This is an introductory course on teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). The goal of this experimental text is to introduce the students (and lay men and women who would like to help and minister to those who do not know English) to some basic ideas, methods, and tools of teaching English as a second or foreign language. The text is intended to be taught and completed in a semester as a three credit course (3 hours of classroom instruction and practice teaching per week for 14 weeks). Some basic acquaintance with a few linguistic concepts and terms would be of great help. However, students who have had no previous knowledge of linguistics may also benefit from this text, because I have tried to present these concepts in simple terms with adequate illustrations. Avoid the technical terms and look for the descriptions.

I believe that this textbook will be found highly useful for the teacher training courses in India and South Asia.

My grateful thanks are due to my friend and colleague Mike Leeming, a missionary to Mexico, presently on the faculty of Bethany College of Missions, who read parts of the text and made many suggestions to improve its style and grammar. Likewise I am grateful to my wife Swarna who read the manuscript in several stages and helped improve its quality.

M. S. Thirumalai

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH

ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

English is an international language, spoken in many countries both as a native and as a second or foreign language. It is taught in the schools in almost every country on this earth. It is a living and vibrant language spoken by over 300 million people as their native language. Millions more speak it as an additional language.

English is spoken habitually in the United States, the British Isles, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of South Africa, Liberia, and many territories under the United Kingdom and the United States of America. It is estimated that 300 million people speak English as a second language, and an additional 100 million people use it fluently as a foreign language. As a rough estimate, 1000 million or one billion people around the world have some knowledge of English, either as a native language, as a second language, or as a foreign language.

English is the associate official language of India which has over 1000 million (over billion) people. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and many other nations which were ruled by Britain continue to use English both as an optional medium of instruction in their schools and as one of their official languages. The islands of the Philippines continue to use English as an important tool for education, administration, and for mass media purposes. English is the chief foreign language taught in the schools of Europe, South America, Asia and Africa.

Even though some nations which were ruled by the French continue to teach French as their most preferred second language, English is gaining ground even in these countries. In the former Soviet Union, Russian was the dominant language. Since the break of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian Republics have been rapidly introducing English in their school system as a second or foreign language. In Russia itself, English is gaining ground as the most popular second language. In Japan too, English is the most favored second or foreign language.

Outside Europe, English is the predominant language of international commerce. Although the United Nations and its various agencies have more than one language for transaction, more often than not, English comes to be chosen as the preferred language of communication between the participating member-nations.

All this has happened within the last one hundred years. The ascendancy of English as the most preferred language began two hundred years ago with the colonization of North America, Asia, and Africa by Britain. The Industrial Revolution in Britain, its ever-expanding maritime power, development of material wealth, progress in scientific research and consequent power, all helped the spread of English, even as Britain marched as a great empire. In the Sixteenth Century, English was spoken mostly in England, southern Scotland, and small areas of Wales and Ireland. There were only about two to three million people speaking it as their native language. At present one in seven in this world speak English either as a native language or as a second language.

English was well established as the dominant language in North America in the 17th Century. But its rapid growth was in the 19th Century.

Latin was the main medium of education in western Europe throughout the Middle Ages. French was the language of diplomacy for four centuries, from the 17th to 20th. And yet, at present there is not a single language which can be compared to the position occupied by English as the international language. This is so, even though more people in the world speak Chinese than English as their native language. Spanish may claim a large number of native speakers, but neither Spanish, nor French, nor Russian, nor Chinese can even come close to the level and variety of uses to which English is put in the world.

English is learned everywhere because people have found out that knowledge of English is a passport for better career, better pay, advanced knowledge, and for communication with the entire world. English is also learned for the literature it possesses, and for the variety and rich experience it provides. English has replaced French as the language of diplomacy. In this computer age, English is bound to expand its domains of use everywhere. Everyone wants to appropriate English as their own.

In the Indian subcontinent, English became the dominant language of communication among the educated classes after the famous Minute of Lord Macaulay in 1833. For an insightful discussion on the progress of English as the dominant language of communication among the educated classes in India, see the monograph on the subject by Professor Ranjit Singh Rangila, et al., Bringing Order to Linguistic Diversity: Language Planning in the British Raj in Language in India.

ORIGINS OF ENGLISH

English belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. Within this family, English is a member of the Germanic branch. The Germanic branch may be divided into three groups or subdivisions: East Germanic which consisted of Gothic, now an extinct language; North Germanic under which we include the Scandinavian languages; and West Germanic which consists of High German, Low German, Frisian and English.

Three tribes settled in England. These were the Angles, the Jutes, and the Saxons. The Angles came from Denmark, the Saxons were from Holstein in the south, and the Jutes were from the north. These and the Frisian were worshippers of Ing. Linguistic and religious associations between these tribes resulted in a bundle of related dialects, which we presently call English.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The history of English may be divided into three periods: Old English from about 700 to 1100 AD, Middle English from 1100 to 1500 AD, and Modern English from 1500 to the present.

Old English showed considerable differentiation from the other languages of Europe. Old English was clearly Germanic, but it had borrowed many words already from Latin. Along with the words borrowed from Latin, Old English continued to coin its own words and thus remained vibrant in its usage.

From the 9th Century, West Saxon became the dominant dialect. Norse speakers acquired English at this time. They brought Norse words into their English. In addition, the English native words were also adjusted in their pronunciation by the Norse speakers. At this time, the Normans were the dominant class and so French words were accepted in the domains of administration, law, and church. Words such as felony, angel, and duke came into English. One-fifth of words used in art and science in English came from French.

London became the capital of England in early 11th Century, and its dialect, which was close to the dialect of Essex, became prestigious. Slowly, London English gave up its local peculiarities and assumed the role of a universally accepted dialect with prestige. In the Fourteenth Century, English became the medium of instruction in schools, as the language of the courts of law and the opening of Parliament. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales was written in this period, utilizing a variety of London English.

In the Fifteenth Century, many familiar Fourteenth Century words were replaced by many words which were borrowed from French and Latin. Words such as consecrate, firmament, grace, pollute, and sanctity came into English in this process.

Modern English presents a peculiar picture. It has retained the old spelling, even as it developed new pronunciation – modern pronunciation with medieval spelling. Many Latin words were borrowed into English through French. This period also saw development of regularity in vocabulary, in form and usage, grammatical forms, and in syntax.

English language developed a tendency and respect for correctness in the Seventeenth Century. “Accessions to the vocabulary in the 17th Century show the influence of French and Italian, particularly in matters of fashion and the fine arts. The 18th Century showed the influence of more distant countries such as India, and the 19th Century continued that tendency. However, scientific terms are the outstanding contribution of the 19th Century, and this has remained true in the 20th” (Encyclopedia Britannica).

RECEPTIVITY TO LOAN WORDS

An important characteristic of English has been its receptivity to loan words from other languages. No other language exhibits such an extraordinary receptivity. This has not resulted, however, in the loss of corresponding native words in most cases. Words were often borrowed to refine the meanings which resulted in greater clarity in the expression and creation of ideas.

Moreover, English speakers always enjoyed greater freedom in the use of their language, unlike, for instance, the users of the French language. There has been no legal provision which guided the native speakers of English in the use or non-use of words. Mostly the commonly agreed conventions, rather than deliberate enforcement of rules of usage through academies, marked the development of English and its use.

Modern, current English has over 500,000 words. If we add the scientific terms used in the language, the total would be very high indeed. It has been estimated that only 18.4 percent of these words is native to English. French vocabulary used in English is around 32.4 percent, whereas the words of Latin origin is estimated to be 14.4 percent, words of Greek origin around 12.5 percent, and other languages 23.3 percent. This does not mean that the words of foreign origin are more greatly used in English. It only suggests that more foreign words than the native ones are used to characterize, define, and describe meanings and ideas in English (Encyclopedia Britannica).

DIALECTS OF ENGLISH

Two principal branches of spoken English dialects are recognized by scholars. The British branch of spoken dialects include those spoken in England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The North American branch of spoken dialects include those spoken in Canada and the United States. Within each of these categories, there are different dialects, both geographical and social.

The English spoken in the Eastern Seaboard region and adjoining states in the United States have been studied in greater detail than the English spoken in other parts of the United States. Generally speaking, there are three different dialect areas: Northern dialect area consisting of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and eastern Massachusetts and Connecticut; the Midland dialect area consisting of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Maryland, and northern West Virginia is treated as North Midland dialect; and the area consisting of West Virginia, western Virginia, western North Carolina, and northwestern South Carolina is treated as South Midland. The Southern English dialect includes Delmarva, Virginia Piedmont, Northeastern North Carolina, Cape Fear and Peedee Valleys and the South Carolina country (O’ Grady, et al. 1993:445).

It is possible that these three major dialect areas in the eastern United States extend to the west in close conjunction with the history of westward movement in settlement in the U.S. However, as Gleason warned us years ago (Gleason :403), it is only “American folk-linguistics (which) recognizes two major dialect areas, ‘Southern’ and ‘Northern.’ But there is no discernible linguistic division at or near the Mason-Dixon line. ‘Southern’ dialects are exceedingly diverse. The sharpest dialect boundary in the United States runs directly through the South roughly along the Blue Ridge mountains. A ‘Northern dialect’ is as much a fiction as a ‘Southern dialect.’” Despite spoken dialectal differences, the native speakers of English have maintained a great uniformity in formal spoken English which is amazingly uniform and close to written English. An educated native speaker of English makes easy transitions from the colloquial/informal to varieties of formal English in his/her speech.

The teacher of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), who is a native of speaker of English, needs to give up the peculiarities of his/her regional and/or social dialect at the informal level, and to switch over to the standard which is closer to the ordinary, plain written English, in his/her classroom.

SPELLING IN ENGLISH

As already pointed out, modern English has retained the old spelling even as it has developed new pronunciation. English is rather “notorious” for its alleged frequent lack of correspondence between the spelling and pronunciation of a word. It has been pointed out that “there are 13.7 spellings per sound, but only 3.5 sounds per letter” in English (G. Dewy, 1971, quoted in Crystal 1987:213).

Contrary to general impression, scholars claim that 75% of English is regular. However, “the 400 or so irregular spellings are largely among the most frequently used words in the language, and this promotes a strong impression of irregularity” (Crystal 1987:214).

As Crystal (1987:214) points out, irregularities of English spelling came from several sources into the language. 26 letters are used to represent a larger number of phonemes (significant groups of sounds each of which may be represented by a separate letter for ease and convenience in a language). Borrowed words from French led to respelling of words. The printing process caused further complications. Many early printers were from Holland and they introduced their own spelling norms, and made several convenient abbreviations and additions and deletions to account for the space in a line. Then “there was a fashion to make spelling reflect Latin or Greek etymology.” And modern borrowings from other languages brought with them their own spelling. In spite of all this, English spelling gives us a lot of information about the relationship between words. And this feature is a boon both to the TESOL teacher, and the second/foreign language learner of English. One comes to recognize intuitively the relationship between words, learns to derive the nouns from the verbs and vice versa, and does a lot of other grammatical exercises which make the learning of English much simpler than learning many other languages.

