Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies (3 page)

Chapter 10: Taken as Read: Teaching Reading Lessons. . . . . . . . . . .139

Choosing a Text ........................................................................................... 139

Starting with the ABCs ...................................................................... 140

Reading whole words ........................................................................ 141

Graduating from words to sentences with

the help of punctuation ................................................................. 142

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Looking at length ............................................................................... 144

Judging interest and relevance ........................................................ 144

Working with the Text ................................................................................ 145

Getting ready to read: Pre-reading tasks ........................................ 145

Finding your way around .................................................................. 146

Getting the gist ................................................................................... 146

Getting down to the nitty-gritty ....................................................... 146

Predicting ............................................................................................ 147

Summarising ....................................................................................... 147

Handling Vocabulary ................................................................................... 148

Before you set off ............................................................................... 149

Along the way ..................................................................................... 149

Try another route .............................................................................. 149

Working on Skills Associated with Reading ............................................. 150

Including reading-related skills ........................................................ 150

Doing more than reading .................................................................. 150

Reading Case Study ..................................................................................... 152

Chapter 11: Write or Wrong? Teaching Writing Lessons . . . . . . . . . .157

Putting Pen to Paper ................................................................................... 157

Paying attention to basic writing skills ........................................... 158

Completing sentences ....................................................................... 158

Moving on to paragraphs .................................................................. 159

Structuring a Writing Lesson ..................................................................... 161

Energising the class with pre-writing tasks .................................... 161

Setting the writing task and explaining the stages ........................ 165

Registering the Right Degree of Formality ............................................... 166

Writing Case Study ...................................................................................... 168

Chapter 12: What Accent? Teaching Pronunciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171

Repeat after Me ............................................................................................ 171

Repeating fi rst .................................................................................... 171

Repeating as a class and individually ............................................. 172

Using Phonology: Sound and Spelling ....................................................... 173

Getting to know the 44 key sounds of English ............................... 174

Using phonemes in class ................................................................... 177

Adding Emphasis to Words and Syllables ................................................ 177

Impotent or important? Placing emphasis on syllables................ 178

Emphasising words............................................................................ 178

Improving Fluency through Pronunciation .............................................. 179

Watch Your Tone! – Intonation .................................................................. 180

Chapter 13: Setting Their Tongues Wagging:

Speaking and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183

Getting Students Talking ............................................................................ 183

Warming up ........................................................................................ 184

Talking about communicative activities ......................................... 185

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How About You? Extending Conversations ............................................. 187

Helping students depart from the script ........................................ 187

Following up ....................................................................................... 189

In My Opinion – Agreeing, Disagreeing and Negotiating ........................ 190

Expressing an opinion ....................................................................... 190

Interjecting, rephrasing and summing up....................................... 191

Planning a Discussion Lesson .................................................................... 193

Choosing the right topic ................................................................... 193

Creating structure in the discussion ............................................... 194

Paying attention without taking over .............................................. 194

Chapter 14: In One Ear, Out the Other: Learning To Listen . . . . . . . . .195

Structuring Your Lesson ............................................................................. 195

Choosing a Listening Activity .................................................................... 196

Finding material from the real world .............................................. 196

Choosing the material from course books ..................................... 198

Using CDs and DVDs for authentic listening .................................. 198

Whetting Students’ Appetites .................................................................... 201

Motivating students to listen ........................................................... 201

Running through some pre-listening tasks ..................................... 202

Come Again? Repeating the Text ............................................................... 204

Listening for the basic idea .............................................................. 204

Listening for detail ............................................................................. 205

Planning Follow-Up Activities .................................................................... 207

Part IV: The Grammar You Need to Know –

and How to Teach It ................................................. 209

Chapter 15: Stop Press! Student to Deliver Sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . .211

Starting with the Basics: Subjects, Verbs and Objects ........................... 211

Thinking about subjects ................................................................... 212

Activating verbs ................................................................................. 213

Acting on the object .......................................................................... 216

Proposing Prepositions .............................................................................. 217

Introducing Articles .................................................................................... 218

Using the indefi nite a/an ................................................................... 219

Getting specifi c with ‘the’ ................................................................. 219

Foregoing the article altogether ...................................................... 220

Describing Adjectives and Adverbs .......................................................... 220

Sprucing up a noun with an adjective ............................................. 220

Expanding on verbs with adverbs ................................................... 222

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Connecting with Conjunctions ................................................................... 224

Differentiating conjunctions ............................................................. 224

Weaving conjunctions into writing and speaking .......................... 225

Chapter 16: Feeling Tense? Sorting Out Verb Tenses . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

I Speak, I Spoke, I’ve Spoken: Identifying the Tenses .............................. 227

Beginning with the Present Simple ........................................................... 229

Staying Continuously in the Present ........................................................ 231

Going Back to the Past, Simply .................................................................. 231

Remembering a Moment in the Past ........................................................ 232

Presenting the Present Perfect Simple ..................................................... 233

Sharing experiences .......................................................................... 233

Continuing from the past until the present .................................... 234

Anticipating expectations ................................................................. 234

Noting recent changes ...................................................................... 234

Acting in the Present Perfect Continuous ................................................ 235

Moving from the past until the present .......................................... 235

Showing recent changes ................................................................... 235

Getting to the Past Perfect Simple ............................................................. 236

Seeing the structure .......................................................................... 236

Plotting a timeline .............................................................................. 237

Focusing on the Past Perfect Continuous ................................................ 238

Expressing the Future ................................................................................. 239

Doing the future simple ..................................................................... 240

Going into the future continuous ..................................................... 241

Getting to the future perfect ............................................................. 242

Looking forward to the future perfect continuous ........................ 244

Talking about ‘To be going to’.......................................................... 245

Chapter 17: Exploring More Important Verb Structures . . . . . . . . . . .247

Knowing Your Modals ................................................................................ 247

Identifying modal verbs .................................................................... 247

Comparing the modal verbs and what they do.............................. 249

Sorting Out Phrasal Verbs ......................................................................... 251

Following the rules about separable and inseparable phrasals .... 252

Teaching phrasal verbs .................................................................... 254

If I Were You . . . Conditional Structures .................................................. 255

Being general: The zero conditional ................................................ 255

Depending on the possible: The fi rst conditional ......................... 256

Imagining the second conditional.................................................... 258

Reviewing the past with the third conditional ............................... 260

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Part V: What Kind of Class Will I Have? .................... 263

Chapter 18: Putting Students to the Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265

Testing Early to Discover Your Students’ Needs .................................... 265

Having them test themselves ........................................................... 265

Assigning levels through placement tests ...................................... 267

Testing for profi ciency ...................................................................... 268

Testing to Establish the Best Course ........................................................ 268

Testing progress ................................................................................ 269

Testing achievement ......................................................................... 269

Marking Tests ............................................................................................... 272

Looking at Alternatives to Testing ............................................................ 273

Chapter 19: Getting Specifi c: Teaching Just One

Student and Business English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .275

Evaluating One-to-Ones .............................................................................. 275