Quick Reference A-C

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Source: English Club www.macmillan.com.mx



 R
Reading for gist

An important reading skill. It involves reading a passage to get a general idea of what it’s about, but not worrying about understanding the complete content or every specific idea.

For example, students could read a review of a pop stars’ latest CD and decide if the reviewer’s opinion is generally favourable or unfavourable.

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Reading skills Some of the most important reading skills are:

  • Skimming
  • Scanning
  • Identifying key words
  • Pronoun reference
  • Using cognates
  • Guessing meaning
  • Information transfer
  • Identifying the topic sentence
  • Summarizing
  • Identifying the source of written material
  • Reading for gist


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Realia Real objects which are used in the classroom.

Example:
To teach your students words for fruit, you could take an apple, a pear, some grapes, etc. into the classroom.

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Receptive / Productive language skills Reading and listening are the two examples of receptive language skills - students are not required to produce new language.

Speaking and writing are the two examples of productive language skills - when they speak and write, students have to produce new language.

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Recognition / Production Reading and listening are recognition activities. The students are not required to create language, they only have to understand the language that is given to them.

Speaking and writing are production activities - the students are creating language.

Language learners can usually recognize much more than they can produce.

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Recycling See Review / Revision / Reinforcement / Recycling.

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Register The different ways of using the language according to the situation.

Example:
Asking someone to open the door for you.
  1. I wonder if I could ask you to open the door?
  2. Could I ask you to open the door?
  3. Would you mind opening the door?
  4. Could you open the door?
  5. Open the door!
  • 1 and 2 are really only appropriate for formal situations – with people you don’t know and who are in positions of respect or authority.
  • 3 is appropriate for semi-formal or informal situations where politeness is important.
  • 4 is only appropriate for informal situations.
  • 5 is only appropriate if you want to show that you’re angry, or in a hurry!


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Reinforcement See Review / Revision / Reinforcement / Recycling.

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Review / Revision / Reinforcement / Recycling Reinforcement is the practice which you give your students after the main presentation and practice.

Review is when the students practice the language again at the end of the unit or set of units. Sometimes this is referred to as consolidation.

In British English, Revision is the practice which you give your students to prepare them for tests and exams.

Recycling is when students see for a second time the language that was presented earlier in the course, or in a previous course.

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Revision See Review / Revision / Reinforcement / Recycling.

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Role play An important fluency activity. Students act out conversations in which they have a certain role.

Role plays can be guided or free.

Guided role plays:
Students follow instructions for simple dialogues:
Example:
Student A: Invite Student B to a movie tonight.
Student B: Say you can’t go and give a reason.
Student A: Suggest another time.
Student B: Accept and thank Student A.

Free role plays:
Students have instructions for the situation, but they develop the dialogue in their own way.

Example:
Student A: You are Ricky. You’re fourteen. You really want to go to a rock concert with your friends on Saturday evening. The concert finishes at 11 o’clock. Ask your mother or father for permission.

Student B: You are Ricky’s mother or father. You don’t want Ricky to go to the concert because:
  • you don’t approve of rock concerts
  • the concert finishes late
  • Ricky has a lot of homework
  • you don’t approve of Ricky’s friends.


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Rote learning In ELT, this involves learning memorization without any situation to make the meaning of the language clear.

Examples:
  • Learning declensions of verbs:
    I go, You go, He goes, etc.
    I don’t go, You don’t go, He doesn’t go, etc.
    Do I go...?, Do you go...?, Does he go...? etc.
  • Learning vocabulary groups with translation:
    table mesa
    chair silla
    desk escritorio

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 S
Scanning One of the most important reading skills - learners search a text quickly for specific information.

An example of scanning in real life is looking quickly through the headlines of newspaper for articles of interest.

Example:
A typical scanning exercise in class:

1. Students are given a story about a celebrity.
2. First they read ten questions such as:
  • What is the name of the celebrity?
  • Where was he?
  • Who did he talk to?
    3. Then they look quickly at the text to find the answers.

    Always give a time limit for scanning activities to ensure that the students don’t try to read the text word by word.

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Semi-authentic material This is authentic material which has been:
1. Adapted for use in the classroom.
2. Specially written for classroom use, but which has the style and format of authentic material.

Typical adaptations include:
  • making the sentences shorter
  • simplifying the vocabulary
  • removing complex grammar.

    Semi-authentic material should still keep the basic “look” and format of authentic material.

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Silent period With a silent period, students are exposed to the new language but they don’t have to produce it immediately.

Examples:
  • Students may see the new language in a reading text and answer comprehension questions about it.
  • They may listen to tapes containing the new language and talk about the content of the tapes.
When a silent period is rigidly applied, the students don’t have to produce the new language until they want to.

A silent period gives the students a chance to get familiar with the new structure and understand it before producing it.

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Skills The four skills are:
Reading and listening (the receptive skills).
Speaking and writing (the productive skills).

Each skill is in fact a mixture of different skills. See the following:

Reading skills
Writing skills
Listening skills
Speaking skills

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Skimming An important reading skill - learners read for the general content of a text. An example of skimming in real life is when we look through an article to get a general idea of what it’s about, before reading in detail.

Example in class:
1. Students are given a newspaper article to read.
2. They have to answer these questions:
  • Is it a story about a) a crime, b) a rescue, c) an accident?
  • Is it a story about a) a lot of people, b) a lot of animals, c) one person?
Always give a time limit for skimming exercises, to ensure that the students don’t try to read the passage word by word.

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SLA Second Language Acquisition – the general term for learning a second language, used mostly in theoretical and academic articles and books.

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Speaking skills Some speaking skills which are useful for our students are:
  • use of position holders
  • appropriate use of register
  • making a speech.

    The field of speaking skills is not so clearly defined as the other three skills.

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Structural syllabus A syllabus (or program) which is based principally on a sequence of grammatical structures.

The syllabus generally starts from the simplest structures (usually the present simple of the verb to be) and moves on to more complex structures, such as present simple, past simple, present continuous, past continuous, conditionals, and so on.

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Structural-situational approach This approach has two basic elements:
  1. A graded sequence of grammatical structures, usually starting with the verb to be and progressing through present simple, past simple, etc.
  2. A situation or context for each new structure that makes the meaning clear.
Example:
Future use of going to could be presented with a character drawn on the board and a set of picture cues to show his plans for the weekend.

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STT STT = Student Talking Time

Teachers with good classroom management skills make sure that class activities are always designed to maximize STT.

These activities could be:
  • production and practice of L2
  • requests for clarification, which can be in either L1 or L2, as appropriate.
A related concept is TTT (Teacher Talking Time).

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Student-centered / Teacher-centered In a teacher-centered class, the focus is on what the teacher is doing and saying.
In a student-centered class, the focus is on what the students are doing and saying.

Students need student-centered activities to practice and use the language.

But a class must also have some teacher-centered activities to provide structure, discipline and input.

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Summarizing Summarizing is an example of integrating skills. Students read a text and identify the main points, then use those main points to write a summary (a much shorter version of the text) containing only the essential information.

Example:
Students read a text of about 250 words about the contemporary music scene and summarize the information in 100 words.

Summarizing is a complex activity for use with higher level classes in the Young adult/Adult age group.

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Syntax The grammatical rules or systems of a language.

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