English has a long history of spelling reform movements from the 16th Century. The efforts of Spelling Reform Association in the U.S. (founded in 1876) and Simplified Spelling Society in Britain (founded in 1908), along with the untiring efforts of Bernard Shaw, a great modern playwright, in recent times, are significant milestones in spelling reform movements. But almost all of these ended as futile exercise. However, some spelling changes have been effected in American English through the rules introduced by the great American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758-1843) which distinguish American English from British English. For example, use of -or for -our and -er for -re in words such as honor/honour, and theater/theatre.

We revisit the issue of spelling in a subsequent chapter which deals with orthography.

PLAIN ENGLISH

Of great interest and relevance to the teacher of TESOL are the on-going movements against the unnecessarily complicated use of English and for the replacement of such usage by clearer forms of expression (Crystal 1987:378). Both in Britain and the United States, because of pressure from teachers, authors, writers and communicators, governments have made efforts to redesign forms and reports, etc., in plain English which could be understood with ease.

President Carter issued an Executive Order in March 1978 requiring regulations to be written in plain English. This order was revoked by President Reagan in 1981, but “it promoted a great deal of legislation throughout the country, and an increase in plain English usage among corporations” (Crystal 1987:378).

As a consequence of growing interest in Plain English, instruction manuals, government forms and documents, and many other materials for public use have been greatly simplified. Medical labels, Nutrition Facts, etc., are presented in readable and easily understandable form. Corporations have begun to use the services of skilled technical literature writers for this purpose. There has, however, been continued objection from legal professions based on “the risk of ambiguity inherent in the use of every day language” which, they claim, makes it unsuitable for precision.

Dayananda (1986:13) presents the following as the characteristics of Plain English:

1. Prefer the shorter word to the longer one.
2. Use simple, everyday words rather than fancy ones.
3. Prefer verbs over nouns and adjectives.
4. Prefer the specific word to the general.
5. Write short sentences with an average of no more than 20 words.
6. Use the active voice rather than the passive.
7. Be a miser with compound and complex sentences and a spend thrift with simple sentences.
8. Write short paragraphs with an average of about 765 words.
9. Avoid paragraphs that exceed five typed lines for business letters and ten lines for longer compositions.
10. Write with the ear. A sentence may look good on paper but its cadence may be jarring. Listen to your sentences in your head as you write, and do not write anything that you could not comfortably say.
11. Write for the eye as well as the mind. Prepare an overall design, positioning understandable headings, subheadings, and captions for each segment, showing the organization of the text. Make the whole document visually appealing.
12. Use appropriate underlining, ink color that contrasts sharply with the paper, lists, boxes or panels, bold or other typefaces to emphasize points.
13. Use ‘white space’ in margins, between sections, paragraphs, and lines to make the document look good. (Cited from Crystal 1987:379).

The English taught, spoken, and written in the Third World countries is often not plain, simple, and straightforward. As in the Indian sub-continent, it is derived, more often than not, from the English style spoken and written a century ago, in some instances. We certainly need to emphasize grammatical correctness in learning English, but it is equally important to cultivate in our learners a sensitivity and skill to use natural, simple, and straightforward English. Indian newspapers in English and the radio news broadcasts should take the initiative in simplifying the usage.

ENGLISH TEACHING BY THE MISSIONARIES

Teaching English as a tool for communicating the story of Jesus has a long history. Missionaries have vehemently differed from one another about its usefulness as a tool for this purpose. Even as English contains excellent Christian literature, it also is home for secular literature. Secular Humanism found its way in many lands through the learning of English language and literature. Its “ennobling” characteristic as a tool and purveyor of culture, the scientific knowledge it opens up for those who learn it, the ease with which one could transact business using it, all have more or less overshadowed the deep Christian foundation upon which the language, literature and culture is built.

Aided by the influence of secularism, many Christian teachers of English have more or less abandoned the Christian program while teaching English. Ethics and morals portrayed in literature were interpreted not as emerging from the Christian base but from universal humanism. English is still pregnant with Christian metaphors, idioms and set phrases, which cannot be wholly understood and used without a grasp of the underlying Christian message.

Perhaps because of the reason last mentioned, most nations have embarked upon a process of textbook contextualization when it comes to teaching English. The original pieces of writing by the native speakers of English are sought to be replaced by the writings of the nationals who are masters of English prose and poetry. In their creative writing, metaphors, idioms, and set phrases from the national languages, which imply local culture and religion, are more freely used. Translations from the local tales are more frequently substituted for tales from Europe. In addition, government-inspired documents on ideology become part of the textbook. Nations (and individuals) want to appropriate English as a language minus the culture and religion it represents and communicates.

Even as the goals of English teaching and learning are being continually redefined, you should remember that English would not be taught solely by the native speakers of English in many nations. Some countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and several African nations have provided for the teaching of English mainly through their nationals. Some countries like Japan and China open their doors to more number of native speakers of English to teach English.

When English is introduced in the school curriculum as a language to be learned in addition to a national language or languages, it is inevitable that governments and institutions would look for training their own nationals to meet the demand.

Missionaries in the past responded to this by training nationals in the art of teaching English as a foreign or second language, while noting all the time the inadequate skills attained in pronunciation and naturalness of usage. The missionaries and others involved in teaching English have recognized that a perfect duplication of the native speakers’ language is neither possible nor desirable. We discuss this issue in a later chapter.

Even as many adult students in short term English courses may not care for the literary benefits of learning English, many more do not feel satisfied with just learning the language and using it only for practical ends. They do, indeed, seek to understand, enjoy and appreciate what English literature offers them. School curriculum always blends learning English language with learning and enjoying English (and American) literature. We shall discuss the aspects of using literature for TESOL in a later chapter.

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CHAPTER 2
SOME LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS

LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS— A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Europe and Asia have had a long tradition of teaching and learning foreign languages. Memorization of vocabulary and translation of sentences often formed the major part of such learning processes in the past. Ancient languages such as Sanskrit and Pali were mastered in Asia through the process of memorization of texts and vocabulary lists. Learning vocabulary lists indeed formed the core of language learning.

The progress of Reformation in Europe brought within its wake change in methods of learning foreign and classical languages. While writing paradigms for individual verbs continued to be emphasized, teachers began to focus more on oral aspects of language. Until then learning a language was synonymous with learning the written language.

Two scholars during the progress of Reformation stood out as distinguished contributors for the change of language teaching methods: Erasmus and Comenius.

Erasmus, a contemporary of Martin Luther, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, argued that speaking the foreign language should begin early in one’s attempt in learning it. Good and understandable oral communication, he said, was the important thing to master. Next in importance was reading, and, then, writing came at last.

Erasmus wanted that we learn the language through exposure to interesting and practical conversations and stories accompanied by visuals such as picture. Note that this is still one of the cornerstones of current thinking on teaching foreign/second language. In addition, Erasmus suggested several rhetorical exercises which focused on “transforming verse into prose, imitating the style of a prominent writer, translating, or recasting propositions in various forms.”

Currently these types of exercises are not favored in teaching and learning languages. These are good exercises, no doubt, but are more useful in teaching literature, or more appropriately, teaching writing of literary pieces. Presently we do make a distinction between learning language and literature. We may learn a language in order to study the literature written in it. But learning a language need not be necessarily done through studying its literature.

Martin Luther was opposed to excessive drill on rules for producing sentences. Instead of memorizing rules for the production of sentences, he asked for the actual production of sentences themselves as appropriate practice to learn a language. William Bath (1565-1614) focused on teaching vocabulary through contextualized presentation, which would be further elaborated later on by Comenius.

The contribution of Comenius to modern secular education is enormous. His thoughts on methods of teaching languages had influenced generations of European teachers. He wanted a graded presentation of sentence structures. He insisted that grammar should be taught through an inductive approach, by giving many examples of the same sentence type, so that the students would understand and master the structures. He insisted that the understanding of the content, and mastery of linguistic forms must proceed on parallel lines. In other words, he recommended that we do not introduce a content topic, if, for the understanding and expression of which, the students do not yet have some parallel linguistic mastery in the language they are learning.

Comenius recommended that new words be introduced to the students with the visuals of objects or phenomena they represented. He asserted that “words should not be learned apart from the objects to which they refer. Comenius held that the subject matter of lessons should have appeal to students, that modern languages should have priority over classical languages, that language should be learned by practice rather than by rules (though rules were seen as complementing practice), and that the subject matter of initial exercises should already be familiar to students (O’Grady, et al. 1993).” In subsequent centuries several methods came to be used.

LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS

Grammar-Translation. “This method emphasizes reading, writing, translation, and the conscious learning of grammatical rules. Its primary goal is to develop literary mastery of the second language. Memorization is the main learning strategy and students spend their class time talking about the language instead of talking in the language. The curriculum requires the memorization of paradigms, patterns, and vocabulary, with translation being used to test the acquired knowledge. Consequently, the role of L1 (that is, mother tongue or native language) is quite prominent” (O’Grady, et al. 1993).

The Natural Method. “Since children learn naturally to speak before they read, oracy (should) precede literacy and that receptive skills precede productive ones. Proponents of the method tended to avoid the use of books in class . . . Like the child in his home, the student was to be immersed in language and allowed to formulate his own generalizations . . . it consists of a series of monologues by the teacher, interspersed with exchanges of question and answer between instructor and pupil—all in the foreign language . . . A great deal of pantomime accompanies the talk. With the aid of gesticulation, by attentive listening, and by dint of repetition, the beginner comes to associate certain acts and objects with certain combinations of sound, and finally reaches the point of reproducing the foreign words or phrases . . . The mother tongue is strictly banished” (Bowen et al. 1985:21; part of this cited text contains a quotation from the Report of the Committee of the Twelve, 1890).

The Phonetic Method. This method emphasized “oral expression as the basis of instruction, stressing pronunciation, avoiding grammatical rule giving, and seeking to impart a practical mastery of language forms for use in-country; cultural information was also provided. The teacher would read a passage aloud, explaining unfamiliar words as students followed along. After discussing questions on the passage, students would paraphrase the story aloud. Next would come written answers to questions, phonetic work on new words, and ultimately recitation. Gestures, pictures, and interesting contexts were to be used in making applications of familiar material. Graded reading would come later.” This method demanded “heavy requirements for linguistic expertise on the part of the teachers.”

