Ðåôåðàòû - Àôîðèçìû - Ñëîâàðè
Ðóññêèå, áåëîðóññêèå è àíãëèéñêèå ñî÷èíåíèÿ
Ðóññêèå è áåëîðóññêèå èçëîæåíèÿ
 

Oxford's teachhing methods of english language

Ðàáîòà èç ðàçäåëà: «Ïåäàãîãèêà»


                                  Contents


|Contents                                        |2               |
|Introduction                                    |3               |
|Theory part:     The use of games               |4               |
|      Note-taking                               |10              |
|Practical part : Grammar games:                 |14              |
|Speed                                           |14              |
|Spot the differences                            |15              |
|Tipycal questions                               |16              |
|Achievements                                    |16              |
|Reported advioce                                |17              |
|Picture the past                                |18              |
|Impersonating members of a set                  |18              |
|No backshift                                    |19              |
|Incomparable                                    |20              |
|One question behind                             |20              |
|Sit down then                                   |22              |
|Only if                                         |22              |
|Two-word verbs                                  |23              |
|The world of take                               |25              |
|A dictionary game                               |26              |
|Eyes                                            |27              |
|Umbrella                                        |28              |
|Listening to time                               |29              |
|Guess my grammar                                |30              |
|Puzzle stories                                  |30              |
|Word ordwer dictation                           |31              |
|Grammar lessons taking notes:                   |33              |
|Passive voice                                   |33              |
|Context and meaning                             |34              |
|Subject matter note taking                      |36              |
|Conclusion                                      |37              |
|References                                      |38              |



                                Introduction



    This course work  presents  two  teaching  methods  widely  approved  in
Oxfrord Universities: grammar and vocabulary games  and  the  variations  of
taking notes during the lesson.
    Both of methods are embodied in the theory  and  practical  part.  As  a
theory part I give research works  of  professional  lavguage  teachers  who
studied the methods they considered as useful and effective  and  put  their
opinion and reseach works on the  press.  I’m  very  grateful  to  them  for
sharing their experiences with us. So this part of  my  work  describes  the
method itself, gives  tests  proving  its  effectiveness  and  touches  some
problem spots of it. Next I offer  practical  part  containing  examples  of
taking these methods in the classroom.
    None of these methods presented here is any brand new discovery for  the
language teacher. Every teacher used  to  practice  them  in  his/her  work,
there’s only a try to add something new to well known and allegedebly  usual
techiques  (like  note-taking),  to  study  them  deeper   and   show   more
interesting and useful side of them. In  short  words  some  suggestions  to
make them work better.
    The reason I’ve chosen this theme is the wish to know more about how  to
make the  lesson  more  interesting  and  useful  at  the  same  time.  I’ve
benefitted much by collectiong and studing all this material I present  here
and hope you’ll find this work worth reviewing.


The Use of Games

For Vocabulary Presentation and Revision

                                                        by Agnieszka Uberman

|Vocabulary acquisition is increasingly viewed as   |
|crucial to language acquisition. However, there is |
|much disagreement as to the effectiveness of       |
|different approaches for presenting vocabulary     |
|items. Moreover, learning vocabulary is often      |
|perceived as a tedious and laborious process.      |
|In this article I would like to examine some       |
|traditional techniques and compare them with the   |
|use of language games for vocabulary presentation  |
|and revision, in order to determine whether they   |
|are more successful in presenting and revising     |
|vocabulary than other methods.                     |
|From my teaching experience I have noticed how     |
|enthusiastic students are about practising language|
|by means of games. I believe games are not only fun|
|but help students learn without a conscious        |
|analysis or understanding of the learning process  |
|while they acquire communicative competence as     |
|second language users.                             |



Vocabulary teaching techniques

There are numerous techniques concerned with vocabulary presentation.
However, there are a few things that have to be remembered irrespective of
the way new lexical items are presented. If teachers want students to
remember new vocabulary, it needs to be learnt in context, practised, and
then revised to prevent students from forgetting. We can tell the same
about grammar.Teachers must make sure students have understood the new
words, which will be remembered better if introduced in a 'memorable way'.
Bearing all this in mind, teachers have to remember to employ a variety of
techniques for new vocabulary presentation and revision.


Gairns and Redman (1986) suggest the following types of vocabulary
presentation techniques:


   1. Visual techniques. These pertain to visual memory, which is considered
      especially helpful with vocabulary retention. Learners remember better
      the material that has been presented by means of visual  aids.  Visual
      techniques lend  themselves  well  to  presenting  concrete  items  of
      vocabulary-nouns; many are also helpful in conveying meanings of verbs
      and adjectives. They help students associate presented material  in  a
      meaningful way and  incorporate  it  into  their  system  of  language
      values.

   2.  Verbal  explanation.  This  pertains  to  the  use  of   illustrative
      situations,  synonymy,  opposites,  scales  (Gairns  and   Redman   ),
      definition (Nation) and categories (Allen and Valette ).


   3. Use of dictionaries.  Using  a  dictionary  is  another  technique  of
      finding out meanings of unfamiliar words and expressions. Students can
      make  use  of  a  variety  of  dictionaries:  bilingual,  monolingual,
      pictorial, thesauri, and the like. As  French  Allen  perceives  them,
      dictionaries are 'passports to independence,' and using them is one of
      the student-centered learning activities.



Using games


The advantages of using games. Many  experienced  textbook  and  methodology
manuals writers have argued that games are not just time-filling  activities
but have a great educational value. W.  R.  Lee  holds  that  most  language
games make learners use the language instead of thinking about learning  the
correct forms. He also says that games should  be  treated  as  central  not
peripheral to the foreign language teaching programme. A similar opinion  is
expressed by Richard-Amato, who believes games to be fun but  warns  against
overlooking  their  pedagogical  value,  particularly  in  foreign  language
teaching. There are  many  advantages  of  using  games.  'Games  can  lower
anxiety, thus making the acquisition of input more likely'  (Richard-Amato).
They are highly motivating and entertaining, and they can give shy  students
more opportunity to express their opinions and feelings (Hansen). They  also
enable learners to acquire new experiences within a foreign  language  which
are not always possible during  a  typical  lesson.  Furthermore,  to  quote
Richard-Amato, they, 'add diversion to the  regular  classroom  activities,'
break the ice, '[but also] they are used to introduce  new  ideas'.  In  the
easy, relaxed atmosphere which is created by using games, students  remember
things faster and better (Wierus and Wierus ). Further  support  comes  from
Zdybiewska, who believes games to be a good way of practising language,  for
they provide a model of what learners will use  the  language  for  in  real
life in the future.
Games encourage, entertain, teach, and promote fluency. If not  for  any  of
these reasons, they should be used  just  because  they  help  students  see
beauty in a foreign language and not just problems .


Choosing appropriate  games.  There  are  many  factors  to  consider  while
discussing games, one of which  is  appropriacy.  Teachers  should  be  very
careful about choosing games if they want to make them  profitable  for  the
learning  process.  If  games  are  to  bring  desired  results,  they  must
correspond to either the student's level, or age, or to  the  material  that
is to be introduced or practised. Not all  games  are  appropriate  for  all
students irrespective of their age. Different  age  groups  require  various
topics, materials, and modes of games. For example,  children  benefit  most
from games  which  require  moving  around,  imitating  a  model,  competing
between groups and the like. Furthermore, structural games that practise  or
reinforce a certain  grammatical  aspect  of  language  have  to  relate  to
students' abilities and prior knowledge. Games  become  difficult  when  the
task or the topic is unsuitable or outside the student'sexperience.

Another factor influencing the choice of a game is its length and  the  time
necessary for its completion. Many games have a time  limit,  but  according
to Siek-Piskozub,  the  teacher  can  either  allocate  more  or  less  time
depending on the students' level, the number of people in a  group,  or  the
knowledge of the rules of a game etc.

When to use games. Games are often used as short warm-up activities or  when
there is some time left at the end of a lesson.  Yet,  as  Lee  observes,  a
game 'should not be regarded as a marginal activity filling in  odd  moments
when the teacher and class have nothing better to do'. Games ought to be  at
the heart of teaching foreign languages. Rixon suggests that games  be  used
at all stages of the lesson, provided that they are suitable  and  carefully
chosen. At different stages of the  lesson,  the  teacher's  aims  connected
with a game may vary:


   1. Presentation. Provide a good model making its meaning clear;
   2. Controlled practise. Elicit good imitation of new language and
      appropriate responses;
   3. Communicative prastice. Give students a chance to use the language .


Games also lend themselves well to revision exercises helping learners
recall material in a pleasant, entertaining way. All authors referred to in
this article agree that even if games resulted only in noise and
entertained students, they are still worth paying attention to and
implementing in the classroom since they motivate learners, promote
communicative competence, and generate fluency. However, can they be more
successful for presentation and revision than other techniques? The
following part of this article is an attempt at finding the answer to this
question.



The use of games for presenting and revising vocabulary


Vocabulary presentation. After the teacher  chooses  what  items  to  teach,
Haycraft suggests following certain guidelines. These include  teaching  the
vocabulary 'in spoken form first' to prevent students from  pronouncing  the
words in the form they are written, placing the new items  in  context,  and
revising them..I shall now proceed to present practical examples of games  I
have used for vocabulary introduction and revision.

Description of the groups. For the purpose  of  vocabulary  presentation,  I
chose two groups of  third  form  students.  With  one  of  them  I  used  a
presentation game and with the other translation and  context  guessing.  In
both groups, students' abilities varied-ranging from those whose command  of
English was very good, able to communicate easily  using  a  wide  range  of
vocabulary and grammatical structures, and those who found it  difficult  to
communicate.
After covering the first conditional and time clauses  in  the  textbook,  I
decided to present students with a set of idioms relating to  bodily  parts-
mainly those connected with the head (taken from The Penguin  Dictionary  of
English Idioms  ).  The  choice  of  these  expressions  was  determined  by
students' requests to learn  colloquial  expressions  to  describe  people's
moods, behavior, etc. Moreover, in one of the exercises the authors  of  the
textbook called for examples of  expressions  which  contain  parts  of  the
body. For the purpose of the lesson I adapted Gear  and  Gear's  'Vocabulary
Picture-Puzzle' from the English Teaching Forum  (1988).  Students  were  to
work out the meanings of sixteen idiomatic expressions.  All  of  them  have
Polish equivalents, which made it easier for students to remember them.



