It is important for the teacher to know when to step back and let students lead. Interactive group and pairwork play an important role in the language classroom. They serve a dual purpose. First, they have been carefully crafted to help students discover the target grammar as they progress through each Warm-up exercise.
Second, they are an informal diagnostic tool for you, the teacher, to assess how familiar the class is with the target structure. What Do I Already Know Exercises The purpose of these exercises is to let students discover what they do and do not know about the target structure in order to engage them in a chart. Essentially, these exercises illustrate a possible teaching technique: assess students first as a springboard for presenting the grammar in a chart. In truth, almost any exercise can be used in this manner.
You do not need to follow the order of material in the text. Adapt the material to your own needs and techniques. First Exercise after a Chart In most cases, this exercise includes an example of each item shown in the chart. Students can do the exercise together as a class, and the teacher can refer to chart examples where necessary. More advanced classes can complete it as homework.
The teacher can use this exercise as a guide to see how well students understand the basics of the target structure s. General Techniques for Fill-in written Exercises The fill-in or written exercises in the text require some sort of completion, transformation, discussion of meaning, listening, or a combination of such activities.
Following are some general techniques for the written exercises: Technique A: A student can be asked to read an item aloud. The slow-moving pace of this method is beneficial for discussion not only of grammar items, but also of vocabulary and content.
Students have time to digest information and ask questions. You have the opportunity to judge how well they understand the grammar. Technique B: You read the first part of the item and pause for students to call out the answer in unison. Do you have any questions? This technique saves a lot of time in class, but is also slow-paced enough to allow for questions and discussion of grammar, vocabulary, and content.
It is essential that students have prepared the exercise by writing in their books, so it must be assigned ahead of time as homework. Technique C: Students complete the exercise for homework, and you go over the answers with them. Students can take turns giving the answers, or you can supply them.
Depending on the importance and length of the sentence, you may want to include the entire sentence, or just the answer. Answers can be given one at a time while you take questions, or you can supply the answers to the whole exercise before opening it up for questions.
Technique D: Divide the class into groups or pairs and have each group prepare one set of answers that they all agree is correct prior to class discussion. The leader of each group can present its answers. Another option is to have the groups or pairs hand in their set of answers for correction and possibly a grade. One option for correction of group work is to circle or mark the errors on the one paper the group turns in, make photocopies of that paper for each member of the group, and then hand back the papers for students to correct individually.
At that point, you can assign a grade if desired. Of course, you can always mix Techniques A, B, C, and D — with students reading some aloud, with you prompting unison response for some, with you simply giving the answers for others, or with students collaborating on the answers for others. Much depends on the level of the class, their familiarity and skill with the grammar at hand, their oral-aural skills in general, and the flexibility or limitations of class time.
Technique E: When an exercise item has a dialogue between two speakers, A and B, ask one student to be A and another B, and have them read the entry aloud. Students may be pleasantly surprised by their own fluency. Generally, these exercises are intended for class discussion of the form and meaning of a structure. Students can read their answers aloud to initiate class discussion, and you can write on the board as problems arise.
Or students can write their sentences on the board themselves. Another option is to have them work in small groups to agree upon their answers prior to class discussion. Technique A: Exercises where students must supply their own words to complete a sentence should usually be assigned for out-of-class preparation. Then, in class students can read their sentences aloud and the class can discuss the correctness and appropriateness of the completions. Perhaps you can suggest possible ways of rephrasing to make a sentence more idiomatic.
At the end of the exercise discussion, you can tell students to hand in their sentences for you to look at or simply ask if anybody has questions about the exercise and not have them submit anything to you.
Technique B: If you wish to use a completion exercise in class without having previously assigned it, you can turn the exercise into a brainstorming session in which students try out several completions to see if they work.
As another possibility, you may wish to divide the class into small groups and have each group come up with completions that they all agree are correct and appropriate. Then use only those completions for class discussion or as written work to be handed in.
Technique C: Some completion exercises are done on another piece of paper because not enough space has been left in the textbook. Paragraph Practice Some writing exercises are designed to produce short, informal paragraphs. This is how you might organize it. This is how long I expect it to be. In general, writing exercises should be done outside of class. All of us need time to consider and revise when we write.
The topics in the exercises are structured so that plagiarism should not be a problem. Tell them that these writing exercises are simply for practice and that — even though they should always try to do their best — mistakes that occur should be viewed simply as tools for learning. Encourage students to use a basic dictionary whenever they write. Point out that you yourself never write seriously without a dictionary at hand.
Discuss the use of margins, indentation of paragraphs, and other aspects of the format of a well-written paper. Error-analysis exercises focus on the target structures of a chapter but may also contain miscellaneous errors that are common in student writing at this level e.
Error-analysis exercises are challenging, fun, and a good way to summarize the grammar in a unit. If you wish, tell students they are either newspaper editors or English teachers; their task is to locate all the mistakes and then write corrections. Point out that even native speakers have to scrutinize, correct, and revise their own writing. This is a natural part of the writing process. The recommended technique is to assign an error-analysis exercise for in-class discussion the next day.
Students benefit most from having the opportunity to find the errors themselves prior to class discussion. These exercises can, of course, be handled in other ways: seatwork, written homework, group work, or pairwork.