The Direct Method. “Adult L2 learners can learn a second language in essentially the same manner as a child. Therefore, if possible, the teacher should try to create a natural learning environment within the classroom. Instead of explicit grammar instruction, the major emphasis is on communicating. Classes are carried out totally in the second language with absolutely no reliance on the first language or on any form of translation. The expectation is that through question and answer dialogues, the second language will gradually be acquired. Problems have arisen with such an approach because adults do not in fact learn exactly like children, and they express the need for explicit instruction in grammar and other aspects of the second language” (O’Grady et al. 1993).

Teaching of receptive skills (listening and reading) rather than teaching of productive skills (speaking and writing) was encouraged as the first step. Contrastive analysis of the native language of the learner with the target language was done. Teachers were required to have a good knowledge of the phonetics of the language they teach, but they would use it to teach pronunciation and not phonetics. This method was indeed an extension of the Natural Method, with greater emphasis on and sophistication of knowledge of linguistics.

The Audiolingual Method. The audiolingual method in some sense represents a return to the direct method, as its main goal is to develop native-like speaking ability in its learners. It is an extension as well as a refinement of the Direct Method. Translation and reference to L1 are not permitted. Underlying this approach, however, is the notion that “L2 learning should be regarded as a mechanistic process of habit formation . . . Audiolingual learning comprises dialogue memorization and pattern drills, thus ensuring careful control of responses. None of the drills or patterns are to be explained, since knowledge of grammatical rules would only obstruct the mechanical formation of habits.”

“Just as the Direct Method was an extension of the Natural Method, so Audiolingualism had its theoretical roots in the Direct Method.” The Audiolingual method used exhaustively the linguistic structures identified in the descriptive analysis of the target language. It resulted in carefully prepared materials. It was skill oriented, with a practical emphasis on oracy. “It provided contextualized language practice in true-to-life situations including dialogue. It provided a wide variety of activities to help maintain interest, and it made extensive use of visuals. It arranged for abundant practice, although “the grammar-based Audiolingual approach moved cautiously from supposedly simple to more and more linguistically complex features, often without adequate consideration for what might be needed in everyday situations.”

Some of the things which led to the spread and success of this method in this century include: Greater allotment of time, smaller classes, greater emphasis on oral-aural practice which led to automatic production of sentences repeated or in the internalization of sentence structures through repetition and inductive generalization, the structural description and gradation of sentence and other linguistic utterances presented to the students for drill, contrastive analysis between the structures of the native and target languages, and careful preparation and presentation of learning materials based on all these.

Communicative Language Teaching. This approach argues that “merely knowing how to produce a grammatically correct sentence is not enough. A communicatively competent person must also know how to produce an appropriate, natural, and socially acceptable utterance in all contexts of communication. ‘Hey, buddy, you fix my car!’ is grammatically correct but not as effective in most social contexts as ‘Excuse me, sir, I was wondering whether I could have my car fixed today . . . (Communicative competence) includes having a grammatical knowledge of the system, . . . knowledge of the appropriateness of language use . . . (such as) sociocultural knowledge, paralinguistic (facial and gestural) and proxemic (spatial) knowledge, and sensitivity to the level of language use in certain situations and relationships . . .” (O’Grady et al.1993).

Total Physical Response Approach. “It takes into consideration the silent period deemed necessary for some L2 learners. During the first phase of total physical response, students are not required to speak. Instead, they concentrate on obeying simple commands in the second language. These demands eventually become more complex. For example, Walk to the door becomes Stretch your head while you walk to the door at the back of the classroom. Students later become more actively involved, verbally and creatively. The objective of this approach is to connect physical activity with meaningful language use as a way of instilling concepts” (O’Grady, et al. 1993).

Immersion Programs. “Students are instructed in most of their courses and school activities in the second language. Instruction is usually begun in the second language and eventually incorporates the native language. The main objective of any immersion program is that all students acquire a high level of proficiency in oral, listening, and literacy skills . . . Fundamental to an immersion program is the belief that normal children have the inherent capacity to learn a second language without jeopardizing their native language expertise. Total immersion involves the instruction of all subjects in the second language, including physical education and extracurricular activities . . . Partial immersion involves instruction in the second language for half the school day and in the native language for the other half” (O’Grady et al. 1993).

Immersion programs have been greatly used in several missionary training programs, and in field studies done in north-eastern India, and the Andaman and Nicobar islands by the students of linguistics.

THE NEED FOR AN ECLECTIC APPROACH

At present, teachers of English around the world prefer some form of communicative teaching and learning, rather than the audio-lingual method and its derivatives. However, we must remember that a successful TESOL teacher is not necessarily biased in favor of one method or another. She should be first of all competent in and comfortable with the methods she wants to use. She tends to select different teaching strategies from different methods, and blends them to suit the needs of her materials and students.

It is important that the students are given ample opportunities to practice English in the class as well as outside the classroom, even as it is important for them to have time and freedom to digest, reflect and analyze what has been exposed to them. Internalization of the linguistic structures and their ready and easy retrieval for communication are achieved in many ways.

A diligent TESOL teacher continually learns new techniques from her peers and her students, as she interacts with them. She needs to know the new directions in teaching of English to speakers of other languages which are debated in the journals and demonstrated in new textbooks. Her own English speech, pronunciation, and writing should be as close to the “standard” as possible, or native-like, if she is not a native speaker of English. She may use regional characteristics of English to inform and entertain, but she should be able to switch to the “standard” for presenting her lessons.

Her writing in English should be simple, straightforward and plain. She should have a good command and conscious knowledge of the grammatical structures of the language and should be at home with the grammatical terms used to describe the structures. She should be sensitive to the background and the needs of her class.

She should have a clear voice, and should be energetic and enthusiastic so that the class will come alive in her presence. It is important for her to get all her students involved in the drills and exercises conducted in the class. A good actor she should be!

SOME KEY TERMS

L1 refers to the language acquired or learned first by the student. It generally refers to the mother tongue or the first language of the student. Mother tongue is a fuzzy concept.

The term first language focuses upon the serial order in which a language may be acquired or learned. It is possible that a child may acquire or learn two or more languages simultaneously. Under such circumstances, it is possible for a child to have more than one language as her first language or her mother tongue. (See Simultaneous Acquisition of Two Languages: An Overview by Shyamala Chengappa and M. S. Thirumalai, published by the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, India, 1986.)

L2 refers to the language or languages acquired or learned subsequent to the first language. The term Second Language also refers to the language or languages acquired or learned subsequent to the first language. It is generally assumed that the first language of a person comes to influence the quality of learning and use of the second language. In this context, the term Source Language generally refers to the first language or the mother tongue or L1 and the term Target Language refers to the second language or L2.

The term Foreign language refers to that language for the use of which there is no immediate reinforcement outside the classroom. For example, if English is learned by a Japanese student from Japan in the United States, the status of such learning is treated as second language learning, because he has abundant opportunities to use that language outside his classroom. On the other hand, if the same student learns English in his country, he may not have equally abundant opportunity to use English outside his classroom. Under this condition, the student is deemed to be learning English as a foreign language. It is important that we keep this distinction in mind when we teach English to speakers of other languages, because each teaching/learning situation will require different materials, strategies, and goals.

The term acquisition is used “when the emphasis is on the natural, unconscious way in which a learner can assimilate a foreign language as in bilingual contexts or when using one of the natural approaches to foreign language teaching. In several approaches, however, acquisition and learning are carefully distinguished: the former is then restricted to what takes place in ‘natural’ learning situations; the latter to what takes place in classrooms when following a structured course with a teacher” (Crystal 1987). Interference or Negative Transfer refers to the inappropriate use of an L1 structure in the L2 system. Interlanguage refers to the successive approximations that a second language learner makes towards the target language he is learning. These terms have come to connote the assumptions that a teacher has as regards the process of learning/acquiring a language.

The behaviorist view assumes that second/foreign language learning is “a process of imitation and reinforcement: learners attempt to copy what they hear, and by regular practice they establish a set of acceptable habits in the new language. Properties of the L1 are thought to exercise an influence on the course of L2 learning: learners ‘transfer’ sounds, structures, and usages from one language to the other. A widely used typology distinguishes two kinds of transfer. Similarities between the two languages cause ‘positive transfer’: it proves acceptable to use the L1 habits in the L2 setting (e.g. the assumption that the subject goes before the verb satisfactorily transfers from English to French). Differences cause ‘negative transfer’, generally known as ‘interference’: the L1 habits cause errors in the L2 (e.g. the same assumption about subject-verb order does not satisfactorily transfer into Welsh) . . . Problems of negative transfer are thought to provide a major source of all FLL (foreign language learning) difficulty. The main aim of behaviorist teaching is thus to form new, correct linguistic habits through intensive practice, eliminating interference errors in the process” (Crystal 1987:372).

In the cognitive view of language learning, “learners are credited with using the their cognitive abilities in a creative way to work out hypotheses about the structure of the FL (foreign language). They construct rules, try them out, and alter them if they prove to be inadequate. Language learning, in this account, proceeds in a series of transitional stages, as learners acquire more knowledge of the L2. At each stage, they are in control of a language system that is equivalent to neither the L1 nor the L2 - an interlanguage” (Crystal 1987:372).

Foreigner Talk or Teacher Talk. “When speaking to L2 learners, native speakers may choose simple word order and more common vocabulary items. They formulate explanations or questions carefully and attempt to produce well-formed utterances by avoiding false starts, slips of the tongue, unfinished sentences, and hesitations. They modify vocabulary by employing frequently used words, and avoiding idiomatic expressions such as He flew off the handle in favor of He got angry. Vocabulary that might be unfamiliar is often paraphrased, such as hold on very tightly for the verb cling” (O’Grady, et al. 1993).

Contrastive Analysis. This is based on an assumption that the errors produced by the learner would occur at those points at which the two languages were dissimilar. Contrastive analysis contrasts the structures of L2 with L1 of the learner. However it is now recognized that “not all errors could be predicted from the source language. Some errors were unique and did not reflect the L1 structure.”

Error Analysis. This approach sees “errors as indicators of the learner’s current underlying knowledge of the second language, or as clues to the hypotheses that a learner may be testing about the second language. In this sense, errors provide us with insights into the language system that L2 learners are acquiring and using at a particular period. Such an L2 system is called interlanguage. Interlanguage changes constantly as the learner progresses through a theoretically infinite number of states of grammatical development along a continuum. Each L2 learner’s interlanguage is unique. As learners progress toward native-like proficiency in the second language, their interlanguage is characterized by fewer and fewer errors.”