Description of vocabulary picture-puzzle

To prepare the puzzle, I cut two equal-sized pieces of cardboard paper  into
rectangles. The selected idioms were written  onto  the  rectangles  in  the
puzzle-pieces board and their definitions on the game board. On the  reverse
side of the puzzle-pieces board, I glued colorful photographs of  landscapes
and then cut the puzzle-pieces board into individual pieces,  each  with  an
idiom on it. The important thing was the  distribution  of  the  idioms  and
their definitions on the boards. The definitions were  placed  in  the  same
horizontal row opposite to the idioms so that  when  put  together  face  to
face each idiom faced its definition.


Puzzle Pieces Board

The idioms and their definitions were the following (all taken from The
Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms p.77):

   1. to be soft in the head: foolish, not very intelligent;
   2. to have one's hair stand on end: to be terrified;
   3. to be two-faced: to agree with a person to his face but disagree with
      him behind his back;
   4. to make a face: to make a grimace which may express disgust, anger;
   5. to be all eyes: to be very attentive;
   6. to be an eye-opener: to be a revelation;
   7. to be nosy: to be inquisitive, to ask too many questions;
   8. to be led by the nose: to be completely dominated by, totally
      influenced by;
   9. long ears: an inquisitive person who is always asking too many
      questions;
  10. to be all ears: to listen very attentively;
  11. to be wet behind the ears: to be naive, inexperienced;
  12. a loose mouth: an indiscrete person;
  13. one's lips are sealed: to be obliged to keep a secret;
  14. to have a sweet tooth: to have a liking for sweet food, sugar, honey,
      ice cream, etc.;
  15. to grind one's teeth: to express one's fury;
  16. to hold one's tongue: to say nothing, to be discrete;

    The task for students. Work out the puzzle by matching  the  idioms  and
their definitions. First, put  puzzle-pieces  on  the  desk  with  the  word
facing up. Take one and match the  idiom  to  the  definition.  Having  done
that, place the puzzle-piece, word-side-up, in the  chosen  rectangle.  When
you have used up all the pieces, turn them over. If they form a  picture  of
a landscape, the choices are correct. If  not,  rearrange  the  picture  and
check the idiom-definition correspondences.

    The game objectives. To work out  the  puzzle,  students  had  to  match
idioms with their definitions. The objective of the game was for  each  pair
to cooperate in completing the activity  successfully  in  order  to  expand
their vocabulary with, in this case, colloquial expressions.
    All students were  active  and  enjoyed  the  activity.  Some  of  their
comments were as follows: 'Very interesting and  motivating'  'Learning  can
be a lot of fun' etc.
    Students also had to find the appropriate matches in the  shortest  time
possible to beat other participating  groups.  The  element  of  competition
among the groups made them concentrate and think intensively.

    Translation activity. The other group of students had to  work  out  the
meanings of the idioms  by  means  of  translation.  Unlike  the  previously
described group, they did not know the  definitions.  The  expressions  were
listed on the board, and students  tried  to  guess  their  proper  meanings
giving different options. My role was to direct  them  to  those  that  were
appropriate. Students translated the idioms into Polish  and  endeavored  to
find similar or corresponding expressions in  their  mother  tongue.  Unlike
the game used for the purpose of idiom introduction, this activity  did  not
require the preparation of any aids. Fewer  learners  participated  actively
or enthusiastically in this lesson and most did not show great  interest  in
the activity.

    Administering the test. In order to find out which group acquired new
vocabulary better, I designed a short test, for both groups containing a
translation into English and a game. This allowed learners to activate
their memory with the type of activity they had been exposed to in the
presentation.



The test checking the acquisition of newly-introduced reading vocabulary

    I. Match the definitions of the idioms with the pictures and write
which idiom is depicted and described:


   1. to be inexperienced
   2. to listen very attentively
   3. to be terrified
   4. to be dominated by someone
   5. to be attentive
   6. to be insincere, dishonest

    The proper answers are the following:

   1. d ., to be wet behind the ears
   2. a ., to be all ears
   3. e ., to have one's hair stand on end
   4. f ., to be led by the nose
   5. b ., to be all eyes
   6. c ., to be two-faced.



    II. Translate into English (the translated sentences should be the
following):


   1. He is soft in the head.
   2. She is two-faced, always criticizes me behind my back.
   3. Mark has a sweet tooth, so he is not too slim.
   4. Will you hold your tongue if I tell you something?
   5. Why are you such a loose mouth?
   6. Don't be nosy! This is none of your business.


    Analysis of the results. Group I received an  average  mark  of  3.9  as
compared to 3.4 obtained by group II. In other words, the  group  which  had
learned vocabulary through games performed  significantly  better.  However,
it is especially interesting and surprising  that  group  II  also  received
high scores for the game. Even though learners in group I had  the  material
presented by means of translation, most students got better  marks  for  the
game.

Summing up. Even though the results of  one  activity  can  hardly  lead  to
informative conclusions, I believe that the results suggest that the use  of
games for presentation of new vocabulary is  very  effective  and  enjoyable
for students. Despite the fact that the preparation of a game may  be  time-
consuming and suitable material may be hard to find, teachers should try  to
use them to add diversion to presentational techniques.



Revising vocabulary

Many sources referred  to  in  this  article  emphasise  the  importance  of
vocabulary revision. This process aims at helping students  acquire  active,
productive vocabularies. Students need to practise regularly what they  have
learnt; otherwise, the material will fade away. Teachers can resort to  many
techniques for vocabulary consolidation  and  revision.  To  begin  with,  a
choice of graphs and grids can be used. Students may give a definition of  a
given item to be found by other students. Multiple choice  and  gap  filling
exercises  will  activate  the  vocabulary   while   students   select   the
appropriate response. Teachers can use lists of synonyms or antonyms  to  be
matched, sentences to be paraphrased, or just some words or  expressions  in
context to be substituted by synonymous expressions. Doing cloze tests  will
show students' understanding of a passage, its organisation,  and  determine
the choice of  lexical  items.  Visual  aids  can  be  of  great  help  with
revision.  Pictures,   photographs,   or   drawings   can   facilitate   the
consolidation of both individual  words  as  well  as  idioms,  phrases  and
structures. There is also a large variety of word  games  that  are  'useful
for practising  and  revising  vocabulary  after  it  has  been  introduced'
(Haycraft). Numerous puzzles, word squares,  crosswords,  etc.,  are  useful
especially for pair or group work.
I shall now present the games I have used for vocabulary revision.

Description of the group. I  gave  teachers  a  questionnaire  to  determine
their view of using games  for  vocabulary  teaching.  In  response  to  the
questionnaire, many teachers said  they  often  used  games  for  vocabulary
revision. Some claimed they were successful and usually more effective  than
other methods. To see if this is really true, I decided to use  a  crossword
puzzle with a group of first year students.

The crossword puzzle. After completing  a  unit  about  Van  Gogh,  students
wanted to expand  their  vocabulary  with  words  connected  with  art.  The
students compiled lists of words, which they had learnt. In order to  revise
the vocabulary, one of the groups had to work out the crossword puzzle.
Students worked in pairs. One person in each pair was provided with  part  A
of the crossword puzzle and the other with part B. The  students'  task  was
to fill in their part of the puzzle with the missing words  known  to  their
partner. To complete the activity, learners had to ask each  other  for  the
explanations,  definitions,  or  examples  to  arrive  at  the   appropriate
answers. Only after getting the answer right could they put it down  in  the
suitable place of their part of the crossword. Having completed the  puzzle,
students were supposed to find out what word was  formed  from  the  letters
found in the shaded squares.
     Students  enjoyed  the  activity  very  much  and  did  not  resort  to
translation at any point.  They  used  various  strategies  to  successfully
convey the meanings of the words in question-e.g., definitions,  association
techniques, and examples. When everyone was ready, the answers were  checked
and students were asked  to  give  examples  of  definitions,  explanations,
etc., they had used to get the missing words.


 The other group performed a similar task. Students were to define as
follows:


I. Define the following words: shade, icon, marker, fresco, perspective,
hue, daub, sculptor, still life, watercolor, palette, background.

II. Find the words these definitions describe:

   1. a public show of objects
   2. a variety of a colour
   3. a wooden frame to hold a picture while it is being painted
   4. a pale or a delicate shade of a colour
   5. a picture of a wide view of country scenery
   6. an instrument for painting made of sticks, stiff hair, nylon
   7. a painting, drawing, or a photograph of a real person
   8. a piece of work, especially art which is the best of its type or the
      best a person has made
   9. painting, music, sculpture, and others chiefly concerned with
      producing beautiful rather than useful things
  10. a line showing the shape (of something)
  11. a person who is painted, drawn, photographed by an artist
  12. a picture made with a pen, pencil, etc.


Analysis of results. The results show that the crossword puzzle, though
seemingly more difficult since it required the knowledge of words and their
definitions and not mere recognition and matching, was easier for 27.4% of
the learners and granted them more points for this part of the test. For
the majority of the students (nearly 60%) both activities proved equally
easy and out of the group of thirteen, eleven students had the highest
possible score.



Summing up

These numbers suggest that games are effective activities as a technique
for vocabulary revision. Students also prefer games and puzzles to other
activities. Games motivate and entertain students but also help them learn
in a way which aids the retention and retrieval of the material (This is
what the learners stated themselves).

However, the numbers also show that not everyone feels comfortable with
games and puzzles and not everyone obtains better results.
Although  one  cannot  overgeneralise  from  one  game,   student   feedback
indicates  that  many  students  may  benefit  from  games  in  revision  of
vocabulary.


