Teaching grammarGrammar teaching depends on certain variables(learner and ins t ructional ) in the language teaching/learning contextGrammar presentation methods-deductive method: relies on reasoning, analyzing and comparingteaching procedure:teacher’s example on the board,teacher’s explanation of the rules (in student’s native language),student’s practice application of the rules.Advantages:good for selected and motivate students;save time to explain complex rules;increase students’ confidence in examina tion.Disadvantages:grammar is taught isolated ly;little attention is paid to meaning;the practice is often mechanical-inductive method:teaching procedure;authentic language presentation(give grammar examples);letstudents observe,analyse,compare examples;h elp students induct grammar rules,Advantages:inspire students’ thinking activities;motivate students’ learning interests;grammar is taught in context.Disadvantages:the presentation of grammar is more complex and time consumption;grammar is not taught directly;some rules can not be induced easily-guided discovery method: Similar to the inductive method:the students are induced to discoverrules by themselves (similar);the process of the discovery is carefully guided and assisted by the teacher and the rules are then elicited and taught explicitly.(different)Implicit and explicit knowledge:Implicit knowledge refers to knowledge that unconsciously exists in our mind, which we can make use of automatically without making any effort;Explicit knowledge refers to our conscious knowledge about the language. We can talk about it, analyse it and apply it in conscious ways.Learning and acquiring (second language acquisition theory)The synthesis approaches to grammatical pedagogy:Collocational: grammar should be built on collocational relations between individual lexical items and their subcategories.Constructive: one’s knowledge of grammar is built bit by bit, which closely model the way language is learned and used.Contextual: Elements and structures are taught in relation to their context. Syntactic and lexical choices are explicitly related to pragmatic ones, and to social and cultural contexts.Contrastive: grammar involves drawing the learner’s attention to contrast the differences between the target language and other language.Grammar practice:Pre-learning;Volume and repetition:Success-orientation.Heterogeneity .Teacher assistance.Interest1.Mechanical practice:activities that are aimed at form accuracy.By doing mechanicalpractice,students pay repeated attention to a key element in a structure.form of practice:Substitution and transformation drills2. Meaningful practice the focus is on the production, comprehension or exchange of meaning though the students “keep an eye on” the way newly learned structures ar e used in the process.ing prompts for practice:The prompts can be pictures, mimes, tables, charts or key words, etc.A good presentation should include both oral and written and form and meaning Visual materials can aid comprehensionIt’s the teacher’s involvement and his or her ability to personalise teaching and make activities engaging that often promotes successful learning.Teaching vocabularyThe first question need to know is what does knowing a word involve.A word:knowing its pronunciation and stress; spelling and grammatical properties; meaning; how and when to use it to express the intended meaning (freestanding and bound morphine)Vocabulary learning involves ate least two aspects of meaning: the understanding of its denotative and connotative meaning; and understanding the sense relations among wordsDenotative meaning of a word or a lexical item refers to those words that we use to label things as regards real objectsConnotative meaning of a word refers to ‘the attitudes or emotions of a language user in choosing a word and the influence of these on the listener or reader’s interpretation of the word. This words that mayexpress a positive or negative attitude or subtle feelings toward something.Collocations refers to words that co-occur with high frequency and have been accepted as ways for the use of words. It is believed that teaching word collocations is a more effective way than just teaching one single word at a time.Synonyms refer to items that mean the same, or nearly the same.Antonyms refer to items that mean the opposite of a word.Hyponyms refer to words which can be grouped together under the same superordinate conceptReceptive and Productive vocabulary Passive vocabulary: the words they know.Active vocabulary: the wordsthey useSo the job for the teacher is to guide the students to those words which will help them to add to their active vocabularies, and to distinguish those words from the much larger number of passive items. At the beginning of language learning, all the words which are taught must be acquired for active use, later, at intermediate andadvanced levels, most of the words students meet will only be needed for passive use. Ways of consolidating vocabulary:labelling,spot the difference,descibe and draw,play a game,use word series,word bingo,word association,find a synonyms and antonym,categories,using word net-work,using theInternet resources for some ideasDeveloping vocabulary building strategies:review regularly,guess meaning from context, Organize vocabularyeffectively,using a dictionary,manage