Error Types. Roughly speaking, there are two categories of errors: interlingual and developmental. Interlingual errors are the result of L1 interference, implying that some structure from the native language has been transferred to the second language. When L2 errors cannot be accounted for on the basis of the first language, they are considered to be developmental; that is, to result from the manner in which the language acquisition mechanisms themselves operate. These errors arise from a mismatch between the L2 learner’s grammar and that of the native speaker. Within the interlingual and developmental categories, errors can also be classified according to the grammatical subsystem involved: phonology, syntax, morphology, and semantics. Errors can be further classified as errors of omission, addition, or substitution.

Generally speaking, we often tend to see the errors only as an interference from the source language. In fact, errors of interference from the source language are very few when compared with the interlanguage errors of the learners. This, however, does not mean that we can easily ignore the interference errors and focus only on the interlanguage errors. Indeed, we need to work out remedial steps for both these items in our teaching processes and materials.

We must bear in mind that “the analysis of errors turns out to be a highly complex matter, involving other factors than the cognitive. Some errors are due to the influence of the mother tongue as contrastive analysis claims. Some come from external influences, such as inadequate teaching or materials. Some arise out of the need to make oneself understood by whatever means possible (e.g. replacing words by gestures). Moreover, not all errors are equally systematic, disruptive, or unacceptable. Errors of vocabulary, for example, are less general and predictable than errors of grammar, but they are usually more disruptive of communication. Some errors, indeed, become so acceptable that they do not disappear: they become ‘fossilized” – tolerated by learners (insofar as they are conscious of them) because they do not cause major problems of communication (e.g. the pronunciation errors that constitute a foreign accent)” (Crystal 1987:372).

Strategies. Many L2 learners employ similar strategies: they over-generalize, they transfer certain aspects of their native language, and they simplify various L2 structures as they subconsciously test their hypotheses about the second language. L2 learners often need a silent period (a period of aural exposure to the language) so that incoming information may be processed and stored in memory.

Aptitude. Aptitude, motivation, attitude, and empathy are a few of the many traits which seem to have something to do with the success in learning another language. Some people have a special talent, a knack, or an aptitude for learning a second language. Aptitude involves having verbal intelligence (familiarity with words and the ability to reason analytically about verbal materials).

Motivation. In L2 acquisition motivation is described as the need or desire the learner feels to learn the second language. Integrative motivation is defined as a desire to achieve proficiency in a new language in order to participate in the life of the community that speaks the language. Instrumental motivation is defined as the desire to achieve proficiency in a new language for utilitarian reasons, such as getting a job or a promotion. It reflects the practical value and advantages of learning a new language.

Attitudes. L2 learners’ attitudes are said to reflect their beliefs or opinions about the second language and culture, as well as their own culture. It is believed that attitude and motivation are closely related. One influences the other.

Empathy. Empathy is defined as the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes. An empathic L2 learner has the capacity for participation in another’s feelings or ideas, to project his or her personality into the personality of another. It is believed that those who are empathic will be favorably predisposed to learning languages in a natural environment. They may more easily emulate a native-like pronunciation since they are purportedly less inhibited than others. Furthermore, “because of their sensitivity to others, empathic people may be better at picking up nuances of word meaning and their implications in different linguistic contexts.” (Taken from O’Grady et al. 1993).

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CHAPTER 3
USE OF ENGLISH, BLACKBOARD AND VISUALS IN CLASS

USING THE BLACKBOARD IN CLASSROOM

The blackboard continues to be a very important teaching aid throughout the world. In the Third World countries, it is the cheapest visual aid, which is easily available in every classroom. Chalk and Talk continues to be a very effective method of teaching. The blackboard offers a variety of functions to the teachers of TESOL.

You may use it to write the sentences, words and phrases you wish to teach. You may use it to test what the students have learned. You may use it to illustrate the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. You can invite your students to come forward and write what they have learned. So, it is important that you train yourself to use the blackboard effectively in your class.

1. Some teachers hide the board. And if the teacher has her back to the class she cannot control what the students are doing.
2. You need to keep eye contact with the class as you write. You should allow the class to see what you write.
3. You should keep the students’ attention by saying the words as you write them.
4. Write clearly. The writing should be large enough to read from the back of the class.
5. Write in straight lines. This is easy if you only write across a section of the board, not across the whole board.
6. Talk as you write.
7. The blackboard should not be too crowded.
8. Choose only those items that need special and focused attention to write on the blackboard.
9. Write the key vocabulary down the side of the board, with similar items close together.
10. An important use of the blackboard is to show clearly how the structures are formed, and to show the differences between structures: He played football: Did he play football?
11. Use the blackboard to discuss how the students could make the structures. This could be done by underlining the important features.
12. You could use different colored chalk (red, and green stand out most clearly).
13. You could draw arrows or write numbers to show the change in word order.
14. You can ask different students to come to the front in turn and present each set of examples on the blackboard.
15. Many teachers use the blackboard only for writing. But simple pictures drawn on the blackboard can help to increase the interest of a lesson, and are often a good way of showing meaning and conveying situations to the class.
16. Blackboard drawings should be as simple as possible, showing only the most important details. Very simple line drawings and stick figures, which are easy to draw.
17. It is important to draw quickly, so as to keep the interest of the class. Talk as you draw.
18. Simple blackboard drawings: Faces. Heads should be large enough to be seen from the back of the class. Show how you can indicate expression, especially by changing the shape of the mouth.
19. Show other expressions, for example, surprise by raised eyebrows, anger by a frown.
20. Show which way the speaker is facing by changing the nose. This is is useful if you want to show two people having a conversation.
21. Show sex or age by drawing hair.
22. Stick figures Show/draw basic male and female stick figures. The body should be about twice as long as the head; the arms are the same length as the body; the legs are slightly longer.
23. Indicate actions by bending the legs and arms.
24. Places. Show buildings, towns, and directions by a combination of pictures and words.
25. Vehicles. Draw vehicles and indicate movement.
26. Use blackboard drawings to build up a complete situation. This might be done to introduce a topic and new vocabulary, or as a preparation for reading a text or dialogue. Draw a school, then draw a boy running, then rub out the boy, and draw him again by the school, then draw another diagram with the boy and the teacher.
27. A series or sequence of pictures would tell the story better. Use the pictures as cues to students to tell the story.

USING ENGLISH IN TESOL CLASS

As much as possible, English should be used in your class from the beginning itself. (Indian teachers of TESOL are very weak in this aspect.) This means that you will use English as frequently as possible for interaction with the students, and that you will ask students to use English as much as they can to express their personal needs and to engage themselves in conversations with you.

Use English mainly in the activities below:

1. Introducing the lesson.
2. Checking attendance.
3. Organizing where students sit.
4. Presenting new vocabulary.
5. Introducing a text.
6. Asking questions on a text.
7. Correcting errors.
8. Setting homework.

Note that in the initial stages you need to use a lot of gestures along with English to make the students understand what you wish to communicate to them. Sometimes you may be required to use the native language of your learners, or a language known to them as well as you. There are two main ways in which English can be used in class. It can be used in teaching the lesson itself: giving examples, introducing a text, asking questions, etc. It can also be used for activities which surround the lesson, but which are not actually part of the teaching: checking attendance, telling students where to sit, chatting students, controlling the class, etc.

There is great value in using English in class. If the teacher uses English most of the time, it will give the students practice in listening and responding to spoken English. This will help them pick up words and expressions beyond the language of the textbook. In the lesson itself, the language used is often unnatural and artificial. This will be modified to give an opportunity for real, natural English to be used. However, you should not feel that you must use English all the time. There are occasions when it can be useful to use the students’ own language.

Use of English in the classroom is greatly facilitated through socializing conversations. Instead of going straight to the textbook at the beginning of a lesson, the teacher can spend a few minutes chatting to the class about topics of interest. Note that if you make use of English in natural conversation, it would amount to exposing your students to native speakers’ English.

Try to keep to simple language that you might use in your own class. You can talk and ask questions, but get the students to give only short responses. You can prompt individual students to talk more about things they have done. You can get students to talk and ask questions. Chatting creates an opportunity for real language practice, and creates an English language atmosphere in the class. Students get to know one another well. They come to know each other’s names, and make small talks.

Even more important, it establishes contact with the class, and helps students to feel relaxed and ready to learn. Here are some possible topics for chatting to the class at the beginning or end of a lesson: Things the students did the previous day, feast days and holidays, a piece of local news, a local sports event, a school performance, a film on at the cinema, an interesting TV program, birthdays, etc.

Teachers have to say so many things simply to organize the lesson – starting or stopping an activity, getting students to do or not to do things. Much of this language consists of simple commands and instructions which are repeated lesson after lesson. If you say these in English, students will quickly learn what they mean. The following are some simple classroom commands in English, which you should continually use in your class:

Stand up (please).

Sit down (please).

Look! Look at me.

Listen!

Repeat!

Again! Open/Close your books.

Stop talking!

Come here, please.

Come to the front.

Be quiet, please.

Most of the language we need for organizing the class consists of simple expressions which can be used again and again. However, teachers may often need to use more complex language, for example, when explaining a new word or a grammar point, or explaining how an activity works. In such instances also, make your explanations as simple and clear as possible, so that the students understand.

Use simple, short sentences; use gestures to show each of the action you want them to understand. Use simple blackboard drawings; give difficult words in the language known to the students. Giving explanations in English is worthwhile if it can be done successfully and without too much difficulty. However, there are many occasions when it is best to use the students’ own language—either because the language needed is too complex, or because it is easier, quicker, and more convenient.

An explanation in English could be very confusing, especially if the concept or words are unfamiliar to the students. It would be better to give examples in English, and then to give a translation of the word. By using the students’ own language, we can give a clearer and fuller explanation, and refer to equivalent expressions in their language. It is best not to rely only on explanations in either language. It is more important to give plenty of examples and a chance for students to practice. An advantage of using the students’ own language is that the situation can be given more quickly and easily, leaving more time for practice. However, an advantage of using English is that it provides useful listening practice, and helps students by giving them some of the words they need.

USING VISUALS

As a teacher of TESOL, you should familiarize yourself with a range of simple visual aids which would help you to teach the structures and words smoothly. You should develop some skills to prepare your own visual aids. You should know how to use the visual aids effectively. Doff (1988:81-92) presents some interesting information on the use of visual aids in TESOL classroom:

Visual aids include pictures, objects, and things for the students to look at and talk about. Visual aids are important because showing visuals focuses attention on meaning, and helps to make the language in the class more real and alive; having something to look at keeps the students’ attention, and makes the class more interesting; visuals can be used at any stage of the lesson, to help in presenting new language or introducing a topic, as part of language practice, and when reviewing language that has been presented earlier; good visual aids can be used again and again and shared by different teachers.

You can use the following as visual aids in your class: yourself, the blackboard, real objects, flashcards, pictures, and charts. The teacher can use gestures, facial expressions, and actions to help show the meaning of words and to illustrate situations. You can use the blackboard to draw pictures, diagrams, maps, etc. You can use real objects in the classroom and bring other things into the class – food, clothes, containers, household objects, vegetables, etc.