Conclusions

Recently, using games has become  a  popular  technique  exercised  by  many
educators  in  the  classrooms  and  recommended  by  methodologists.   Many
sources, including the ones quoted in this work, list the advantages of  the
use of games in foreign language classrooms. Yet, nowhere have I  found  any
empirical evidence for  their  usefulness  in  vocabulary  presentation  and
consolidation.
Though the main objectives of the games were to acquaint students  with  new
words or phrases and help them consolidate lexical items, they  also  helped
develop the students' communicative competence.
From  the  observations,  I  noticed  that  those  groups  of  students  who
practised vocabulary activity with games felt more motivated and  interested
in what they were doing. However, the time they spent working on  the  words
was usually slightly longer  than  when  other  techniques  were  used  with
different groups. This may suggest that  more  time  devoted  to  activities
leads to better results. The marks students received suggested that the  fun
and relaxed atmosphere accompanying  the  activities  facilitated  students'
learning. But this is not the only possible explanation of such an  outcome.
The use of games during the lessons might have motivated  students  to  work
more on the vocabulary items on their own, so the game might have only  been
a good stimulus for extra work.
Although, it cannot be said that games are always better and easier to  cope
with for everyone, an overwhelming majority of pupils  find  games  relaxing
and motivating. Games should be an integral part of a lesson, providing  the
possibility  of  intensive  practise  while  at  the  same  time   immensely
enjoyable for both students and teachers.  My  research  has  produced  some
evidence which shows that games are useful and more  successful  than  other
methods of vocabulary presentation and revision.  Having  such  evidence  at
hand, I wish to recommend the wide use of games with vocabulary  work  as  a
successful way of acquiring language competence.



Note-taking


A Useful Device

                                                      by Clara Perez Fajardo

       Has it ever happened that  you  read  or  listen  to  something,  and
       shortly afterwards when you want to recall it, you can only  remember
       a small part? Have you ever thought of how many interesting ideas you
       have missed, just because you have not taken a few  seconds  to  note
       them down as they occurred to you? Everyday happenings  pass  through
       time and can never be recalled again if they are not recorded  either
       on a tape or with a video camera. But, not  many  of  us  have  these
       devices always handy. What we do have available is a simple sheet  of
       paper, a pencil, and our five senses.  Taking  notes  on  what  takes
       place not only permits us to remember but also facilitates  our  oral
       and written communication.
       Regardless of their age or level, students tend to rely too  much  on
       their memory, instead of taking  notes.  For  this  reason,  I  began
       devising different tasks which demand the recall of  facts  that  the
       students would have only if they had taken notes.  The  results  have
       motivated me to do further research on the topic through  interviews,
       reading, and analysis-all the time noting down the information I  was
       obtaining.


The note-taking process

In order to reconstruct a complete account of  what  one  perceives  through
listening, reading, observing, discussing, or thinking, it is  necessary  to
take notes either simultaneously with the act  of  perception  or  after  an
interval of just a few seconds. We cannot expect to remember  everything  we
perceive, and despite the advantages of training our memory,  it  is  better
to have notes taken at the moment things happen.
Language educators have approached note-taking from different perspectives.
McKeating (1981) sees note-taking as a complex activity which combines
reading and listening with selecting, summarizing, and writing.

Grellet (1986) advises helping students to establish the structure of a
text so they can pull out the key ideas and leave out nonessential
information. Nwokoreze (1990) believes that 'it is during the note-taking
stage that students reach the highest level of comprehension.'



Two main aspects concerning note-taking:

It involves the combination of different skills, i.e.; listening or
reading, selecting, summarizing, and writing.
It requires the selection of relevant information from the nonessential.

Moreover, most authors see note-taking as a complex activity which must be
approached gradually. When teaching the skill, Raimes suggests that
elementary-level students can be given a skeleton outline to work with when
they take notes, so that their listening is more directed. Advanced
students can listen to longer passages and make notes as they listen.

Murray refers to a 'rehearsal for writing,' which begins as an unwritten
dialogue within the writer's mind: what the writer hears in his/her head
evolves into notes. This may be simple brainstorming-the jotting down of
random bits of information which may connect themselves into a pattern
later on.
Note-taking involves putting onto paper the data received through any of
our senses. These data could range from simple figures, letters, symbols,
isolated words, or brief phrases to complete sentences and whole ideas.

Most teachers instruct students to take notes while perceiving . However,
Nwokoreze insists on the need for first listening long enough to make sure
the essence of the information is perceived before taking notes. The
decision on whether the notes are to be taken at the moment of perception
or shortly afterwards depends on the complexity of the task and the ability
of the note-taker. Consequently, if we are to take notes with figures,
letters, or single words to fill in a pre-designed skeleton, we can do it
at the same time we receive the information; whereas notes which require
selection, summarizing, and organization ought to be taken later.


Guided note-taking


As teachers, we must decide what sort of help our students  need  for  every
task we assign. The guidance  we  give  for  taking  notes  will  depend  on
various aspects. One of them is language level.  Raimes  suggests  providing
beginners with a skeleton outline  to  fill  in  or  expand  to  make  their
listening more directed. She also proposes  letting  the  advanced  students
listen to longer passages and make notes as they listen.
Guidance provided will depend on  the  degree  of  difficulty  of  the  task
involved. The reasons for taking notes  and  the  follow-up  activities  are
also important. If the students only take notes of simple figures,  letters,
or single words as the basis for a discussion  to  take  place  immediately,
they will not need much guidance. But if they are supposed to take notes  of
a higher complexity to use in writing a report for homework, they will  need
more preparation.


Using note-taking in our classes


Assuming an extreme position when defining the concept  of  note-taking,  we
can say that even checking or ticking items on a list is  a  form  of  note-
taking, as long as what students have to 'tick' represents  the  content  of
the reading or listening passage. If  we  give  students  a  multiple-choice
exercise, a list, or Yes/No  questions,  and  ask  them  only  to  tick  the
correct answer, they will be taking notes.  This  could  be  considered  the
most basic form of note-taking. Nevertheless, if  we  analyze  the  task  in
detail, we find it is not as simple as it seems. To answer  accurately,  the
students will first have to understand the statements and determine  whether
their choices are correct or not. Furthermore,  they  have  to  predict  and
speculate about what they are going to perceive.

When revising any topic we may practice it and use this technique giving
students a skeleton to fill in while listening. Example:



|Hypertension                                                      |
|Instructions:                                                     |
|Listen to the interview with the patient and tick (v) the correct |
|answer:                                                           |
|Patient's   |Mrs. Kelly.                              |          |
|name:       |                                         |          |
|Main        |high blood pressure       headache       |          |
|Symptoms:   |                                         |          |
|            |dizziness            |                  |          |
|Other       |obesity              |blurred vision    |          |
|Symptoms:   |                     |                  |          |
|            |trouble breathing    |swollen ankles    |          |
|            |urinary problems     |pain in the back  |          |
|            |chills and fever     |                  |          |
|Past        |heart disease        |chest pain        |          |
|History:    |                     |                  |          |
|            |kidney infection     |                  |          |
|Family      |hypertension         |diabetes          |          |
|History     |                     |                  |          |
|            |kidney disease       |stroke            |          |
|            |heart attack         |                  |          |
|Any other information?                                            |



    With this last question, we are prompting  the  students  to  note  down
other information, not limiting them only to what the chart  asks  for.  Not
all the students will be able to take further notes, but  the  most  skilled
will not get bored while their classmates are engaged at a  more  elementary
level.

Another instance that calls for note-taking is reporting on  medical  cases.
To do this, the class may be divided into teams of three or  four  students.
Each team prepares a case for the others to analyze. One  variant  would  be
having each team first brainstorm, then prepare a skeleton outline with  the
sort of information they need the other team to provide in order to write  a
full case report. Once ready, they  exchange  skeletons,  brainstorm  again,
and note down the information the skeleton forms ask for. The  teams  should
give neither the diagnosis nor the treatment. As soon as they  finish,  they
swap these 'problem-cases,' analyze  them,  and  confer  on  the  diagnosis,
treatment, and prognosis of the  patient.  Next,  they  write  a  full  case
report that everyone reads and  discusses.  The  class  then  moves  around,
reads, and comments on them. Finally, they  decide  which  of  the  skeleton
forms are better and which reports are the most  coherent  and  faithful  to
the information provided.
A simpler variant would be having each team ask for the  information  orally
from one another, take notes on it and then report on the case orally or  in
writing.
In teaching Medically Speaking , I suggest taking notes while  listening  to
the dialogues or reading the case studies given  in  the  text.  Instead  of
having the students take down all the information, teams are formed to  take
notes on specific parts.

Appendix

|Instructions for preparing and presenting a case report        |
|First think of an interesting case you would like to report on |
|and discuss with your classmates. Consult your professors, look|
|for information about your case and associated diseases or     |
|cases in magazines, books, journals, etc. Note down this       |
|information. Then make an outline of the elements you need in  |
|order to report on a case                                      |
|1. Patient's                  |Age:            |Sex: Race:    |
|characteristics:              |                |              |
|                              |Weight:         |Height:       |
|2. Main symptom:              |8. Physical findings           |
|3. Other symptoms:            |9. Diagnostic procedure:       |
|4. Past history:              |10. Differential and definitive|
|                              |diagnosis:                     |
|5. Family history:            |11. Therapeutic procedures:    |
|6. (Toxic) habits:            |12. Possible complications     |
|7. Medications:               |13. Prognosis                  |

Before presenting your case orally, copy the outline on the board, ask your
classmates to also copy it in their notebooks. You will all follow this
order for the presentation and discussion of your case. Your classmates
will ask you for the data they need to complete their outlines and discuss
the case. Once the discussion is over, they will use their notes to write a
report on the case you presented.


