FOCUS ON LAGUANGE

FOCUSING ON LANGUAGE

ERROR CORRECTION

TESTING

USING THE LEARNERS´FIRST LANGUAGE

DICTIONARIES

TIMELINES

Teacher should look for correctin techniques that help students make their own corrections

Five teacher decisions teacher have to make in ORAL ERRORS in class:

1. What kind of error has been made.

2. Whether to deal with it, is it useful to correct it.

3. When to deal with it.

4. Who will correct it

5. Which technique to use to indicate an error has been made or to enable correction.

when to correct:

accuracy:

focused immediate correction, later, not at all.

fluency:

later, brief, unobtrusive, immediate correction (scaffolding), not at all.

who corrects:

self correction, student- student, teacher student, small group, all class, coursebook/reference book.

COUSINAIRE RODES

we can test progress over a curse or the general level of english

types of questions:

descrete item tasks (specific individual anguage points) and integrative tasks (a number of itms or skills in one question)

these can be marked:

objectively (there is a clear correct answer) or subjectively (personal decision)

Progress test:

it is better to make a "can do" list than to grade the test.

common discrete itm testing techniques:

gap fill, sentence transformation, sentence construction and reconstruction, two-option answer, Matching.

SOME IDEAS FOR CORRECTING ERRORS:

Tell that there is an error

use facial expressions

use gestures

use finger correction

repeat sentence up to error

echo sentence with changed intonation or stress. like asking

ask questions

ask a one-word qustions. tense? past?

draw a timeline on the board

draw spaces on the board to show a number of words in a sentence ans indicate which word is the problem

wirte the problem sentence on the board for discussion

use humor

use a phonemic chart to point at an incorrect phoneme

Assessing speaking:

prepare a criteria, that helps even with a large class.

self assessment. it could be an awareness-raising acticity.

things that help encourage the use of english in classroom

use a lot of listening material

put english language posters on the walls

negotiate the rules with students

disccuss the point of the activity and why using english is important

respond positively to every effor of using english

avoid correction on fluency activities

etc

Sometimes it is good to use L1 in class.

ask students to summarize in L1 an english text

encourage students to think of how they would say the same things in their own language so they can notice the differences of the both languages

in pronunciation activities, focus on differences between L1 and english, sound fomartion and pronunciation of similar words.

etc

MEDIATION ACTIVITIES:

english whispers: say a phrase to one student and they have to say the translation to their partner and so on. the last and the first say their sentences out loud.

diplomatic affairs: there are 2 interpreters and 2 embassadors. 1 embassador know only english and the other one only L1, the interpreters have to translate.

diplomatic incident: the same but the interpreter mistranslate and the embassadors have to guess what the other person tried to say.

Translation roleplay: roleplay a situation where one person only knows L1 and their friend have to translate everything.

there is a broad range of things we can do with rods in a classroom. for instance, we can focus on grammar by restricting lexis (have you got a rod?), make meaning tangible and being precise about it, and clarify structure of a sentence.

monologual english to english dictionaries that are design for learners offer more relevant information. it is also important to train students in the usage od those dictionaries. let them know the alphabetical order and the phonemic script

Dictionary work:

guess the spelling of a word that has some missed letters.

guess the word of the blank space of a sentence using the dictionary

give a list of anagramed words and students have to find the new word using the dicitonary

find the stress o a word

set a number of challenges like the ones before and put a time limit. it is a dictionary race

upgrade some words of your writings using the dictionary

check iportant words of a text in a dictionary

search for words you already know and form colocations with them, enrich what you can do with familiar items.

timelines are really useful for clarifying the "time" of verb tenses. it is a visual tool that help students understand the different tenses