Flashcards with single pictures can be held up by the teacher in the class. These can be used for presenting and practicing new words and structures, and for revision. The teacher can draw a picture on the flashcard, or stick on a picture from magazine. Flashcards can also be used to show words or numbers. Charts are large sheets of card or paper with writing, pictures or diagrams, used for more extended presentation or practice. These may be displayed on the wall or blackboard.

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CHAPTER 4
TEACHING LISTENING

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Teaching English to speakers of other languages can be looked at from many different angles. One useful way is to look at the teaching process as the teaching of various language skills.

There are, in general, four language skills, each based upon the modality of emphasis. These are the Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing skills.

Generally speaking, it is emphasized that we first teach listening, then speaking, then reading and writing. However, in real life situations of language communication, these skills are interdependent in many ways, even though they can be taught independently to some extent.

LISTENING SKILL

Listening in English is attending to and interpreting oral English. Listening is necessary to develop the speaking skill. The student listens to oral speech in English, then separates into segments the stretch of utterances he hears, groups them into words, phrases, and sentences, and, finally, he understands the message these carry. Listening prepares the students to understand the speech of the native speakers of English as they speak naturally in a normal speed and normal manner.

There are three approaches to listening: interactive (listening to a message and doing something as a consequence) and one-way communication or non-interactive (just listening and retaining the message, in activities such as conversations overheard, public address announcements, recorded messages, etc.) and self-talk. Listening to radio and watching TV and films, public performances, lectures, religious services, etc., generally reflect non-interactive listening. Responding to the commands given reflects interactive listening, which, in fact, is equally widespread in communicative situations. Self-talk is also an important process by which internal thinking and reasoning is carried out. All these three modes or approaches to listening may be included in our TESOL listening comprehension training.

In the classroom, students listen in order to repeat and to understand. In listening to repeat, students imitate and memorize linguistic items such as words, idioms, and sentence patterns. This is an important beginning task and focus of listening exercises. However, it is listening to understand that is real listening in its own right.

Students listen to understand as part of using English for communication purposes. In listening to understand, students may be involved in the question-oriented response model of learning or in the task-oriented model of learning. In the question-oriented response model, students may be asked to listen to a sentence, a dialogue, a conversation, a passage, or a lecture and asked to answer questions which may be presented in the form of true/false statements, multiple choice questions, fill in blank, or short answers. In the task-oriented response model, students may be asked to listen to a passage and accomplish the task described in the passage through interaction with others or by themselves.

Remember that research indicates that most students have difficulty with listening skills, even when listening to their native language. Among other factors, because of the phenomenon of stress (some syllables of a word may by stressed while others may not be), most learners of English have difficulty in mastering the correct placement of the primary and other stresses in English. (This could lead to misunderstanding the meaning of a word, phrase or sentence.) As a consequence, listening proficiency in English is to be cultivated with great care.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

The listening skill is the most neglected one, both in first and second language teaching. Teachers tend to focus on the rudimentary elements of listening briefly, and pass over to other aspects of language teaching. Discrimination of sounds and intonations often form the major part of listening practice in the classroom. Listening for content is often assumed. In reality, the listening skill is fundamental to the entire process of mastering and using a language, whether first or second or foreign.

Listening is like painting, like color, in day to day environment. You don’t notice, but it is always there in every linguistic activity. Listening is important for casual chats, face to face encounters, telephone messages, for enjoyment of radio and television programs, formal lectures, and many other activities.

In the past, listening was labeled as a passive skill, along with reading. No doubt, it is a receptive skill like reading. Speaking and writing were considered to be productive skills, but also active skills. While this categorization is somewhat justifiable because the focus of listening is on reception of information, listening itself cannot be fully and correctly characterized only as a passive skill.

There is a need for an active involvement of the self for the efficient performance of listening. The listener is often forced into guessing an approximation to what the speaker is communicating. The listener expects and anticipates what may be the form and content of the immediate message being delivered. He actively avoids the redundancies in the process of listening, focuses himself on the relevant, interesting and/or crucial points, and engages himself in some critical analysis of content. Listening becomes the stepping stone for action. In view of all these and other activities that are involved in listening, we should consider listening as an active skill demanding active participation of the listener.

How do we organize teaching the listening skill for the TESOL audience? Remember that fluent listening results only from wide exposure to the target language. Listening, like other language skills, is acquired only by doing it.

Remember also that listening is an integral part of any type of language performance. For this reason it should be taught from the beginning classes of TESOL. It should not be postponed for special treatment at a later date or for special occasions. Fluent listening is important from the beginning, if a student is to succeed in his TESOL class and succeed using English outside his class. Teachers should enable the students to listen to native speakers’ speech from the beginning.

More often than not, English is taught through the eyes rather than through the ears in Third World countries. As a consequence, students would have mastered reading and writing with some relative competence, but their skill in listening to natural and native English will be poorly developed.

Where do we practice Listening Comprehension? In all places and in all classes. We must begin with the identification of natural listening situations both inside the classroom and outside.

The students are always required to listen to the teacher’s instructions and questions, and answer them. They may listen to conversations between a student and the teacher and understand what is going on. They may like to participate in a discussion between students and understand what is being discussed. They may like to listen and enjoy the story told by the teacher, and answer questions raised by the teacher. They may listen to simple questions eliciting information about them and their families and understand what the speaker wants to know from them. They may enjoy the jokes told both in the class and outside.

Outside the classroom, the students have many needs which they can meet only by listening to the speech around them and by expressing what they need. They need to understand the native speakers of English they come across in their day to day life, if they are studying and/or working in an English speaking country. Where there is no opportunity for them to come across native English speakers, they will need to listen and comprehend the native English used in the movies and TV programs.

We practice listening comprehension in all places and in all lessons and in all language skills (although at advanced levels of other language skills the role of listening could be minimal). There may be listening comprehension exercises on the phonological elements when pronunciation is taught. There may be exercises for listening comprehension when exercises on grammar are done, as well as in vocabulary teaching. When varieties of speech in various communicative contexts are introduced, there will be ample scope for listening comprehension exercises.

So, begin with the identification of listening situations appropriate to the need and age of the students and the level of English competence already achieved by them. Start with a focus on an ability to understand the formal code of classroom style English, because this is what is absolutely needed for the learner to benefit from classroom instruction. Focus on the goal of the TESOL learners and progress towards achieving the goal in small graded steps. Proceed to less formal varieties of spoken English to enable students to understand people outside the classroom.

Often a simple progression is suggested: classroom style, outside spoken English, how to listen to lectures and take notes, comprehend native speakers in all situations, including radio and TV, cultural language, etc.

Identify the listening medium: is it face to face interaction, or is it a movie or a TV program? Or is it a lecture situation? Or is it a telephonic conversation? Face to face interaction requires a different listening orientation than watching (and listening) to a movie.

SIMPLE PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING LISTENING COMPREHENSION

It is important that you, as a teacher of TESOL, should have definite goals as regarding teaching listening comprehension.

In the early stages of listening, the students may have to be taught and exposed to discrimination of sounds used in English in isolation as well as in combination, not simply as sounds in themselves in isolation, but as units of meaningful words.

Pit and bit are two different words with significant meaning difference. The students who listen to these words should be able to distinguish these words not only in terms of the contexts in which these occur in a phrase or sentence, but also as sound units occurring in words, even without any context.

I had great difficulty distinguishing between p and b in English words, when I began to learn English in my elementary school. My mother tongue does not use p and b in identical position to discriminate between words and their meanings.

Many students with Bengali (a language spoken in Bangladesh and India) background have difficulty in discriminating between s, and sh. The Japanese free variation between l and r is quite well known.

The auditory habits followed in the native language of the student may come to influence his perception and production of the quality of sounds in English. In such conditions, it is always helpful if you know something about the phonology of the native language of the students.

The goals of teaching listening comprehension to a beginning student of English are different from those when teaching English to an advanced student. The advanced student has already mastered the discrimination of sounds and their combinations as well as various other aspects of phrases and sentences such as the significance of pauses between words and phrases, sentence intonation, etc. Therefore, he is geared towards following the flow of content of the message in such a way that he is not conscious of the mechanics or the processes of listening.

In essence, listening is not mere recognition of linguistic units and their meanings. It comprises an ability to predict information based on linguistic context, and the situation and topic of the message conveyed by the linguistic code, as well as the expectations about the world. Listening helps also to understand and act according to the emotional state of the speaker.

First of all, you should be clear about your goals in teaching a lesson for listening comprehension. These goals must be made explicit and explained to the students so that the learning process becomes meaningful to them.

Secondly, you should plan for a careful step by step progression in the material and, in teaching the same in the class. You should give direction to the students as to what they should listen for, where to listen, when to listen, and how to listen.

Thirdly, you must insist on active overt student participation. They should provide some written or physical response. Listening is done silently, but needs to be demonstrated through some other overt manifestation.

Organize your lesson in such a way that there is a need for the students to develop concentration while listening and for remembering (and reproducing) what they have listened to. This does not mean that you should clutter your lesson with facts, figures and details. Even with very little details, we may be able to create a need to listen intently, if the material is based on a communicative need.

For example, in a shopping context in a grocery store commonly found in the Third World countries, the shopkeeper has the need to remember and present the number and quantity of items the buyer has asked for. In a post office, the counter clerk has to listen to the patron carefully and remember exactly the quantity and denomination of the stamps the patron has asked for. The communicative urgency and the need to listen carefully and remember what has been listened to should come from the lesson itself.

It is important that students develop consciously their memory span while listening to a message. Their auditory memory span must be strengthened and expanded in progressive steps in English.

While personality factors play a very important role in deciding how successful a listener a student could become, the learners need to have some minimal competence in listening to the speech of the native speakers. In due course they should be able to listen and remember relatively lengthy sentences and phrases.

In natural contexts, no one deliberately speaks in very long sentences. Often we tend to use certain sentence patterns more frequently than others. The number of adjectives in a noun phrase often is limited and these often follow a certain order. The teachers can take advantage of such structural information and build their classroom listening practice around these.

Listening, thinking, and remembering go together. They are not separate acts. In the beginning, the TESOL student may tend to focus on these as independent items. The teacher should organize her lesson and its presentation and teaching in the class in such a way that listening, thinking, and remembering are all integrated in listening comprehension.

Neither you nor your students should think that listening comprehension exercises are miniature tests. These generally come in the form of questions to be answered, action to be performed, or objects to be identified, etc. Because this format demands response in the form in which tests are generally prepared and presented, we tend to treat the exercise as a test. Consider listening comprehension only as practice and look for progress in student performance.