|Patient's characteristics: Age: 22  |Race: white Sex: M       |
|Weight: 70 kg. |                   |Height: 1.70m.           |
|Main symptom:  |pain in the right lower quadrant (sporadic and|
|               |colicky in nature)                            |
|               |*began in epigastrium two days ago            |
|               |*moved to periumbilical region and right lower|
|               |quadrant                                      |
|Other symptoms:|fever, vomits (3), anorexia, constipation for |
|               |two days (no bowel movement). No diarrhea     |
|Past history:  |-none                                         |
|Family history:|-none                                         |
|Toxic habits:  |-none                                         |
|Medications:   |-none                                         |
|Physical       |-patient well oriented as to time, place and  |
|findings:      |person                                        |
|               |-well nourished                               |
|               |-extreme tenderness to palpation mainly       |
|               |over McBurney's point                         |
|               |-guarding, muscle rigidity, rebound           |
|               |tenderness                                    |
|               |-difference: axillary & rectal temperature    |
|               |-bowel sounds: absent                         |
|Definitive diagnosis: acute appendicitis                       |
|Therapeutic procedures: appendectomy                           |
|Possible complications: perforation, necrosis, peritonitis     |
|Prognosis: Anceps                                              |

Report
Today we discussed the case of a 22-year-old  white  man  who  was  in  good
health prior to two days ago, when he began to have an abdominal pain.  This
pain was sporadic and colicky in nature. It began  in  the  epigastrium  and
has since migrated to the right lower quadrant. The patient  has  had  three
episodes of vomiting associated with the pain. He  has  been  anorectic  and
feverish. He has had no  bowel  movements  for  two  days.  He  reported  no
diarrhea, coughing with expectoration or shortness  of  breath.  He  has  no
past history or family history of abdominal pain or any other  disease.  The
pertinent physical findings are related to the  abdomen.  There  is  extreme
tenderness to palpation, especially over McBurney's point. Guarding,  muscle
rigidity and rebound tenderness are all present. Bowel  sounds  are  absent.
There is a difference between the axillary and the rectal  temperature.  His
urinalysis,  hemoglobin   and   hematocrit   are   within   normal   limits.
Nevertheless, both white blood count and red rate are  elevated.  His  chest
film is clear, but in the abdominal film  we  observed  the  psoas  line  is
absent.

Finally, we decided the definitive diagnosis is  acute  appendicitis.  Among
the  possible  complications  to  consider  are  perforation,  necrosis  and
peritonitis.  Therefore,  the  prognosis  is  anceps.  The   only   possible
treatment is surgical: appendectomy.

Conclusion

As we have seen, there are numerous opportunities to help  students  develop
the skill of note-taking.  Note-taking  assists  the  listener,  reader,  or
observer in achieving a better understanding of what is  presented,  and  it
facilitates recall of facts as well as  oral  and  written  expression.  The
student's language level and the purpose which the notes are to  serve  will
determine the type of guidance the teacher must  provide  to  help  them  to
take notes in class and later on the job.



                                Grammar games



                                                           Competitive games


Speed



|Grammar:  |Collocations with wide, narrow, and broad.             |
|Level:    |Intermediate to advanced                               |
|Time:     |15-20 minutes                                          |
|Materials:|Three cards, with wide on one, narrow on the second and|
|          |broad on the third                                     |



Preparation

Prepare three large cards with wide on one, narrow on the second and broad
on the third.


In class

Clear as much space as you can in  your  classroom  so  that  students  have
access to all the walls and ask two students to act as  secretaries  at  the
board. Steak each of your card on one of the other three walls of the  room.
Ask the rest of the students to gather in the middle of the space.
Tell the students that you’re going  to  read  out  sentences  with  a  word
missing. If they think that the right word for that sentence  is  wide  they
should rush over and touch the wide card. If they think the word  should  be
narrow or broad they touch the respective card instead. Tell  them  that  in
some cases there are two right answers (they choose either).
Tell the secretaries at the board to write down the correct versions of  the
sentences in full as the game progresses.
Read out the first gapped sentence and have the students rush to  what  they
think is the appropriate wall. Give the correct versions and  make  sure  it
goes up in the board. Continue with the second sentence etc.
At the end of  the  strenuous  part  ask  the  students  to  tale  down  the
sentences in their books. A relief from running! ( If the  students  want  a
challenge they should  get  a  partner  and  together  write  down  as  many
sentences as they remember with their backs  to  the  board  before  turning
round to complete their notes. Or else have their  partner  to  dictate  the
sentences with a gap for them to try to complete.)


Sentences to read out


|They used a … angled lens            |Wide                       |
|He looked at her with a … smile      |Broad                      |
|The socialists won by a …. Margin    |Narrow/broad               |
|She is very … minded                 |Broad/narrow               |
|He speaks the language with a …      |Broad                      |
|London accent                        |                           |
|You were wrong what you said was … of|Wide                       |
|the mark                             |                           |
|You had a … escape                   |Narrow                     |
|Of course they’re … open to criticism|Wide                       |
|They went down the canal in a … boat |Narrow                     |
|She opened her eyes …                |Wide                       |
|The news was broadcast nation …      |Wide                       |
|The path was three meters …          |Wide                       |
|The light was so bright that she …   |Narrowed                   |
|her eyes                             |                           |


Variation

You can play this game with many sets of grammar exponents:
 . Forms of the article; a, the and zero article
 . Prepositions
Etc.



                                                             Cognitive games


Spot the differences



|Grammar:  |Common mistakes                                     |
|Level:    |Elementary                                          |
|Time:     |20-30 minutes                                       |
|Materials:|One copy of Late-comer A and Late-comer B for each  |
|          |student                                             |



In class

Pair the students and give them the two texts. Ask  them  to  spot  all  the
differences they can between them. Tell them that there  may  be  more  than
one pair of differences per pair of parallel sentences. Tell them  one  item
in each pair of alternatives is correct.
They are to choose the correct form from each pair.


|Late-comer A                    |Late-comer B                    |
|This women was often very late  |This woman was often very late  |
|She was late for meetings       |She was late for meeting        |
|She were late for dinners       |She was late for dinners        |
|She was late when she went to   |She was late as she went to the |
|the cinema                      |cinema                          |
|One day she arrive for a meeting|One day she arrived for meeting |
|half an hour early              |half ah hour early              |
|Nobody could understand because |Nobody couldn’t understand why  |
|she was early                   |she was early                   |
|‘Of course,’ someone said,      |‘Of course,’ someone say, ‘the  |
|‘clocks put back last night.’   |clocks were put back last       |
|                                |night.’                         |


3.  Ask them to dictate the correct text to you at  the  board.  Write  down
exactly what they say so students have a chance to correct each  other  both
in terms of grammar and in  terms  of  their  pronunciation.  If  a  student
pronounces ‘dis voman’ for ‘this woman’ then write  up  the  wrong  version.
Only write it correctly when the student pronounces it right. Your  task  in
this exercise is to allow the students to try  out  their  hypotheses  about
sound and grammar without putting them right too soon and so reducing  their
energy and blocking their  learning.  Being  too  kind  can  be  cognitively
unkind.


Variation

To make this exercise more oral, pair the students and ask them to sit
facing each other. Give Later-comer A to one student and Late-comer B to
the other in each pair. They then have to do very detailed listening to
each other’s texts.



                                                         Feeling and grammar


Typical questions



|Grammar:  |Question formation-varied interrogatives               |
|Level:    |Beginner to elementary                                 |
|Time:     |20-30 minutes                                          |
|Materials:|None                                                   |



In class

1. Ask the students to draw a quick sketch  of  a  four-year-old  they  know
   well. Give them these typical questions  such  a  person  may  ask,  e.g.
   ‘Mummy, does the moon go for a wee-wee?’ ‘Where did I  come  from?’.  Ask
   each student to write half a dozen questions such  a  person  might  ask,
   writing them in speech bubbles on the drawing. Go round and help with the
   grammar.
2. Get the students to fill the board with their most interesting four-year-
   old questions.


Variations

This can be used with various question situations.  The  following  examples
work well:
- Ask the students to imagine a  court  room-the  prosecution  barrister  is
questioning a defense witness. Tell the students to write a dozen questions
the prosecution might ask.
- What kind of questions might a woman going to a foreign country  want  to
ask a woman friend living in this country about the man or the woman in the
country? And what might a man want to ask a man?
- What kind of questions are you shocked to be asked in an  English-speaking
country and what questions are you surprised not to be asked?



Achievements



|Grammar:  |By+time-phrases  Past perfect                             |
|Level:    |Lower intermediate                                        |
|Time:     |20-30 minutes                                             |
|Materials:|Set of prepared sentences                                 |



Preparation

1. Think of your achievements in the period of your life that corresponds
   to the average age of your class. If you’re teaching seventeen-year-olds,
   pick your first seventeen years. Also think of a few of the times when
   you were slow to achieve. Write the sentences about yourself like these:

          By the age of six I had learnt to read.
          I still hadn’t learnt to ride a bike by then.
          I had got over my fear of water by the time I was eight.
          By the time I was nine I had got the hang of riding a bike.
          By thirteen I had read a mass of books.
          I’d got over my fear of the dark by around ten.

2. Write ten to twelve sentences using the patterns above. If you’re
   working in a culture that is anti-boasting then pick achievements that do
   not make you stand out.
3. Your class will relate well to sentences that tell them something new
   about you, as much as you feel comfortable telling them. Communication
   works best when it’s for real.


In class

1. Ask the students to have two different colored pens ready. Tell them
   you’re going to dictate sentences about yourself. They’re to take down
   the sentences that are also true for them in one color and the sentences
   that are not true about them in another color.
2. Put the students in fours to explain to each other which of your
   sentences were also true of their lives.
3. Run a quick question and answer session round the groups e.g. ‘At what
   age had you learnt to ski/dance/sing/ play table tennis etc by?’ ‘I’d
   learnt to ski by seven.’
4. Ask each students to write a couple of fresh sentences about things
   achieved by a certain date/time and come up and write them on a board.
   Wait till the board is full, without correcting what they’re putting up.
   Now point silently at problem sentences and get the students to correct
   them.


