Teaching Skills

Teaching Skills

1. Teaching Listening

   • Why listening is difficult?
     • Because when we are listening something many processes occur inside our minds, it is not like we just listen to something and immediately we understand everything. To get to understand the message many things happen in our mind, of course that we do not notice this because it is more like an intern process. So basically it is a complex skill because of all that processes, and because as any other skill it improves with the time as we practice it.
   • Importance of learning to listen
     • In order to understand what others say we need to learn to listen. That is why it is important to develop this skill, to be able to have communicative interactions with the people.
   • PROCESS
     • First the message is share by the person who is communicating it, then this message gets to the person who is receiving it, then this person heards the oral symbols, then this person recognizes and interprets them to select what he/she wants to comprehend/retain in order to respond or react.
   • Procedure to follow when teaching listening
     • Before Listening:In here we prepare our students for what they are going to hear. Basically we put them in context. We do things like brainstorms, or we ask them questions related to the topic.
       • While listening. In here we ask our students to look for certain facts or details while they are listening. We need to be specific about what information we want them to pay attention to.
         • After listening. In here we ask them to complete a task so that they do not forget what they just heard, and also to help them to remember the new vocabulary (any task connected to the topic they heard).
   • Differences between written language and oral language
     • Spoken language is different from written language because unlike written language, spoken language is not usually organized, also it contains pauses, repetitions and could contain or not complete sentences. That is why we should provide to our students with real authentic dialogues where they can be exposed to these things and get used to them.

2. Teaching Reading

   • PROCEDURE
     • Pre-reading: Give them a reason to read. Ask them to make predictions. Introduce vocabulary.Ask them to analyze the text. Make brainstorms.
       • While-reading: Ask them to do a task that they will need to complete as they read. (any task that they need)
         • Post-reading: Make any task connected to the topic/content they read.
   • STRATEGIES
     • Scanning: Give your students enough time to review a text, but without letting them read and analyze every word as they would do in a normal reading. The goal behind scanning is that the students have to find out specific facts about the reading by doing a quick read-through.
       • Predicting: Give your students a phrase or a paragraph (taken from the text they will read later on) and ask them what they think the text is going to talk about and/or what is going to happen after that. Allow them to discuss their thoughts with their classmates (they will practice their speaking skills by doing this).
         • Summarizing: Give the students an opportunity to demonstrate what they understood after reading the text (this will show how good their reading comprehension is).
           • Discussing: Allow your students to communicate and express their opinions after a reading by asking them easy questions (or controversial ones if you are up to the challenge). Allow them to discuss as a class why they chose one particular answer and not other.
             • Extracting: Make a fun class by using real texts like tourist information or vacation brochures and ask your students to read them and imagine they are going to go on vacations.
               • Diving in: Give your students some real texts like ads from newspapers or online websites, and ask them to read them and discuss what the texts are selling or offering. Make sure the materials you will use are interesting and short so that your students can enjoy reading them.
   • What needs to be kept in mind when teaching vocabulary?
     • That reading can be boring for some so we need to do our best while planning the activities.
     • We need to make our students develop an awareness about how vocabulary can change from place to place so that they do not get stressed or confused because of that.
     • Reading is a process up to each person.

3. Teaching Writing

   • STAGES
     • Planning. In here, the students are supposed to gather as much information as they can about the topic they are going to write about. Then they need to organize such information.
       • Drafting. In here, the students start writing their first attempt of what the final product will be like. They can only start drafting after they have enough ideas about the topic.
         • Revising. In here, the students use all the feedback they can get from the teacher and classmates to check and correct not just mistakes but also ideas. They have to make sure that what they are writing express what they want to say.
           • Editing. In here, the students are supposed to finish with the corrections to deliver the final product.
   • FORMS OF WRITING
     • Expository: the main purpose of the writer is to explain something.
       • Descriptive: the main purpose of the writer is to describe something.
         • Persuasive: the main purpose of the writer is to convince someone.
           • Narrative: the main purpose of the writer is to tell a story.
   • STRATEGIES
     • Make your students work on real-life writing lessons like writing a curriculum or response to an advertisement. These activities are often fun and interesting for them.
     • Generate writing ideas by making your students write lists of things they want to write about (brainstorms)
     • Free writing: tell your students to write every thought that is going through their heads. The goal is to keep your students writing.
   • LEVELS OF WRITING
     • Handwriting and mechanics: Students' handwriting and mechanics should be clear/good enough in order to have legibility.
       • Grammar and vocabulary: The amount of a student's writing will depend on how much grammar and vocabulary knowledge he/she possess.
         • Paragraph organization:Students should use sentences in a ordered and structured way in order to create a unified and cohesive text.
           • Cohesion: Students should make a good connection of their ideas while writing.
             • coherence: whatever the students write, should clearly express their messages/ideas.

4. Teaching Speaking

   • Main purpose
     • Efficient communication
   • What is an information gap?
     • It's some kind of missing information between two or more people. This information gap enables a conversation because the participants need to communicate in order to eliminate that information gap.
   • STRATEGIES
     • Using minimal responses: encourage your students to participate in conversations by helping them gather some minimal responses that they can use in different conversations. Having this minimal responses will help them focus on what the other person is saying instead of focusing on what they have to reply.
     • Recognizing scripts: Make your students work with scripts for different situations through interactive/fun activities. By making this you will help them develop awareness about how they can predict how certain conversations might go by knowing some scripts.
     • Using language to talk about language: Help your students become more confident by letting them know that it is okay to make mistakes and ask for clarifications. Help them use clarification phrases to solve misunderstandings in a conversation.
   • Keep in mind
     • that teaching/learning speaking it is a slow process so we should not rush our students to produce perfect sentences or to not make mistakes in their communication tasks.
       • Whenever we ask our students to do some speaking activities we should encourage them to communicate no matter how they do it (mistakes are ok).
         • Correct your students only when you want them to master a certain structure and something really important is to always remind them to respect their classmates performance.