Brief listening comprehension exercises with content interesting to the student and which focus upon and incorporate his communicative needs will develop his listening comprehension to a satisfactory level. Students need to be attentive to the tone of the conversation, and should ask questions whenever they find it difficult to understand the conversation.

Even with limited vocabulary and sentence structure, listening comprehension exercises may be built on a variety of content. Do not ask questions on every little detail presented in the passage. Focus upon the major and significant items, because we, as users of language, tend to ignore what we consider insignificant and less interesting, and focus upon what is significant and interesting. While doing so, we still develop and retain an ability to reconstruct at least some of the details of what we ignored, if called upon to do so.

What is the generally followed form of listening comprehension exercises? Students are given a specific task such as answering questions or solving problems. They listen to the teacher or the recorded material and perform the task asked for. Thus the teacher as well as materials on tape/cassette recorders become the major means to train the students in listening comprehension.

Use a cassette recorder as often as you can, because the cassette recorder gives a chance for students to listen to a variety of voices apart from the teacher’s. It is a simple way of bringing native speakers’ voices into the classroom. In countries where there is only a limited number of native speakers of English and when even these may not be readily available to model English before the class face to face, recorded materials become more useful for listening to dialogues, interviews, and discussions. Students, however, will have greater difficulty listening to the cassette recorder, because face to face listening provides them with more clues. Nevertheless, the cassette can be stopped and played back several times.

Focus should be on exposure to the speech of native speakers in contexts that are relevant to the second language learner’s goals in learning English.

In developing or choosing materials for listening appropriate to TESOL students, Morley (1991:90-92) suggests three important principles: relevance, transferability/applicability, and task-orientation. The materials must be relevant to the interests and level of the TESOL students of your class. The content, structures, and words used in the listening materials should be of such a nature that these are transferable and utilized in other classes and outside the classroom.

Task-orientation materials focus on performance based on what is presented as listening material. There are at least six types of task-oriented use: Listening and performing actions (“Simon Says”); Listening and performing operations (listening and constructing a figure, drawing a map, etc.), Listening and solving problems (riddles, numerical, spatial or chronological problems), Listening and transcribing (taking telephone messages, writing notes), Listening and summarizing information. Interactive listening and negotiating meaning through questioning and answering routines. Note that every one of these items can be used as exercise types.

A recent publication (Nunan and Miller 1995), containing materials from practicing TESOL teachers, looks at the classroom techniques for developing listening under seven major heads:

Developing cognitive strategies (listening for the main idea, listening for details, and predicting), Developing listening with other skills (listening and speaking, listening and pronunciation, and listening and vocabulary), Listening to authentic material (such as weather reports, television daytime dramas, News, Discussions, Advertisements, etc.), Using technology (Phone mail, recording messages, etc.), Listening for academic purposes, and Listening for fun.

A generally followed format of listening comprehension lessons includes the following:

1. Select the teaching point for the listening comprehension lesson.
2. Introduce the topic before the class begins to listen to the passage. In this manner the teacher brings the students’ attention to focus on the material to be listened to.
3. Give one or two guiding questions before students begin to listen to the passage.
4. Divide the listening into stages, such as listening for the main idea only at the first instance, then answering some guiding questions. This may be followed by a second listening in which students listen for details.
5. Divide the passage into several sections and check comprehension after each section.
6. Students listen to the passage and complete the set task.
7. Presentation of feed back on the performance of the students.
8. You may read the passage once again so that your students may follow the passage more fully.

More often than not, a well graded listening comprehension lesson selects the teaching points (that is, the material to be listened to) from all the components of language. Listening does not focus only upon the sounds in isolation or in combination, even though such training to discriminate between various sounds of the English language may be necessary at the beginning level. It may begin with the discrimination of sounds and may proceed to the discriminations of sounds in combination, words, phrases, clauses and sentences. It focuses on the discrimination of various intonation patterns, and grammatical structures. However, the ultimate goal of listening is to listen for information.

There are several kinds of listening comprehension exercises.

1. A rudimentary but important form of listening comprehension exercise is the Use of the terms in English for class management. The teacher frequently uses instructions such as Everybody sit down; Listen carefully; Answer; Again; and Repeat. When these are uttered with appropriate gestures, the students begin to understand them very soon.

2. While use of the class management terms is continued, introduce as part of your lesson Physical Response Activities. Commands would be given by the teacher and the students would give appropriate physical responses: Stand up; Walk to the window; Open the Window. You as a teacher of English as a foreign/second language can demonstrate the act intended to be carried out by the students initially.

Note that the Physical Response procedure can be repeated as many times as necessary when new actions and vocabulary are introduced to the students. However, choose only those words which lend themselves for Physical Response.

The tasks given to the students can be made more complex in successive stages. You can ask the student to close the door, but ,while he goes to the door, he may pick up the pencil on the floor. Or, instructions may be given to the student to draw a picture and this will involve learning the dimensions, parts of the object being drawn, etc. Or, we may have exercises which would focus on shapes and colors, in which new terms would be learned while performing the task.

Bear in mind the following factors when you wish to have Physical Response activities in your class: Complexity of the task. 2. Length of exercise. (Do not give lengthy ones.) 3. Length of Sentences. 4. Frequency status of vocabulary used. (As much as possible, give prominence in your teaching to those words that are more frequently used in a particular context.) 5. Speed of delivery instructions.

3. Limited Verbal Response Activities. The response in these exercises is limited to yes/no, true/false, simple answers to WH-questions, usually answers that consist of one word. Do not emphasize production of complete answers.

4. Sound Discrimination Exercises. In English, consonant discrimination is more easily learned than vowel discrimination. And vowel discrimination is more easily learned than stress discrimination and production. Teaching of English stress is important in contrastive contexts.

In English, a contrastive stress (typically louder and often pronounced on a higher pitch) is regularly placed on new information in a context. Compare the following: 1. John hit Bill and then Joe hit him. 2. John hit Bill and then Joe hit him. In sentence 1 Bill gets hit twice, first by John and then by Joe. In sentence 2 Bill gets hit by John, but then John is hit by Joe. The difference is caused by the location of the sentence stress in the last clause of each sentence.

Consider these sentences: 1. Helen pinched Mary, and then Eileen pinched her. Who got the second pinch? 2. He didn’t lose his new pen; (he lost....) He lost his pencil. He didn’t lose his new pen; (he lost....) He lost his old one (Bowen, et al.1985:83-84).

Remember that the intelligibility of spoken English is reduced more by errors in stress than in mistaken sounds. Remember also that teaching and learning the stress system in English is considered to be the most difficult exercise by many, both teachers and students.

5. There are many one-syllable words such as and, to, for, than, the, was, etc., which, when buried in sentences, are unstressed and, as a consequence, cause listening problems to the second language learners of English. This problem is not generally recognized in the classroom, but in actual conditions of language use it hinders listening. One way to overcome this problem is to teach some nursery rhymes which abound in unstressed syllables and words: One for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, And four to go. Note that all the underlined items are unstressed words (Bowen, et al. 1985:86).

Since unstressed syllables and words cause listening problems and consequent misunderstanding of what is being listened to, you should continually provide your students with exercises for listening to the unstressed syllables and words. Some of the following exercises may be used: Check every time you hear and. Check every time you hear to. Check every time you hear for, and similar exercises for the unstressed items. Another complex exercise would be to ask the students how many times the word for (etc.) occurs in the text?

6. Often we tend to focus less attention upon teaching the segmental sounds and their combinations in English. However, mastering some of the segmental sounds and their combinations could pose some difficulty to second language learners. For example, I have come across learners who have difficulty in distinguishing between p-b, l-r, j-z, s-z, and similar sounds. A simple exercise of minimal pairs of words may be designed where these distinctions would be drilled.

Note that we are not talking about producing the sounds, but about listening in order to discriminate the sounds.

7. There are also difficulties faced by learners in mastering combinations of segmental sounds. Often, the clusters of sounds in the word’s initial position may pose some difficulty. For example, many Punjabi speakers have difficulty in mastering the pronunciation of the clusters such as st-, sl-, sp-and sk-. Once again a contrastive minimal pair drill in which the contrast between the occurrence of single sounds and their combinations could be designed: sick vs. stick. Note that we are not talking about producing the sequences of sounds, but about listening to discriminate the sequences of sounds.

It would be highly useful if you had some idea of the nature of the phonology of the source language of your students. This would give you some insights into the difficulties posed by your class, and you could come up with some concrete illustrations as to why they have difficulty in listening to particular speech sounds and/or their combinations.

8. While certain intonation patterns (sentence melody), based upon the universality of emotions in some sense, could be easily recognized by the students, others, which carry communicative nuances such as sarcasm, cynicism, wonder, doubt, etc., will be hard to follow. Hence there is a need to teach your class a variety of intonations the native speakers of English generally use in their day to day language.

Once again, a contrastive approach of first presenting an ordinary statement which conveys somewhat a literal sense should be presented, then followed by modifications of intonations on the very same sentence which would convey various communicative shades of meaning. For example, you can start with an ordinary declarative sentence, change that into an interrogation, then change that into an exclamatory sentence, etc. Contrast a matter of fact sentence with the same words but in the mode of expressing doubt, and so on.

Note that listening is not just listening to sounds, words, phrases and sentences. Listening is listening to the meanings, the progress of the meanings of the utterances, the logic and rationale and goading into action, etc. So, while the basics of listening focus upon sounds and their combinations, words and their combinations, and sentences and their combinations, the goal of listening lies beyond the elements and forms of language. Listening needs to be automatic, and in a speed that is in consonance with the speed of the incoming utterances.

9. The student is required not only to comprehend native English spoken to him, but also to comprehend it with a speed that somewhat matches the speed of comprehension in a natural language situation in English. Accordingly, your listening exercise should have some room for the development of “listening speed.” An important step towards this is to ask the learners to make intelligent guesses about the meaning based on the context of other words in the utterances.

10. Communicative Classroom activities. There are several types of exercises one could introduce here.

1. Ask the student to listen to a short passage (an excerpt of a lecture) and then ask students to answer a few questions. This is to test the listening comprehension of the students.
2. Another exercise is called cloze dictation. This takes the form of asking the students to listen to a paragraph and to write the missing words. Leave the first few sentences as they are so that a proper context is established for subsequent blanks in other sentences.
3. Next comes the exercise which demands some inferential skill from the listener: Listen to the lecture and then evaluate the following statements as true or false. The student is not only asked to listen but also think over the matter and make inferences in this type of exercise.
4. Another inferential skill exercise focuses upon the nuances. Sometimes people say something they don’t really mean. The insincerity may be signaled by intonation (tone of voice etc.: Wife: George, I think I’m pregnant again. Husband: Now, isn’t that a pleasant thought (Bowen, et al. 1985:93).
5. Listening to radio plays and advertisements is yet another interesting activity.
6. Story telling or story reading. Follow this with questions, asking for factual information and inferential statements.