Variation

You can use the above activity for any area of grammar you want ti
personalize. You might write sentences about:
      - Things you haven’t got round to doing (present perfect + yet)
      - Things you like having done for you versus things you like doing for
        yourself
      - Things you ought to do and feel you can’t do (the whole modal area
        is easily treated within this frame)



Reported advice



|Grammar:  |Modals and modals reported                            |
|Level:    |Elementary to intermadiate                            |
|Time:     |15-20 minutes                                         |
|Materials:|None                                                  |



In class

1. Divide your class into two groups: ‘problem people’ and ‘advice-givers’.
2. Ask the ‘problem people’ to each think up a minor problem they have and
  are willing to talk about.
3. Arm the ‘advice-givers’ with these suggestion forms:

|You could…           |You should…          |You might as well…   |
|You might…           |You ought to…        |You might try…ing…   |

4. Get the class moving round the room. Tell each ‘problem person’ to pair
  off with an ‘advice-giver’. The ‘problem person’ explains her problem and
  the other person gives two bits of advice using the grammar suggested.
  Each ‘problem person’ now moves to another ‘advice-giver’. The ‘problem
  people’ get advice from five or six ‘advice-givers’
5. Call class back into the plenary. Ask some of the ‘problem people’ to
  state their problem and report to the whole group  the best and the worst
  piece of advice they were offered, naming the advice-giver e.g.  ‘Juan
  was telling me I should give her up.’ ‘ Jane suggested I ought to get a
  girlfriend of hers to talk to her for me.’


Variation

If you have a classroom with space that allows it, form the students into
two concentric circles, the outer one facing in and the inner one facing
out. All the inner circle students are ‘advice-givers’ and all the outer
circle students are ‘problem people’. After each round, the outer circle
people move round three places. This is much more cohesive than the above.



Picture the past



|Grammar:  |Past simple, past perfect, future in the past           |
|Level:    |Lower intermediate                                      |
|Time:     |20-40 minutes                                           |
|Materials:|None                                                    |



Class

1. Ask three students to come out and help you demonstrate the exercise.
  Draw a picture on the board of something interesting you have done. Do
  not speak about it. Student A then writes a past simple sentence about
  it. Student B write about what had already happened before the picture
  action and student C about something that was going to happen, using the
  appropriate grammar.



                              I got up at eight a.m.

                              I’ve just got off the bus

                              I’m going to work today



2. Put the students in fours. Each draws a picture of a real past action of
  theirs. They pass their picture silently to a neighbor in the foursome
  who adds a past tense sentence. Pass the picture again and each adds a
  past perfect sentence. They pass again and each adds a was going to
  sentence. All this is done in silence with you going round helping and
  correcting.



Impersonating members of a set



|Grammar:  |Present and past simple-active and passive             |
|Level:    |Elementary to intermediate                             |
|Time:     |20-30 minutes                                          |
|Materials:|None                                                   |



In class


1. Ask people to brainstorm all the things they can think of that give off
   light
2. Choose one of this yourself and become the thing chosen. Describe
   yourself in around five to six sentences, e.g.:

    I am a candle
    I start very big and end up as nothig
    My head is lit and I produce a flame
    I burn down slowly
    In some countries I am put on Christmas tree
    I am old-fashioned and very fashionable

3. Ask a couple of other students to choose other light sourses and  do  the
   same as you have just done. Help them with language. It could be ‘I am  a
   light bulb-I was invented by Edison.’
4. Group the students in sixes. Give them a new category. Ask them  to  work
   silently, writing four or six forst-person sentences in  role.  Go  round
   and help especially with the formation  of  the  present  simple  passive
   (when this help is needed).
5. In their groups the students read out their sentences.
6. Ask each group to choose their six interesting sentences  and  then  read
   out to the whole group.



Variation


The exercise is sometimes more excitingif done with fairly abstract sets,
e.g. numbers between 50 and 149, musical notes, distances, weights. The
abstract nature of the set makes people concretise interestingly, e.g.:

I am a kilometre.
My son is a metre and my baby is centimetre.
On the motorway I am driven in 30 seconds. (120 kms. per hour)

We have also used these sets: types of stone/countries/items of clothing
(e.g.socks, skirts, jackets/times of day/smells/family roles (e.g.son,
mother etc.)/types of weather.



Rationale


The sentences students produce in this exercise are nor repeat runs of
things they have already thought and said in mother tongue. New
standpoints, new thoughts, new language. The English is fresh because the
thought is.



                                                         Listening to people


No backshift



|Grammar:  |Reported speech after past reporting verb              |
|Level:    |Elementary to lower intermediate                       |
|Time:     |15-20 minutes                                          |
|Material: |None                                                   |



In class

1. Pair the students. Ask one person in each pair to prepare to speak for
  two minutes about a pleasurable future event. Give them a minute to
  prepare.
2. Ask the listener in each pair to prepare to give their whole attention
  to the speaker. They are not to take notes. Ask the speaker in each pair
  to get going. You time two minutes.
3. Pair the pairs. The two listeners now report on what they heard using
  this kind of form:

       She was telling me she’s going to Thailand for her holiday and she
       added that she’ll be going by plane.

The speakers have the right to fill in things the listeners have left out
but only after the listeners have finished speaking.
4. The students go back into their original pairs and repeat the above but
  this time with the other one as speaker, so everybody has been able to
  share their future event thoughts.



Incomparable



|Grammar:  |Comparative structures                                     |
|Level:    |Elementary                                                 |
|Time:     |15-20 minutes                                              |
|Materials:|None                                                       |



In class

1. Tell the students a bit about yourself by comparing yourself to some
  people you know:

I’m more … than my husband.
I’m not as…as my eldest boy.
I reckon my uncle is … than me

Write six or seven of these sentences up on the board as a grammar pattern
input.
2. Tell the students to work in threes. Two of the three listen very
  closely while the third compares herself to people she knows. The
  speakers speak without interruption for 90 seconds and you time them.
3. The two listeners in each group feedback to the speaker exactly what
  they had heard. If they miss things the speaker will want to prompt them.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 so that everybody in the group has had a go at
  producing a comparative self-portrait.



One question behind



|Grammar:  |Assorted interrogative forms                          |
|Level:    |Beginner to intermediate                              |
|Time:     |5-10 minutes                                          |
|Materials:|One question set for each pair of students            |



In class

1. Demonstrate the exercise to your students. Get one of them to ask you
   the question of a set. You answer ‘Mmmm’, with closed lips. The student
   asks you the second question – you give the answer that would have been
   right for the first question. The student asks the third question and you
   reply with the answer to the second question, and so on. The wrong
   combination of question and answer can be quite funny.
2. Pair the students and give each pair a question set. One student fires
   the questions and the other gives delayed-by-one replies. The activity is
   competitive. The first pair to finish a question set is the winner.

   Question set A
   Where do you sleep? (the other says nothing)
   Where do you eat? (the other answers the first question)
   Where do you go swimming?
   Where do you wash your clothes?
   Where do you read?
   Where do you cook?
   Where do you listen to music?
   Where do you get angry?
   Where do you do your shopping?
   Where do you sometimes drive to?


  Question set B
  What do you eat your soup with?
  What do you cut your meat with?
  What do you write on?
  What do you wipe your mouth with?
  What do you blow your nose with?
  What do you brush your hair with?
  What do you sleep on?
  What do you write with?
  What do you wear in bed?
  What do you wear in restaurant?


  Question set C
  Can you tell me something you ate last week?
  Tell me something you saw last week?
  Is there something you have come to appreciate recently?
  What about something you really want to do next week?
  Where have you spent most of this last week?
  Where would you have you liked to spend this last week?
  Where are you thinking of going on holiday?
  Which is the best holiday place you have ever been to?



Variation 1


Have students devise their own sets of questions to then be used as above.


Variation 2


Group the students in fours: one acts as a ‘time-keeper’, one as a
‘question master’ and person 3 and 4 are the ‘players’.
The ‘question master’ fires five rapid questions at player A which she has
to answer falsely. The ‘time-keeper’ notes the time questioning takes. The
‘question master’ fires five similar questions at B, who answers
truthfully. The quickest answerer wins. (The problem lies in choosing the
right wrong answer fast enough.)
Possible questions:

How old are you?
Where do you live?
Which color do you like best?
What time is it?
How did you get here?

What time did you get up today?
What did you have for breakfast?
Where does your best friend live?
What sort of music do you dislike?
How many brothers and sisters do you have?



                                                        Movement and grammar



Sit down then



|Grammar:  |Who + simple past interrogative/Telling the time      |
|Level:    |Beginner to elementary                                |
|Time:     |10-20 minutes                                         |
|Materials:|None                                                  |



In class

1. Ask everybody to stand up. Tell them you’re going to shout out bedtimes.
  When they hear the time they went to bed yesterday, they shout ‘I did’
  and sit down. You start like this:

|Who went to bed at two a.m.?    |Who went to bed at quarter to   |
|                                |two?                            |
|Who went to bed at ten to two?  |Who went to bed at half past    |
|                                |one?                            |

2. Continue until all the students have sat down.
3. Get people back on their feet. Ask one of the better students to come
  out and run the same exercise but this time about when people got up,
  e.g.

Who woke up at four thirty this morning?
Who woke up at twenty to five?

4. Repeat with a new question master but asking about shopping, e.g.:

Who went shopping yesterday?
Who went shopping on…(day of the week)



Only if



|Grammar:  |Polite requests, -ing participle                      |
|          |Only if + target verb structure of your choice        |
|Level:    |Elementary +                                          |
|Time:     |15-20 minutes                                         |
|Materials:|None                                                  |



In class


1. Make or find as much space in your room as possible and ask the class  to
  stand at one end of it.
2. Explain that their end is one river bank and  the  opposite  end  of  the
  room is the other bank. Between is the  ‘golden  river’  and  you’re  the
  ‘keeper’ of the golden river. Before crossing the river the students have
  to say the following sentence:

         Can we cross your golden river sitting on your golden boat?

3. They need to be able to say this sentence reasonably fluently.
4. Get the students to say the sentence. You answer:

         Only if you’re wearing…
         Only if you’ve got…
         Only if you’ve got … on you

5. Supposing you say ‘Only if you’re wearing  trousers’.  All  the  students
  who wear trousers can ‘boat’ across  the  river  without  hindrance.  The
  others have to try to sneak across without being tagged by you. The first
  person who is tagged, changes places  with  you  and  becomes  ‘it’  (the
  keeper who tags the others in the next round).
6. Continue with students saying ‘Can we cross your  golden  river,  sitting
  on your golden boat?’ ‘It’ might say, ‘Only if you’re wearing ear-rings.’
  etc.


