

111. 111

112. 112