11. Community Interaction Activities. Students learn listening in the classroom for purposes outside the classroom. They need to take their skills into the community. There are several good listening comprehension exercises meant for this.

1. Eavesdropping is a good way to inform oneself of community activities as well as to sharpen one’s listening comprehension. Anywhere in crowds is a good place to eavesdrop: department store, on a municipal bus, in a theater and so on. Note that this is generally possible only if you are teaching English in an English-speaking country.
2. Telephone is another device that can give realistic practice in listening. The telephonic conversation needs verbal feedback (Uh huh; Yes; Is that so; etc.) or some brief indication that the listener is still there and attentive. Also this leads to an exercise in note-taking, when the person called is not readily available. Thirdly, the student may reconstruct a conversation of which he heard only half, and that too from across the room. This involves guessing, and this skill is very much necessary for a successful listener.
3. Ask students to listen to pre-recorded messages of various sorts and give them comprehension questions to answer after listening to the messages: Time, weather messages, movie announcements, airlines flight information, aquarium and planetarium programs, library hours, and so on.
4. Recorded lessons on tape in the language lab. Language lab exercises are effective for minimal pairs recognition, paraphrasing of what is listened to, and so on. The student can be given a series of choices, such as selecting the best paraphrase of two possibilities, making a congruence decision, etc., and he can be directed to write these down. Then, after the student has committed to paper his judgments on a series of items, the voice on the tape can reel off a list of correct responses, so the student can tally the items he got correct and have an evaluation of his own performance (Bowen, et al. 1985).

Remember that listening is an important part of the competence of a successful learner of English. Listening can be dealt with in isolation, through exercises which focus on listening aspects only. However, even as we focus on it as an independent skill in the learning of English, it is important for us to integrate listening with speaking through all the lessons. This may be better accomplished if we deliberately include some listening exercises in every lesson we teach.

A SUMMARY LIST OF LISTENING COMPREHENSION EXERCISES

1. We may have exercises at the phonological level of English. These will include the following: Aural discrimination exercises for segmental sounds, Aural discrimination exercises for suprasegmentals such as stress and intonation, Vowel reduction exercises which demonstrate the relationship between the spoken and written forms of English, and Stress placement exercises. All these may be used in dialogue form.
2. We may also have listening comprehension exercises which relate to listening in the process of reading a material. In these exercises, we may ask the students to number the words in the order in which they heard them, ask students to cross out what is not correct for the passage, ask students to identify the words with the sound specified, ask students to identify whether the words and phrases they heard in pairs are the same or different (same-different drills), and ask students to identify the grammatical categories of patterns they have just listened to. Note that not all these exercises would be interesting or relevant in your class.
3. Dictation is an excellent drill for developing listening comprehension, even as it helps in the development of rudimentary writing skill. You may begin with spot dictation in which a few simple words from the text are read/pronounced to the students and they are asked to write what they heard. In another type of spot dictation, students may be asked to fill in the blanks, when a passage is read. Yet another dictation method is to dictate a complete passage with normal speed. For this, it is always helpful if you read first the whole passage aloud in normal speed. Then, you may read the same passage again with pauses for students to write. These pauses should fall in natural breaks between phrases and sentences. After the dictation is done, you may reread the passage at normal speed for checking the responses given by the students. In order to keep the level of difficulty and complexity of the passage given for dictation appropriate to the level of students, it is better to select these passages only from the lessons already completed in class.
4. It is possible to use dictation for “grammatical” listening as well.
5. Recoding exercises in which you may ask the students to circle the sentence which has the same meaning as the one they hear may be given for listening comprehension practice.
6. Listen to the passage and check all the appropriate answers.
7. Listening for the message is focused upon when students listen to entire passages. Read from a well-graded book or play a message on tape and ask students to say or write the essential parts of the message they just heard. Let the students concentrate on the general theme or the central message, instead of on specific words or phrases.
8. In Problem Solving listening comprehension exercises, students listen to the description or presentation of a problem and solve it, by doing what is required of them.
9. Listening to an uncontrolled passage (a passage in which neither vocabulary nor sentence structure nor content is controlled or graded) and taking notes is an important listening comprehension skill that students must have if they wish to use English for purposes of higher education. They need to understand the lecture, go along with the lecture with ease when the content progresses in complexity, and be in a position to recall what was heard earlier for purposes of understanding what is being discussed by the lecturer at a later moment. Listening and Note Taking Competence is very much needed in college instruction. This skill may be developed in the second or foreign language learner of English through several graded steps:
10. 1. Students are introduced to the mechanics of note-taking. They will be given a list of common symbols used as abbreviations for words and ideas. They should also be introduced to the processes and forms of outlining a content.
    2. Students may be given an outline with the basic points of the content of the lecture they are going to listen to. Along with these basic points, there will be blanks which they are required to fill in as they listen to the lecture. Then, at the end, they will answer some comprehension questions as well.
    3. In the next graded step, students may be given a bare outline and a set of comprehension questions. They are required to fill the outline, but take their own complete set of notes, and answer questions.
    4. The next advanced step will present only the major headings of the outline of the lecture, and the students are required to take their own complete set of notes, and then answer some comprehension questions.
    5. In this step, students are given only comprehension questions. They are required to answer them after listening to the lecture. At this level, lectures may last for an entire class period.
11. It is important to include listening comprehension exercises to teach variations of style in English. English is greatly marked by such variations in usage. Such exercises help students understand the English spoken outside the classroom. For this it is important to use dialogues. Discuss the factors concerning the style of a particular passage given for listening comprehension. Focus on the speakers, situation, content, mood, channel, etc. You may focus upon the variations on a theme, on sound, grammar, and vocabulary, and ask students how the dialogues differ. Through such exercises students will become sensitive to style differences.

A FEW GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

A few general suggestions for the selection and presentation of listening comprehension exercises may be in order here. As already pointed out, you should select your teaching points for listening comprehension from various language components. While the presentation is made, you should help students focus their attention on the presentation. You may alert the students to what they are going to do. You may give them written material to complete the task before they listen to the passage.

This will help them understand what they are expected to do after listening to the passage. Are they going to answer comprehension questions? Are they going to draw pictures or other physical response activities, or are they going to do problem solving exercises? Are they going to involve others in doing physical tasks, or are they going to tell the answers (oral answers)?

Are they going to write the answers, or are they going to put together and narrate? It is also important that you give a model question and a model answer in the beginning of the exercise.

While asking students to listen and complete a set task, your presentation should be given in normal speed and intonation. Do not reduce the speed. However, read the exercise over again, if demanded. The length and difficulty of exercise will decide the number of repetitions. If you focus upon recalling facts, you may repeat the exercise several times.

Feedback on the performance of students in listening comprehension exercises is better done by giving an answer key so that students themselves will check their answers. You may discuss the progress with students so that they will know how well they are progressing in listening to native English.

Remember that listening is an important skill which facilitates the mastery of other language skills. Continued exposure to native English speakers both in face to face communication and audiovisual means will help foster the listening skill. The unstressed vowels and the process of vowel reduction make listening a difficult process to master. If students have a better listening skill they are more likely to have a better pronunciation.

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CONTENTS PAGE

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CHAPTER 5
TEACHING SPEAKING

ASKING AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS

How do you get a second/foreign language learner to speak English? You may just ask the student to speak, ask him to say something in English. You can even tell him what to say. He may or may not understand the meaning of the utterances he is asked to produce, but he will imitate what you told him to repeat.

Another way is to ask the student a question. He will try to answer if he realizes that he is being asked to answer a question. For this, he should understand what the question is, and he should have some mastery over the English phonology, grammar, and lexicon necessary to frame an appropriate answer. This is a more difficult task.

Asking and answering questions is an essential part of teaching, learning, and using any language. Asking questions and eliciting answers may be used for various purposes. First of all, asking questions enables the student to practice what he has learned. Secondly, you may ask questions to find whether the student understands the new vocabulary and the structures, and whether he is able to use them appropriately.

As Bowen et al. (1985) points out, “successful learners should be able to produce their thoughts in a way that will make their message accessible to native speakers of English who have no special training in linguistics or in the native language of the speaker.” You are a good speaker if you do not attract the attention of your listeners to how you say something, but to what you say.

Remember also that our goal in teaching speaking in English is not developing accuracy of pronunciation. There are several, almost insurmountable, problems that an adult second or foreign learner of English will face if he or she aims at perfect pronunciation like a native speaker of English. It is not accuracy of pronunciation but adequacy of fluency and communicative effectiveness that becomes the focus of speaking skill.

Despite a heavy accent, if the speech of a second/foreign language learner can be comprehended by a native speaker of English without forcing the native speaker to speak in shorter sentences than he normally does, with greater repetition and paraphrase of what he says for the benefit of the second language learner, we may consider the second or foreign language learner to have adequate efficiency in English speech. However, this is only an impressionistic evaluation, at the mechanical level of speaking. Speaking skill in English includes more than adequacy of pronunciation, as already pointed out. The ultimate goal of the speaking skill in English is to enable the learner to communicate his or her thoughts, ideas, and feelings via oral language to meet the needs faced by him or her.

IMITATION AND REPETITION

Imitation and repetition are important elementary steps in developing speaking skill in English. Imitation and repetition are inter-related, and yet they are distinct.

Imitation helps students to pronounce and produce the English utterance they hear from the teacher as closely as possible to the utterance produced by her. Imitation is not restricted to mere production of the sounds, phrases, and sentences. It includes also the capacity to produce the utterances in the contexts in which the original utterances were produced.

On the other hand, repetition refers to the acts of producing the utterances in as close a manner as possible to the original. Repetition leads to automatic reproduction of the utterance, and, in the process, some sort of memorization of the sound or structure practiced takes place through repetition.

Note, however, that neither imitation nor repetition results in the mastery of any language. These are important steps in practicing the language material, but these should not become the focus of the learning process in the classroom, because ultimately the TESOL speaker is expected to use English in novel and unpredictive ways to meet his or her needs. Children in the process of acquiring their first language use imitation and repetition as props, but not as the main tool for acquisition.

Some of the imitation and repetition exercises may be organized in the following manner: Present some simple sentence, phrase, or word and ask students to repeat after you. If you want them to understand and repeat a conversation, say the questions and the answers and have the students repeat the latter, or perhaps both, signaling the meaning in some way. The meaning can be demonstrated with realia (real objects brought into the classroom), pictures, gestures, or translating.

The teacher may use pictures, gestures, pantomime, translation, guessing, and drawing on the board to make the students understand the meaning. It is important that you use only meaningful words, phrases, and sentences for imitation and repetition. The props you use to explain or demonstrate the meaning should enable the student to learn the meaning with ease, along with the pronunciation.