Variation 1

To make this game more lively, instead of having just one keeper, everyone
is tagged becomes keeper. Repeat until everyone has been tagged.



                                                     Meaning and translation


Two-word verbs



|Grammar:  |Compound verbs                                        |
|Level:    |Upper intermediate to advanced                        |
|Time:     |40-50 minutes                                         |
|Materials:|One Mixed-up verb sheet per pair of students. The     |
|          |Jumbled sentences on a large separate piece of card   |



In class

1. Pair the students and ask them to match the verbs on the mixed-up verb
  sheet you give them. Tell them to use dictionaries and to call you over.
  Be everywhere at once.


|Mixed-up verb sheet                                  |
|Please match words from column 1 with words from     |
|column 2to form correct compound verbs.              |
|Column 1         |Column 2                          |
|back-            |dry                               |
|cross-           |soap                              |
|ghost-           |treat                             |
|soft-            |write                             |
|blow-            |reference                         |
|double-          |cross                             |
|ill-             |dry                               |
|spin-            |comb                              |
|                 |                                  |
|cold-            |manage                            |
|double-          |feed                              |
|pooh-            |read                              |
|spoon-           |pooh                              |
|court-           |glaze                             |
|dry-             |clean                             |
|proof-           |shoulder                          |
|stage-           |martial                           |
|                 |                                  |
|frog-            |march                             |
|wrong-           |record                            |
|toilet-          |foot                              |
|tape-            |train                             |
|short-           |change                            |
|rubber-          |feed                              |
|force-           |stamp                             |
|field-           |test                              |
|cross-           |question                          |
|cross-           |examine                           |
|cross-           |check                             |


Key to first group of verbs:
To back-comb/to cross-reference/to ghost-write/to soft-soap/to blow-dry/to
double-cross/to ill-treat/to spin-dry

Key to the second group of verbs:
To cold-shoulder/to double-glaze/to pooh-pooh/to spoon-feed/to court-
martial/to dry-clean/to proof-read/to stage-manage

Key to third group of verbs
To frog-match/to wrong-foot/to toilet-train/to tape-record/to short-
change/to rubber-stamp/to force-feed/to field-test/to cross-question/to
cross-examine/to cross-check


2. Ask them to take a clean sheet of paper and a pen or pencil suitable for
  drawing. Tell them you’re going to give them a few phrases to illustrate.
  They’re to draw a situation that brings out the meaning of the phrases.
  Here are the phrases – do not give them more than 30 seconds per drawing
  (they will groan):

      To toilet-train a child
      To soft-soap a superior
      To force-feed an anorexic
      To court-martial a soldier
      To back-comb a person’s hair
      To cross-examine a witness
      To spin-dry your clothes
      To cold-shoulder a friend

3. Give them time to compare their drawings. The drawings often make
  misunderstanding manifest.
4. Split the class into teams of four. Tell them you’re going to show them
  Jumbled sentences (see below) and their task will be to shout out the
  unjumbled sentence. The first team to shout out a correct sentence gets a
  point.


Jumbled sentences

Will still can you and it it dry retain its spin shape
You can spin-dry it and it will still retain its shape

Cold him we shouldered first at
At first we cold-shouldered him

Our ill ancestors treated they
They ill-treated our ancestors


Clean it don’t dry
Don’t dry-clean it

Black frog they Maria to the marched him
They frog-marched him to the Black Maria

Double your windows glaze to like we’d
We’d like to double-glaze your windows

Pooh just his poohed offer they
They just pooh-poohed his offer

Don’t soap me you soft dare
Don’t you dare soft-soap me!



The world of take



|Grammar:  |Some basic meanings of the verb take                  |
|Level:    |Intermediate to advanced                              |
|Time:     |40-50 minutes                                         |
|Materials:|Set of sentences below (for dictation)                |



In class

1. Put the students in small groups to brainstorm all the uses of the verb
  take they can think of.
2. Ask each group to send a messenger to the next group to pass on their
  ideas.
3. Dictate the sentences below which they are to write down in their mother
  tongue. Tell them only to write in mother tongue, not English. Be ready
  to help explain any sentences that students do not understand.

       The new president took over in January.
       The man took the woman’s anger seriously.
       ‘You haven’t done the washing up, I take it,’ his wife said to him.
       The little boy took the old watch apart to see how it worked.
       ‘I think we ought to take the car,’ he said to her.
       This bloke always takes his problems to his mother.
       ‘We took the village without a shot being fired,’ she told him.
       ‘Take care’ the woman said, as she left home that morning.
       He took charge of the planning team.
       The woman asked what size shoes he took.
       ‘Yes I really take your point’ he told her.
       ‘If we go to a movie,’ she told her boyfriend, ‘it’ll really take you
       out of yourself.’
       The news the boy brought really took the woman aback.
       The chair asked him to take the minutes of the meeting.
       ‘You can take it from me, it’s worse than you think’


4. Ask the students to work in threes and compare their translations. Go
  round helping and checking.
5. Check that they’re clear about the usual direct translation of take into
  their language. Now ask them to mark all the translations where take is
  not rendered by its direct equivalent.



                                                             Problem Solving


A dictionary game



|Grammar:  |Comparatives, it (referring back)                       |
|Level:    |Elementary (or as a review at higher levels)            |
|Time:     |45 minutes                                              |
|Materials:|One dictionary per two students                         |



Preparation

On the board write the following:

Abcdifghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

It’s got more letters than…
It’s got fewer letters than…
It’s the same length as….
It’s earlier in the dictionary than…
It’s later in the dictionary than…
It’s further on…
Back a bit.
The first letter’s right
The first two/three/four letters are right
(or you could dictate this to the students if you want a quiet settling in
period at the start of the class)


In class

1. Explain to the students that you’re going out of the room for a short
  time and they’re to select one word for you to guess when you come back.
  They find the word in their dictionaries.
2. Go back in and have a first wild guess at the class’s word. The students
  should tell you whether their word is longer, shorter or the same length
  as your guess and whether it’s earlier or later in the dictionary. Here
  is an example (teachers can correct pronunciation as they go along ):

|teacher:  |Middle                                               |
|students: |It’s shorter. And it’s later in the dictionary.      |
|teacher:  |Train.                                               |
|students: |It’s Earlier. It’s Got The Same Number Of Letters.   |
|teacher:  |Plane.                                               |
|students: |It’s Later.                                          |
|teacher:  |Rains.                                               |
|students: |It’s Later. It’s Got The Same Number Of Letters.     |
|teacher:  |Seat.                                                |
|students: |It’s Longer.The First Letter Is Right. It’s Later In |
|          |The Dictionary.                                      |
|teacher:  |Stops.                                               |
|students: |It’s Earlier.                                        |
|teacher:  |Skirt.                                               |
|students: |It’s Later                                           |
|teacher:  |Spend.                                               |
|students: |The First Two Letters Are Right. It’s Later.         |
|teacher:  |Spine.                                               |
|students: |It’s Later.                                          |
|teacher:  |Spore.                                               |
|students: |The First Four Letters Are Right. You’re Really Warm |
|          |Now. It’s A Bit Further On.                          |
|teacher:  |Sport.                                               |
|students: |Yes.                                                 |


3. You can write the words you guess and notes of the students’  answers  on
  the board as you go along, to help you to remember where you are. At  the
  beginning, you can prompt the students by asking questions such as ‘Is it
  shorter, longer or the same length as my word? Is it earlier or later  in
  the dictionary?’ etc.
4. When the students have got the idea of the  game,  reverse  the  process;
  you think of a word (one from a recent lesson works  well)  and  students
  guess. You give them information as to length, place  in  dictionary  and
  any letters they’ve guessed right.
5. Now hand over the exercise  to  the  students.  They  should  scan  their
  notes, textbooks and /or minds (but not dictionaries) and create a  short
  wordlist. Then in pairs or small groups they can repeat the activity.


Rationale

This is a good game for teaching scan reading and  alphabetical  order  when
using  dictionaries.  The  revision  or  introduction  of  the   grammatical
structures in a meaningful context is disguised since the  students  usually
see this is vocabulary game. Because it has a  pretty  tight  structure  and
build-up,  it’s  a  good  exercise  for  establishing   the   principle   of
group/pairwork with a class  that  does  not  take  readily  to  working  in
different formats.



Note

With some classes we have asked the students to analyze their  own  guessing
processes. Some students have written interesting short compositions on  the
best guessing strategies.



Eyes



|Grammar:  |‘Second’ conditional                                   |
|Level:    |Lower to upper intermediate                            |
|Time:     |30-45 minutes                                          |
|Materials:|None                                                   |



In class

1. Ask a student to draw a head in profile on the board. Ask the student to
  add eyes in the back of his head.
2. Give the students this sentence beginning on the board and ask them to
  complete it using a grammar suggested:

        If people had eyes in the back of their heads, then they …
        would/might/could/would have to … (+ infinitive)
For example:
        ‘If people had eyes on the back of their heads they could read two
        books at once’ (so two pairs of eyes).

3. Tell the students to write the above sentence stem at the top of their
  paper and then complete it with fifteen separate ideas. Encourage the use
  of dictionaries. Help students all you can with vocabulary and go round
  checking and correcting.
4. Once students have all written a good number of sentences (at least ten)
  ask them to form teams of four. In the fours they read each other’s
  sentences and pick the four most interesting ones.
5. Each team puts their four best sentences on the board.
6. The students come up to the board and tick the two sentences they find
  the most interesting. The team that gets the most ticks wins.


Note

Students come up with a good range of social, medical and other hypotheses.
Here are some examples:

… then they would not need driving mirrors.
… they would make really good traffic wardens.
… then you could kiss someone while looking away!