strategy useTeaching listening Listening problems:lack of teaching materials,both with print materials and audio or video tapes,lack of equipment in some schools;lack of real-life situations:lack of professional qualified instructorsA number of people have frequently made the point that of the total time an individual is engaged incommunication: approximately 9% is devoted to writing, 16% to reading, 30% to speaking,45% to listening Listening and reading are receptive skills, but listening can be more difficult than reading.Different speakers produce the same sounds in different waysThe listener has little or no control over the speed of the input of spoken material; Spoken material is often heard only once and in most cases，we cannot go back and listen again as we can whenwe read;The listener cannot pause to work out the meaning of the heard material as can be done when reading; Speech is more likely to be distorted by the media which transmit sounds or background noise that can make itdifficult to hear clearly; The listener sometimes has to deal simultaneously with another task while listening, such as formal note-taking, writing down directions or messages from telephone calls, or operating while listening to instructions. Characteristics of the listening process,formal or informal?rehearsed ornon-rehearsed?can the listener interact with the speaker or not?Listening characteristics:Spontaneity,Context,visual clues,listener’sresponse,speaker’s adjustmentListening purpose:for social reasons,to obtain and exchange informationPrinciples and models of teaching listeningFocus on process:(they have to hear what is being said,they have to pay attention and construct ameaningful message in their mind by relati ng what they hear to what they already know;it’s also possible to hear people talking without paying attention;we also know that if we don’t have enough previous knowledge of whatis being said,it’s more difficult to make sense of what is said) Combine listening with other skills;Focus on the comprehension ofmeaning;Grade difficulty level appropriately Designing listening activity:give a clear purpose, a specific task,an appropriate context for doing them Bottom-up model:Listening comprehension is believed to start with sound and meaning recognitions.Inother words,‘we use information in the speech itself to try to comprehend the meaning’Listeners constructmeaning of what they hear based on the sound they hear. Top-down model:listening for gist and making use of the contextual clues and background knowledge toconstruct meaning are emphasised.In other words,listening comprehension involves ‘knowledge that a listener brings to a text,sometimes called ‘inside the head’ information,as opposed to the informatio n that is available within the text itself’ In such a case,listeners can understand better if they know something about the speaker,the setting,the topic and the purpose of the talk.prior knowledge or schematic knowledge—mental frameworks forvarious things and experience we hold in our long-term memory Pre-listening activities:aim to motivate students,to activate their prior knowledge,and to teach keywords or key sentences to the students before listening begins predicting,setting thescene,listening for the gist and specific informationWhile-listening:no specific responses,listen and tick,listen and sequence,listen and act,listen and draw,listenand fill,listen and take notes Post-listening:multiple-choice questions,answering questions,note-taking andgap-filling ,dictogloss(preparation dictation reconstruction analysis and correction) Integrate listening with the practice of other language skills,role play,debate,discussion,writing backTeaching speakingSpeech characteristic:spontaneous,full of false starts repetitions incomplete sentences short phrasestime-constraint spoken languages features:Using less complex syntax;Taking short cuts,(incomplete sentences);Using fixed conventional phrases/ chunks. Using devices such as fillers, hesitation device to give time to think beforespeaking.Both learners and teachers need to learn to accept repetitions,rephrase,hesitations,incomplete sentences,fillers or pauses.this doesn’t mean we don’t encourage fluent speaking.In training students’speaking skills,feat ures of natural speech should be accepted.this doesn’t only have implication for teaching speaking but also for assessing speaking.Encourage students to speak up is the first and most important task Principles:Balancing accuracy-based with fluency-based practices, Contextualising practice, Personalising practice, Building up confidence, Maximising meaningful interactions, Helping students develop speakingstrategies Designing speaking tasks:meaningful motivation linguistically appropriate cognitively challenge Maximum foreign talk even participation high motivation rightlanguage levelPre-communicative activities :structural,quasi-communicative Communicative activities :Functionalcommunicative and Social interaction Role-play :perform in different moods,change different role relationship,actual word can be varied,make thedialogue longer Learners should be helped move from form to using what is learned inmeaningful communication The problem is not having nothing to say but lacking the opportunity tosay itTeaching readingReading aloud and silent reading:Reading aloud cannot replace