Ask students to repeat the utterance several times. Some learning takes place through repetition, and the student begins to see patterns at different levels. He may form some hypotheses as to the order of occurrence of sounds in a word, words in a phrase, or a sentence. He may begin to distinguish between statements and questions. He may generalize from what he has been exposed to, and form even new sentences based on what he has repeated so far. He may begin to substitute new words in place of the old in the sentences he has repeated and form new sentences.

In the initial phase of learning and teaching English, repetition and imitation serve to make students familiar with the sounds and structures, get the attention and interest of the students, and focus their effort in the learning process. However, if these are stressed continually, or made as the main process of learning, these soon become boring events, and do not contribute to real learning of English. Naturally, the TESOL student will commit many errors at first. His pronunciation may not be appropriate, or he may not have reproduced all the elements or units of a word, phrase, or sentence. He will be hampered or guided by the structure and sounds of his language. However, imitation and repetition will help him to practice producing native-like utterances at the sound level.

SUBSTITUTION

Substitution of a word, phrase, or sentence by another is an elementary method which helps students to produce new utterances and to develop speaking skill.

Students repeat the sentence This is a ball several times, and then are given some names of objects such as mat, cat, rat, one after another to substitute in the proper place. In place of this, they may be given that and the students make the substitution and produce a new sentence That is a mat and so on.

In this way, a sentence frame is practiced first, then suitable slots in the frame are identified for substitution. When substitution is made, a number of new sentences are produced with ease by students.

The substitution drill has been used very much by teachers of TESOL in the past. Although the substitution drill is highly useful for the production of new sentences, it is of limited value (like imitation and repetition) and may not be used as the chief means to develop speaking skill.

Substitution of sounds in minimally different words is a common practice in listening exercises to develop auditory discrimination of sounds. Substitution of one word or phrase by another in the same slot in a frame is a common practice in speaking exercises at the beginners’ level.

From single word substitution, one may proceed to multiple word substitution in the same slot, without making grammatical changes in the frame: This is a pencil : This is a long pencil.

Consider the following:

Let’s go to the cinema. (theater)
Let’s go to the theater (library).
Let’s go to the library (football).
Let’s play football (hockey).
Let’s play hockey (pizza).
Let’s eat pizza (milk).
Let’s drink milk.

Likewise we may proceed to multiple word substitution in the same slot which necessitates making some grammatical changes in the frame: This is a cat (cats) : These are cats.

Substitution drills can be made more complex as students learn more structures and words. Combining the substitution drill with processes of addition, deletion and transposition of words/phrases makes these more complex and challenging to students.

DAY-TO-DAY EXPRESSIONS

Expressions of greeting, gratitude, small talk, introductions and making acquaintance, leave-taking, appreciation, expressions of regret and asking to be excused, etc., are very important communicative acts TESOL students need to master. For one thing, such expressions may take on different form and import in English than the ones students are accustomed to in their language and culture.

These expressions include, among others, Good morning. How are you?, Fine, Thanks, Hello, How do you do?, and Good-bye. These are learned as they are, with some explanation as to their meaning. Unlike other utterances, these are not analyzed into their structural components.

The students may be asked to memorize them and practice using them appropriate to the occasion: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good day, good night, etc. You should model their pronunciation and use in appropriate contexts and give students repeated practice so that they can incorporate these in their exchanges with you and other students in the class.

Sentences you teach should be so framed that these are useful and extendable to a variety of real situations. As already mentioned, some cultural information needs to be learned/taught in the use of these expressions. Students may use first names to address one another, but they will be required to use some titles such as Mr. or Mrs. or Dr. when they address adults. They may also use family names to begin with while addressing adults.

Small talk revolves around weather in English. One begins a conversation with another by commenting on weather. Then one introduces himself or herself to the other person. Starting a conversation across the fence, in crowded public places waiting for a game to begin, or in such similar contexts is quite common. This is called phatic communion.

Such phatic communication does not convey a heavy load of information. It functions as icebreakers, to maintain rapport between people, and to signify friendship or lack of enmity. These expressions do vary from culture to culture. Perhaps we, as teachers of English, should learn the phatic communion adopted in the native language of our learners and teach, not only the phatic messages used in native English context, but also incorporate the messages from the culture of the learner as well.

SIMPLE QUESTION-ANSWER DIALOGUES

Simple question-answer dialogues around a given context and object/objects is another elementary method to develop speaking skill in TESOL students.

There are three types of questions in English: yes/no questions, “or” questions, and WH-questions. Consider these questions which illustrate these types: Do you drink tea? Do you prefer tea or coffee? What do you usually drink? What is this?

Perhaps the easiest question to ask is What is this? Have a number of real objects and pictures of objects with you and ask the question What is this? while pointing to the object. Supply the name of the object and the answer for the question. Following this model, repeat the question and encourage the students to provide the suitable answer.

From this simple process of starting a dialogue, you may proceed to ask more complex questions. Note that the Yes/No questions are also easy to answer. The “Or” questions need more practice to answer.

How do we teach a dialogue? There are three types of drills one could use in the class: choral drill in which the entire class participates in one voice with the teacher modeling the utterance; chain drill in which one student asks the question and another answers, and in this way the entire class participates as a chain; and individual drill in which individual students are pointed out and asked to produce the utterance modeled by the teacher.

We recommend that you start with some form of choral drill, then proceed to chain drill, and finally ask individual students to answer your questions directly (individual drill). The class may be divided into two sections, one section repeating the question and another answering it. If role play is involved, assign roles to the sections.

The teacher can assume one of the roles among children. It is always fun when the teacher associates herself with some role and assigns the other roles to students. We can set up puppets, stick figures on the board, pictures, or even live objects for the roles, and the teacher will go behind each of these and produce their utterances as models (Bowen, et al. 1985). The teacher can create pretend situations and give students some model questions to ask these objects. Through dialogue accommodation we modify the dialogues so that the roles and names in the dialogue are made suitable to the participants.

The question-answer dialogue may take the following format: The teacher may write the example on the board or model the example orally. The students will repeat the model. Then the teacher asks questions and the students give answers. The teacher then gives some cues for additional dialogue question-answers. The students ask each other questions. After this has been practiced for some time, the students are encouraged to make up their questions and answers. All these must be done within the limits of words and structures already known to the students.

Long answers are elicited using several strategies. The teacher gives a question and asks for a long and complete answer. What is your name? My name is Susan Madison. A question such as “What do you do in the morning?” generally leads to a long answer. Likewise, a question such as “Tell me about your work” results in a long answer. Questions on the previous lesson generally lead to long answers.

Eliciting long answers helps the student to compose his thoughts in English, search for appropriate words and structures and use them in the appropriate order. This brings out explicitly his grammatical knowledge (knowledge about the structure of English). Note, however, that in normal conversations long answers are not often expected or given.

As their knowledge of and proficiency in using words and structures increase, the teacher can ask her students to talk about real life, about themselves, their friends, things in the world and so on. The teacher can suggest some imaginary situations or the students themselves may assume an imaginary situation and engage themselves in conversation. In such free oral practice, the students may be asked to build the content of a dialogue by giving one sentence each (Doff 1988). There will be some initial reluctance on the part of the students, but such reluctance should be overcome.

ELICITING

Eliciting is related to presentation of the lesson as well as asking questions. Eliciting is an important process which teachers must employ to get the class involved in what is going on in the class. For speaking practice eliciting is highly essential. It helps students to focus their attention, to think, and to use what they already know. It helps teachers to assess what the class already knew.

Presentation of a lesson with eliciting questions helps students remember words and structures, and gives them practice right then and there when the word is introduced. This may be used even to test the learning level achieved so far within that particular lesson. For example, you may present words for the different parts of the face. Then follow it by eliciting each word by pointing to the feature on your face, asking students what it is called, and then how to spell it. If no one knows the answer for a particular item, give the answer yourself. Use the board to write the words.

In straightforward presentation, the teacher gives the word and points to the part, asks the students to repeat, and then writes the word on the board. In presentation with simple eliciting, the teacher presents the words one by one and points to the parts, asks the students to repeat after her, writes the words on the board, points to the feature and elicits the word for it, and elicits the spelling. Note that, in eliciting, students are actually asked to practice speaking.

You can elicit vocabulary from pictures; you can also elicit sentences and phrases which give the description of what is depicted in the pictures. Ask simple and common questions when you show the pictures to the students. Let the student answer according to each picture. For example, show a picture in which a girl is swimming, and ask the question, What is she doing? Show the picture of a doctor and ask the question, What is this man?

Pictures from previous lessons would be most ideal, for students already would be familiar with the words, phrases, and sentences needed to describe the pictures. How about a story known to your students which is now given in pictures and the student is asked to narrate it in English? Picture cues are very helpful in teaching tense in English.

Care should be taken to frame questions in an unambiguous manner and the questions should be such that the students are able to answer without much difficulty.

At least two types of questions may be asked using pictures. In Type 1, the questions relate directly to what is seen in the picture. In Type 2, the questions ask students to imagine and interpret the picture beyond what is seen clearly in it (Doff 1988).

Type 1 Questions: Where is this woman standing? What is she wearing? What is she doing? What is she holding in her hand? What time of day is it?

Type 2 Questions: Why is she standing here? What has happened? How does she feel? Why? What is she thinking? Write some of her thoughts in a few words. Imagine this is a scene from a film. What will happen next?

Type 1 questions elicit important words or structures relating to the picture.

Type 2 Questions, however, ask students to imagine things beyond the picture, and to express possibilities using English. For this the students need to think and compose their thoughts, as well as find appropriate words and structures in English.

SPEAKING THROUGH GUESSING

As we saw in the last chapter, guessing is important for listening comprehension. Guessing can be used also to develop speaking skill. Through the process of guessing, students are encouraged to see the patterns of usage and to “invent” the correct words and sentences. Students will guess words and sentences that have not yet been taught to them. Through guessing, students work out the rules of deriving new words for themselves.

The teacher writes a few pairs of sentences such as the following on the board (Doff 1988):

He drives buses. ----- He’s a bus driver.
She sells books. --- She’s a book seller.

Based on these examples, students would guess the correct answers for the following.
Someone who drives trucks (truck driver)
Someone who owns ships (ship owner)
Someone who robs banks (bank robber)

You can find lots of such sets of words for eliciting. Egypt-Egyptian, Brazil-Brazilian; Russia-Russian, India-Indian; buy-bought, catch-caught, think-thought; leaf-leaves, loaf-loaves, knife-knives, wife-wives; interesting-more interesting, beautiful-more beautiful; sleep-slept, meet-met, feel-felt; short-shorter, big-bigger.

Mime may be used to encourage students to guess and speak about