Umbrella



|Grammar:  |Modals and present simple                             |
|Level:    |Elementary to intermediate                            |
|Time:     |30-40 minutes                                         |
|Materials:|One large sheet of paper per student                  |



In class


1. Ask a student to draw a picture on the  board  of  a  person  holding  an
  umbrella. The umbrella looks like this.
2. Explain to the class that this ‘tulip-like’ umbrella  design  is  a  new,
  experimental one.
3. Ask the  students  to  work  in  small  groups  and  brainstorm  all  the
  advantages and disadvantages of a new  design.  Ask  them  to  use  these
  sentence stems:

    It/you can/can’t…
    It/you + present simple…
    It/you will/won’t…
    It/you may/may not…

4. For example: ‘It is easy to control in a high wind’, ‘You can  see  where
  you’re going with this umbrella’
5. Give the students large sheets  of  paper  and  ask  them  to  list  the
  advantages and disadvantages in two columns.
6. Ask the students to move around the room and read each  other’s  papers.
  Individually they mark each idea as ‘good’, ‘bad’ or ‘intriguing’.
7. Ask the student how many advantages they  came  up  with  and  how  many
  disadvantages. Ask the students to divide up into three groups  according
  to which statement applies to them:
    I thought mainly of advantages.
    I thought of some of both.
    I thought mainly of disadvantages.
8. Ask the three groups to come up with five to ten adjectives  to  describe
  their group state of mind and put these up n the board.
9. Round off the exercise by telling the  class  that  when  de  Bono  asked
  different groups of people to do this kind of  exercise,  it  turned  out
  that primary school children mostly saw advantages, business  people  had
  plenty of both while groups of teachers were the most negative.


Note

Advantages the students offered:
    In a hot country you can collect rain water.
    It won’t drip round the edges.
    You can use it for carrying shopping.
    It’s not dangerous in a crowd.
    It’s an optimistic umbrella.
    It’s easy to hold if two people are walking together.
    With this umbrella you’ll look special.
    It’ll take less floor space to dry.
    This umbrella makes people communicate. They can see each other.
    You can paint this umbrella to look like a flower.
    You’ll get a free supply of ice if it hails.


                                                                Presentation


Listening to time



|Grammar:  |Time phrases                                             |
|Level:    |Upper intermediate to very advanced                      |
|Time:     |40-50 minutes                                            |
|Materials |None                                                     |



Preparation

Invite a native speaker to your class, preferably not a language teacher  as
they sometimes distort their speech. Ask the person to speak about  a  topic
that has them move through time. This could  be  his  country  history.  The
talk should last around twenty minutes. Explain  to  the  speaker  that  the
students will be paying close attention not only to the content but  to  the
language form, too.



In class

1. Before the speaker arrives, explain to the students that they are to  jot
   down all the words and phrases they hear that express  time.  They  don't
   need to note all the words!
2. Welcome the speaker and introduce the topic.
3. The speaker takes the floor for fifteen to twenty minutes  and  you  join
   the students in taking language notes. If there are  questions  from  the
   students, make sure people continue to take notes during the questioning.
4. Put the students in threes to compare their  time-phrase  notes.  Suggest
   the speaker joins one of the groups. Some natives are delighted  to  look
   in a ‘speech mirror’.
5. Share your own notes with the class. Round off the lesson by picking  out
   other useful and normal bits of language the speaker used  that  are  not
   yet part of your student’s idiolects.



Example

One speaker mentioned above  produced  these  time  words:  only  about  ten
years/there was  a gap of nine years/ at  roughly  the  same  time/over  the
next few hundred years/from 1910 until the present day/it’s been  way  back/
within eighteen month there will be/until three years ago/when  I  was  back
in September



Variations

Choose the speaker who is about to go off on an important trip. In  speaking
about this, some of the verbs used will be in a variety  of  forms  used  to
talk about the future.
Invite someone to speak about the life and habits of someone significant  to
them, but two lives separately from them, say a grandparent. This  topic  is
likely to evoke a rich mixture of present simple,  present  continuos,  will
used to describe habitual events, ‘ll be –ing etc.



Note

To invite the learners to pick specific grammar features out of a stream  of
live speech is a powerful form of grammar presentation.  In  this  technique
the students ‘present’ the grammar to themselves. They go through a  process
of realization which is lot stronger than what often happens in their  minds
during the type  of ‘grammar presentation’  required  of  trainees  on  many
teacher training courses. During the realization process, they  are  usually
not asleep.



Guess my grammar



|Grammar:  |Varied+question form                                   |
|Level:    |Elementary to intermediate                             |
|Time:     |55 minutes                                             |
|Materials |None                                                   |



In class

1. Choose a grammar area the students need to review. In the example below
   there are adjectives, adverbs and relative pronouns.
2. Ask each student to work alone and write a sentence of 12-16 words (the
   exact length is not too important). Each sentence should contain an
   adjective, and adverb and a relative pronoun, or whatever grammar you’ve
   chosen to practise. For example: ‘She sat quietly by the golden river
   that stretched to the sea’.
3. Now ask the students to rewrite their sentences on a separate piece of
   paper, leaving in the target grammar and any punctuation, but leaving the
   rest as blanks, one dash for each letter. The sentence above would look
   like this:

    --- --- quietly -- --- golden ----- that --------- -- --- ---.

While they are doing this ask any students who are not sure of the
correctness of their sentence to check with you.
4. Now ask the students to draw a picture or pictures which illustrate as
   much of the meaning of the sentence as possible.
5. As students finish drawing, put them into groups of three. One person
   shows the blanked sentence and the drawing, reserving their original
   sentence for their own reference. The other should guess: ‘ Is the first
   word the?’ or ask questions ‘Is the second word a verb?’ etc. The student
   should only answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. As they guess the words, they fill in
   the blanks.
6. They continue until all the blanks are filled and then they do the other
   two person’s sentences.



Note

Groups tend to finish this activity at widely different speeds. If a couple
of groups finish early, pair them across the groups, ask them to rub out
the completed blanked out sentences and try them on a new partner.


Acknowledgement

Ian Jasper originated this exercise. He’s a co-author of Teacher
Development: One group’s experience, edited by Janie Rees Miller.



Puzzle stories



|Grammar:  |Simple present and simple past interrogative forms     |
|Level:    |Beginners                                              |
|Time:     |30 minutes                                             |
|Materials:|Puzzle story (to be written on the board)              |



Preparation

Ask a couple of students from an advanced class to come to your beginners
group. Explain that they will have some interesting interpreting to do.



In class

1. Introduce the interpreters to your class and welcome them.
2. Write this puzzle story on the board in English. Leave good spaces
  between the lines :

      There were three people in the room.
      A man spoke.
      There was a short pause.
      The second man spoke.
      The woman jumped up and slapped the first man in the face.

3. Ask one of the beginners to come to the board and underline the words
  they  know. Ask others to come and underline the ones they know. Tell the
  group the words none of them know. Ask one of the interpreters to write a
  translation into mother tongue. The translation should come under the
  respective line of English.
4. Tell the students their task is to find out why the woman slapped the
  first man. They are to ask questions that you can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
  Tell them they can try and make questions directly in English, or they
  can call the interpreter and ask the questions in their mother tongue.
  The interpreter will whisper the English in their ear and they then ask
  you in English.
5. Erase the mother tongue translation of the story from the board.
6. One of the interpreters moves round the room interpreting questions
  while the other stays at the board and writes up the questions in both
  English and mother tongue.
7. You should aim to let the class ask about 15-25 questions, more will
  overload them linguistically. To speed the process up you should give
  them clues.
8. Finally, have the students copy all the questions written on the board
  into their books. You now have a presentation of the main interrogative
  forms of the simple present and past.
9. After the lesson go through any problems the interpreters had-offer them
  plenty of parallel translation.
                                                                The solution
                                          The second man was an interpreter.



Further material

Do you know the one about the seven-year-old who went to the baker’s? His
Mum had told him to get three loaves. He went in, bought two and came home.
He put them on the kitchen table. He ran back to the backer’s and bought a
third. He rushed in  and put the third one on the kitchen table. The
question: Why? Solution: he had a speech defect and couldn’t say ‘th’.



Word order dictation



|Grammar: |Word order at sentence level                          |
|         |The grammar you decide to input in this example:      |
|         |reflexive phrases, e.g. to myself/by myself/in myself |
|Level:   |Intermediate                                          |
|Time:    |20-30 minutes                                         |
|Materials|Jumbled extracts (for dictation) One copy of Extract  |
|:        |from Sarah’s letter per pair of students              |



In class

1. Pair the students and ask one person in each pair to prepare to write on
   a loose sheet of paper.
2. Dictate the first sentence from the Jumbled extracts. One person in each
   pair takes it down.
3. Ask the pairs to rewrite the jumbled words into a meaningful sentence,
   using all the words and putting in necessary punctuation.
4. Tell the pairs to pass their papers to the right. The pairs receiving
   their neighbours’ sentences check out grammar and spelling, correcting
   where necessary.
5. Dictate the second jumbled sentence.
6. Repeat steps 3 and 4.
7. When you’ve dictated all the sentences this way give out the original,
   unjumbled Extract from Sarah’s letter and ask the students to compare
   with the sentences they’ve got in front of them. They may sometimes have
   created excellent, viable alternative sentences.



Jumbled extracts


1. Myself in absorbed more and more becoming am I find I
2. When mix I do other people me inside a confusion have I I find
3. David John and Nick as though I am me I do not feel when I walk through
   the park with
4. Strange seems it and a role acting am I like feel I
5. Walk park myself talk aloud myself to I by the through I when
6. Completely feel content I



Extract from Sarah’s letter


I find I am becoming more and more absorbed in myself.
When I do mix with other people I find I have a confusion inside me.
When I walk through the park with David, John and Nick, I do not feel as
though I am me.
I feel like I am acting a role and it seems strange.
When I walk through the park by myself I talk aloud to myself.
I feel completely content.



                        Grammar lessons Taking notes


                                                               Passive voice

During the lecture ask the students to note cases when we use passive:

   1. In more formal contexts than active sentences.

      For example: Your attention is drawn to Paragraph 6. (But note that
      using got, usually makes the sentence less formal, for example: We got
      beaten.They got married.)
   2. when the agent is not clear.

      For example: Their office was burgled.
   3. or not important

      For example: This cake was made from carrots.
   4. or obvious

      For example: They were all arrested.
   5. to give emphasis to the passive subject and add weight to the message.