silent reading as it involvesonly the skills of pronunciation and intonation.Real reading ability re-quires the reading skills of skimming, scanning,predicting Effective reading:clear purpose in reading; read silently; read phrase by phrase,rather than word by word; concentrate on the important bits,skim the rest,and skip the insignificant parts; use different speeds and strategies for different reading tasks; perceive the information in the target language rather than mentally translate; guess the meaning of new words from the context,or ignore them; use background information to helpunderstand the text.Reading comprehension means extracting the relevant information from the text as efficiently as possible,connecting the information from written message with one’s own knowledge to arrive at anunderstanding (construction of meaning from printed or written message)Two broad levels in reading:1) a recognition task of perceiving visualsignals from the printed page through the eyes;2) a cognitive task of interpreting the visual information,relating thereceive information with reader’s own knowledgeVocabulary role:efficient reading begins with a lightening-like automatic recognition of word.this initial process of accurate,rapid and automatic recognition of vocabulary frees one’s mind to use other resources(reasoningabilities,,knowledge about topic)to construct meaning Sight vocabulary:you can recognise with both sounds and meanings without special effort from your brain Fluent reading depends on an adequate sight vocabulary,a generalknowledge about the target language, some knowledge about the topic, wide knowledge about the world and enough knowledge abouttext types. Teaching model:bottom-up model top-down model interactive model Pre-reading:pooling existing knowledge about the topic;predicting the contents of the text,skimming and scanning the text or parts of the text forcertain purpose;learning key words and structures(predicting setting the sceneskimming scanning) While reading: Information presented in plain text form is not facilitative for information retention The way to transfer information from one form to another is called atransition deviceReading comprehension questions Questions for literal comprehension.directly and explicitly available in the ually answeredin the words of the text itself. Questions involving reorganization or reinterpretation.obtain literal information fromvarious parts and put it to-gether or reinterpret Questions for inferences. This type of questions require students to consider what is implied but notexplicitly stated. Questions for evaluation or appreciation.most sophisticated ques-tions which involve making a judgment about the text in terms of what the writer is trying to convey.Questions for personal response. The answers to these questions depend most on the reader’sreaction to the content of the text.Post-reading:discussion questions,reproducing the text,role play,gap-filling,discussion,retelling,writingThe teaching of reading should focus on developing students’reading skills and strategies and on maintaining students’motivation for readingTeaching writingWriting purpose:get things done and to form;maintain social relationships;give a voice for shy students;less threatening for anxious students as it gives them to think about their meaning and purpose;raise awareness of how language worksA communicative approach to writing:Writing for learning” and “writing forcommunication”Sense of authenticity and audience motivation for writing purpose for writing proper procedures for writingProblems in writing tasks：They are mainly accuracy-based.They are designed to practise a certaintarget structures.There is insufficient preparation before the writing stage.There is no sense of audience and authenticity.Students are given ideas to express rather than being invited to invent their own.There is no opportunity for creative writing, particular for expressing unusual or original ideas.Many of them are test-oriented.The important point is that they are given the freedom to write about themselves rather than to write what they are told to write and therefore what they write should be more meaningful and communicativeA process approach to writing: creating a motivation to write, brainstorming, mapping, freewriting, outlining, drafting, editing, revising, proofreading and conferencing.Motivating students to write.1.make the topic of writing as close as possib le to students’ life.leave students enough room for creativity and imagination. prepare students well before writing. encourage collaborative group writing as well as individual writing. provide opportunities for students to share their writings. provide constructive and positive feedback.treat students’ errors strategically. give students a sense of achievement from time to time.We have emphasized that the teaching of writing should focus on the process rather than the product, and that all the writing tasks should have communicative purposesSummative assessment is mainly based on testing,it’s done mostly at the end of a learning period or a school yearFormative assessment is based on information collected in the classroom during the teaching process for the purpose of improving teaching and learningTeacher’s observations continuous assessment student’s self-assessment project work portfolios。