In these exercises, students can work in pairs, in groups, or as a class. Interactive exercises may take more class time than they would if teacher-led, but it is time well spent, for there are many advantages to student-student practice. When students are working in pairs or groups, their opportunities to use what they are learning are many times greater than in a teacher-centered activity. Obviously, students working in groups or pairs are often much more active and involved than in teacher-led exercises.
Pairwork and group work also expand student opportunities to practice many communication skills at the same time in that they are practicing target structures. Students will often help and explain things to each other during pairwork, in which case both students benefit greatly. Pairwork and group work help to produce a comfortable learning environment.
In teacher- centered activities, students may sometimes feel shy and inhibited or may experience stress. They may feel that they have to respond quickly and accurately and that what they say is not as important as how they say it — even though you strive to convince them to the contrary.
When you set up groups or pairs that are noncompetitive and cooperative, students usually tend to help, encourage, and even joke with one another. This encourages them to experiment with the language and to speak more often. Walk around the room and answer questions as needed.
The group can answer individually or chorally, depending on the type of exercise. Vary the ways in which you divide the class into groups and choose leaders. If possible, groups of students work best. You, the teacher, conduct the oral exercise. You can always choose to lead an oral exercise, even when the directions specifically call for pairwork; exercise directions calling for group or pairwork work are suggestions, not ironclad instructions.
Modify or add items spontaneously as they occur to you. Change the items in any way you can to make them more relevant to your students.
For example, if you know that some students plan to watch the World Cup soccer match on TV soon, include a sentence about that.
Omit irrelevant items. Sometimes an item will start a spontaneous discussion of, for example, local restaurants or current movies or certain experiences your students have had. These spur-of-the-moment dialogues are very beneficial to your class. Being able to create and encourage such interactions is one of the chief advantages of a teacher leading an oral exercise.
Discussion of Meaning Exercises Some exercises consist primarily of you and your students discussing the meaning of given sentences. Most of these exercises ask students to compare the meaning of two or more sentences e. You must take an English course. One of the main purposes of discussion-of-meaning exercises is to provide an opportunity for summary comparison of the structures in a particular unit.
Basically, the technique in these exercises is for you to pose questions about the given sentences, and then let students explain what a structure means to them which allows you to find out what they do and do not understand. You can summarize the salient points as necessary. Students have their own inventive, creative way of explaining differences in meaning. You will need to gauge how many times to replay a particular item. In general, unless the exercise consists of single sentences, you will want to play the dialogue or passage in its entirety to give your students some context.
Then you can replay the audio to have your students complete the task. It is very important that grammar students be exposed to listening practice early on.
Native speech can be daunting to new learners; many say that all they hear is a blur of words. Students need to understand that what they see in writing is not exactly what they should expect to hear in normal, rapidly spoken English. The sooner your students practice grammar from a listening perspective, the more confidence they will develop and the better equipped they will be to interact in English.
There are 97 listening exercises in the text, all marked with a headphone icon. They reinforce the grammar being taught — some focusing on form, some on meaning, most on both. You will find an audio tracking list at the back of the student book to help you locate a particular exercise on the CD.
The listening scripts for all the exercises are also in the back of the student book, beginning on page Pronunciation Exercises A few exercises focus on pronunciation of grammatical features, such as endings of nouns or verbs and contracted or reduced forms.
It is not necessary for students to learn the complete phonetic alphabet; they should merely associate each symbol in an exercise with a sound that is different from all others. The purpose is to help students become more aware of these final sounds in the English they hear to encourage proficiency in their own speaking and writing.
The most important part of most of these exercises is for students to listen to the oral production and become familiar with the reduced forms. Initially, it can sound strange for students to try to pronounce reduced forms; because of their lack of experience with English, they may be even less understandable when they try to produce these forms.
Language learners know that their pronunciation is not like that of native speakers; therefore, some of them are embarrassed or shy about speaking. In a pronunciation exercise, they may be more comfortable if you ask groups or the whole class to say a sentence in unison.
After that, individuals may volunteer to speak the same sentence. Other Highlights Scaffolded exercises help learners bridge the gap between identifying grammatical structures and using them with confidence and accuracy. High-interest readings in multiple genres expose students to the form, meaning, and use of grammar in natural contexts.
Key vocabulary taught, practiced, and recycled throughout the unit ensures acquisition. Listening tasks give students multiple opportunities to focus on spoken English and develop listening skills. Mapped to the Global Scale of English. Audioscripts for the listening exercises are located in the back of the Teacher's Manual. Focus on Grammar helps students understand and practice English grammar through contextualized listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities.
Focus on Grammar combines controlled and communicative practice with critical thinking skills and ongoing assessment. Recent SLA research recognizes the necessity of attention to grammar and demonstrates that form-focused instruction is especially effective when it is incorporated into a meaningful communicative context.
Designed specifically for second-language teachers, this text identifies and explores the various options for integrating a focus on grammar and a focus on communication in classroom contexts and offers concrete examples of teaching activities for each option. Each chapter includes a description of the option, its theoretical and empirical background, examples of activities illustrating in a non-technical manner how it can be implemented in the classroom, questions for reflection, and a list of useful resources that teachers can consult for further information.
0コメント