      For example: A state of emergency has been declared.
   6. to make our message more impersonal.

      For example, as in a letter saying: No police action will be taken.

Read the following newspaper article and ask the students to:

 . note down the six verbs that are in the passive
 . suggest a possible reason for the use of the passive in this article.

|ORCHESTRA'S SCHOOLS BOOST                                |
|Schools and community groups will be the winners if the  |
|world famous Philharmonia comes to town.                 |
|Negotiations are still under way to make Bedford the     |
|orchestra's first British residency outside London       |
|beginning in 1995, it has been confirmed.                |
|What is being talked about is a strong educational       |
|emphasis on the deal, which would see members of the     |
|orchestra travelling into the community doing workshops  |
|with school and other local groups in the borough. School|
|children will be invited in to the Corn Exchange for     |
|afternoon rehearsals of the main concerts to be staged.  |
|Massive alterations to the Corn Exchange are being       |
|planned in tandem so that the orchestra, which was formed|
|in 1945, and the audiences watching them, will enjoy     |
|superior back and frontstage facilities including new    |
|sloped seating going from the stage to the present       |
|balcony and a new auditorium.                            |

Comment
1. The six verbs in the passive are:
   1. it has been confirmed
   2. What is being talked about
   3. School children will be invited
   4. the main concerts to be staged
   5. Massive alterations to the Corn Exchange are being planned
   6. which was formed.
(Notice that there are five different forms of the verb be in these
sentences.)
2. The reason for so much use of the passive here could be that the events
which have occurred and those which are planned are more important than the
people behind them. It is also an informative article in a newspaper so
that some formality is more appropriate than it would be in a friendly
letter or in conversation.



                                                         Context and meaning

Lecture We'll turn now  from  context  and  grammar  to  the  importance  of
context for meaning. One aspect of meaning is the extent of meaning  that  a
word has. Imagine you are asked the meaning of the word chair. What  do  you
say? 'It's something you sit on', perhaps.What  we  need  to  know  are  the
boundaries of its use. Can you say chair for what you sit on in a train?  In
a car? When milking? On a bike? In church? Suddenly all sorts of  judgements
have to be made about whether you are going to introduce related words  like
bench, stool, pew, seat, armchair.
So a simple question about a simple object leads into  questions  about  its
use, and also what it must look like. Must a chair have a back? Legs?  Arms?
This is important because although you may be able to translate  chair,  its
full range of meaning  will  never  overlap  100%  with  its  equivalent  in
another language.
Now close your eyes and think white. If that's all I say, you are likely  to
think of the colour white, perhaps on a wall or a shirt or paper. But  if  I
say white wine, you'll think of a yellow colour, or white people, a  pinkish
colour, or a white lie, no colour at  all.  Clearly  then,  the  meaning  of
words often depends on the context.

|                                                         |
|In what different contexts could the speaker encountere  |
|these words? See if you can find at least two different  |
|contexts for each.                                       |
|wings  right-winger                                      |
|term  rate                                               |
|bar                                                      |


Comment
Some of the possible contexts for these words are:
   wings: theatre, bird or car

   right-winger: football or politics

   term: language, school or maths

   rate: currency exchange, tax on housing, or speed of increase/decrease

   bar: law, music or drinking.


You have just been thinking about different areas of meaning for the same
word. Sometimes these different areas depend on shared cultural assumptions
and usage. An example of this is a British Rail poster advertising their
Family Railcard, depicting a jungle with some monkeys playing in the trees.
The text under this poster reads:


|Grown-ups get 25% off rail fares. Your    |
|little monkeys go for only £1.00.         |
|Don't drag your feet (or your knuckles). A|
|family Railcard only costs 20 for a year  |
|swing by and pick up a leaflet from any   |
|main British Rail Station.                |


Note different meanings of the words used here and their sense.



Comment
You would first need to establish that the usual meaning of  all  the  words
was understood and then explain  that  monkeys  can  be  used  to  refer  to
children in English, that it carries the idea of naughtiness but  that  it's
used affectionately. To explain knuckles, you would have  to  refer  to  (or
demonstrate) how monkeys  move,  using  their  knuckles,  and  explain  that
knuckles is substituting for the word feet in the phrase 'drag  your  feet'.
You would need to take the same approach to 'swing by'. It might be wise  to
point out that the use of this sort of language  can  change  quite  quickly
and could become unfashionable in, say, ten years' time.



|                                                          |
|2. AAn advertisement for Remy Martin Champagne Cognac uses|
|three sentences suggesting that the consumers of the      |
|product are very special. I have changed one word in each |
|to produce unusual collocations. Identify the word and    |
|replace it with a word that collocates better. Ask another|
|person and see if they agree with you.                    |
|HAVE YOU EVER CREWED A YACHT BEYOND THE VISION OF LAND?   |
|HAVE YOU EVER THROWN A BARBECUE THAT FRIENDS STILL TALK   |
|ABOUT?                                                    |
|HAVE YOU EVER RECEIVED STANDING APPLAUSE?                 |


Comment
   2. You should have suggested:
   1. vision: sight (vision doesn't collocate with land)
   2. barbecue: party (barbecue doesn't collocate with throw)
   3. applause: a (standing) ovation (applause doesn't collocate with
      standing)
   (Note that we need to add the indefinite article a, because ovation is a
      count noun whereas applause is not.)
                              Bottom of Form 1



                     Subject matter lessons Taking notes


 V The learners are watching a recorded university lecture  on  acid  rain.
   They are taking notes and will write a summary  of  the  content,  using
   dictionaries (bilingual and monolingual  as  appropriate).  Earlier  the
   teacher had elicited from them  some  of  the  key  words  used  in  the
   lecture, their meaning and usage, and listed them on the board.
 V Small groups of learners are trying  to  match  some  cut-out  newspaper
   headlines with  the  relevant  articles.  The  teacher  is  going  round
   monitoring each group. Earlier they listened  to,  discussed  and  noted
   some news items on the radio which introduced  some  of  the  vocabulary
   they are encountering.
 V Individual learners are scattered about  outside  the  classroom  asking
   people pre-prepared questions about  their  opinions  on  a  new  sports
   centre  that  is  proposed  in  the  area.  They  are  talking  in   the
   interviewees' mother tongue, and will then report their findings to  the
   rest of the class in English with the rest of the students taking  notes
   on the matter they present.
 V Half the class are reading about the early life of a  writer  they  have
   chosen to study. The other half are  reading  about  the  same  writer's
   later life. They make notes of what they had learnt about  unknown  part
   of writer’s life.In pairs they'll tell each other what they  have  found
   out and then they'll each write an obituary.
 V In small groups, the learners are looking at examples of different types
   of text. Their aim is to identify what they are and note any differences
   in style,  formality,  length,  print-size,  comprehensibility,  grammar
   patterns, etc. The examples include:  a  recipe,  a  newspaper  article,
   computer instructions, diary entries, an extract from a novel, a  letter
   to some English friends.



                                 Conclusion



Each of the two methods has its own advantages and disadvantages  and  their
aims are quite different, that’s why I included them  both  in  this  single
work. Games help students to relax, entertain and encourage  them  and  help
to develop their communicative  competence,  while  note-taking  is  a  very
serious work  demanding  an  amount  of  concentration  and  developing  and
writing practice. Both of them are to be used in  a  write  time  and  in  a
write place. For some students games are a bit  unserious  while  the  other
part of students may find note-taking too  fatiguing  so  the  teacher  must
take into account all these points. All in  all  with  all  these  spots  to
think over I find them necessary  in  teacher’s  work.  While  some  of  the
methods are let be omitted by the teacher (like  silent  way,  synthetic  or
analytic (every teacher choose his own way to work with students))  the  two
of these in my opinion must be included in the learning  process.  They  act
like general concepts giving you a full lenth of technics  to  apply  within
one method. They don’t give strict directions of how to  apply  them  but  a
wide space for creative work.



References


French Allen, V. 1983. Techniques in  teaching  vocabulary.  Oxford:  Oxford
University Press.
Gear, J. and R. Gear. 1988.  Incongruous  visuals  for  the  EFL  classroom.
English Teaching Forum, 26, 2. pp.43.
Vocabulary picture  puzzle.  English  Teaching  Forum,  23,  4,  pp.  41-42.
Gulland, D. M. and D. Hinds-Howell. 1986. The penguin dictionary of  English
idioms. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
Haycraft, J. 1978. An introduction to  English  language  teaching.  Harlow:
Longman.
Hubbard, P., H. Jones, B. Thornton, and R. Wheeler. 1983. A training  course
for TEFL. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lee, W. R. 1979.  Language  teaching  games  and  contests.  Oxford:  Oxford
University Press.
Rixon, S. 1981. How to use games in  language  teaching.  London:  Macmillan
Publishers Ltd.
Mario  Rinvolucri  and  Paul  Davis.1992.  More  grammar  games.   Cambridge
University Press.
Abbott, G., D. McKeating, J. Greenwood, and P. Wingard. 1981.  The  teaching
of  English  as  an  international  language.  A  practical  guide.  London:
Collins.
Raimes,  A.  1983.  Techniques  in  teaching  writing.  New   York:   Oxford
University Press.
Games, Games, Games ( a Woodcraft Folk handbook sold in Oxfam shops in UK)
Berer, Marge and  Frank,  Christine  and  Rinvolucri,  Mario.  Challenge  to
think. Oxford University Press, 1982.



Internet Key


http://search.atomz.com/
http://e.usia.gov/forum/vols/vol36/no1/p20.htm-games
http://e.usia.gov/forum/vols/vol34/no2/p22.htm-note-taking

-----------------------
This activity is particularly suitable for young learners

You can adapt this by preparing your own question sets for different
interrogative structures

This activity also works well with: present perfect+yet, like doing, like
having done, and modals

This activity can be adapted for use with all levels

This activity provides good skills practice in scan reading a dictionary

   YOU CAN USE THIS IDEA TO PRACTICE A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT STRUCTURES-SEE
                     VARIATIONS BELLOW FOR SOME EXAMPLES

Mommy, where did I come from?

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ref.by 2006—2022
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