Skills | Oxford University Press

21 May 2013
by Oxford University Press ELT 13 Comments

Receptive Skills: Resources for Independent Learning

Helen Stepanova is an English language teacher, teacher trainer and author, currently working as a Business English teacher in Latvia. In this guest post, she looks at some of the resources available for improving students’ receptive language skills.

Nowadays the Internet provides numerous possibilities for students to improve, polish and master their English language skills. In my lessons I introduce these options, explaining how my students can use them and inspiring them with my own personal experience.

I have divided these resources into two main groups:

for receptive skills, with 2 subgroups: reading and listening
for productive skills, with 2 subgroups: writing and speaking

In each group there are several useful resources. Choose the most appropriate ones for your class.

Receptive Skills		Productive Skills
Reading	Listening	Writing	Speaking
1.Fiction literature	1.Radio	1. Social networks	1. Social networks
2.Professional literature	2.Audio books	2. Language learning communities	2. Language learning communities
3.Bilingual parallel texts	3. Films		3. British Council
4.Newspapers, magazines, online news	4.Podcasts		4. Speaking Clubs
5. Blogs	5. Conversations		5. Couchsurfing
6. Scripts	6.Music		6. International learning and volunteer programs

In this post, I’ll be looking at Receptive Skills. I’ll cover Productive Skills in my next post.

Reading

Fiction literature

This is the best option for those who love reading. The choice of books is enormous, from historical adventures to mainstream and children books. It’s possible to relax and learn new vocabulary and grammar constructions simultaneously. Project Gutenberg is a free online library.

Professional literature

If your students are learning English for a specific purpose (e.g. Engineering), reading professional literature is a great way of improving students’ knowledge in that professional area, and in English at the same time. You could also try reading the lectures of world-renowned academics, which are now uploaded to the websites of many leading universities. MIT’s Open Courseware and Coursera are two examples.

Bilingual parallel texts

On one side you’re given English text, on the other there is a translation in your native language. This option is convenient for those who like to read original texts of any complexity, without having to stop to look up unknown words. This resource is very helpful, as the structure and ability to look at the translation immediately allow students become more confident in reading and lessen their fear of long texts.

Newspapers, magazines, online news

Nowadays there are plenty of news websites and online resources for reading, e.g. BBC News, Daily Telegraph, Reuters, and CNN. By reading online news, students kill two birds with one stone – they read articles that are interesting and relevant to them, and learn a lot of new words that are common in press reporting. Reading these daily and writing down any unknown words will help students develop their vocabulary.

Blogs

There are thousands of blogs on the Internet dedicated to different themes – travelling, fashion, gardening, children, phychology, etc. Use a service like Technorati to find relevant blogs. Several times per week bloggers update their pages with new stories. Like with online news sites, students will be interested in keeping up with new posts and will learn at the same time.

Scripts

This is one of the most amazing resources for improving reading skills. We all have our favourite films, and reading the script can be a great way of entertaining students and showing the use of English in more natural, informal settings. The same will apply to plays. Sites like AwesomeFilm, The Daily Script and SimplyScripts have loads of movie scripts available as PDFs.

Listening

Radio

There is possibly no better source for listening practice than radio. There are hundreds of different radio stations where you can listen online, so try listening to a station from a different country to your own. It also helps to listen to different dialects and accents, e.g. British English – BBC Radio, American English – Voice of America, Canadian English – CBC Radio, Australian English – ABC Radio Australia.

Audio books

There are advantages and disadvantages to listening to audio books. The lexis can be learned quite easily, however not everybody likes listening to books. It is a matter of preference. Audio books can be downloaded for free from, for example, the University of South Florida’s Lit2Go program, New Fiction, and LibriVox. Or they can be purchased from sites such as Audible and AudioGo.

Films

This is an ideal way to master listening skills, as all three VAK styles are used: visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. If something is unclear, it is easy to rewind back and re-watch that section of the film until it becomes clear. Reading the script before watching, or watching the film in students’ native language first, will also help. Repeat words and phrases, imitating the actors’ intonation, will help to get students’ kinaesthetic memory working.

Podcasts

Short audio lessons or stories recorded by native speakers are what will really help students. Choosing podcasts at the right language level for your students, and with themes that are interesting and relevant to them, is crucial to maintaining students’ interest and motivation. You can even subscribe to podcasts to be sent the most recent episodes automatically. Try a service like ESL Podcast.

Conversations

Encourage students to find a friend – either a native speaker or someone with a good level of English – and to talk with them in English. Thanks to social networks such as Facebook, Skype, Google+ and Lang-8, it’s very easy now for students to connect with native speakers and improve their English effectively.

Music

Listening to music is a great way to develop English skills. When you are listening and singing your kinaesthetic memory is working. Even if it is difficult to understand the lyrics, music is poetry and is often very idiomatic. Students will pick up key phrases and words to add to their vocabulary.

23 April 2013
by Oxford University Press ELT 10 Comments

Using colour and hand signals to licence learners to drive their own connected speech

In this guest post, Arizio Sweeting, a Cambridge ESOL Oral Examiner, shares his tips for using colours and hand signals to help learners grasp pronunciation.

To teach or not to teach pronunciation? That’s the question. As paradoxical as this question may be, the answer for it should be simple: pronunciation is communication, and thus, worthy of attention in the language classroom. As an advocate for the teaching of connected speech, I am always looking for ways of raising my learners’ awareness of this productive capacity of spoken language.

In this post, I would like to share a colour-coding system I have been using with my learners to help them focus on prosodic features such as stress, elision, assimilation, linking and intonation. I have called it, Traffic Lights.

The rationale

Traffic lights are useful signals, so I thought they would be a helpful aid to guide my learners in their journey of discovery about connected speech. The Traffic Lights system is also supported by hand gestures such as finger clicking, hand waves, hand strokes and finger to thumb movements, which I believe help learners to relax rather than worrying too much about trying to work out what is happening in the mouth in order to allow themselves to enjoy the pronunciation practice via a more active and kinaesthetic approach.

Understandably, articulation exercises tend to focus too much on the ear and the mouth at times. However, for many learners this experience is rather daunting and unpleasant. By giving them an opportunity to visualise and cognitively shift the focus of the brain away from these body ‘instruments’, they stand a better chance of visualising and thus becoming more attune to natural speech. While observing my learners in action in the classroom, I have noticed some clear improvement in their ability to speak more intelligibly, even though their initial reactions to the approach being reserved.

The preparation

At the beginning of your course, introduce the learners to the systems. For this, the learners will need to have a four-colour pen and a copy of the Traffic Lights card below (which I like to laminate for them).

Traffic lights

Ask the learners to attach this card to their file, as they will need to refer to it on a regular basis during the course.

The application

Start by showing the learners some functional language for introductions of your choice. Here are some common get-to-know-each other questions:

AS1

First, get the learners to use the red ink in their pen to mark the STRESS in the language above e.g.

AS2

Encourage the learners to analyse this language in pairs or small groups. Monitor and assist where necessary.

Continue Reading →

16 April 2013
by Oxford University Press ELT 13 Comments

Teaching Writing to Young ELT Learners

Karen Frazier, co-author of Let’s Go, looks at how to get children writing in English.

Writing, in any language, can be so much fun! It’s exciting to send messages and letters to people in a language that they understand. Everyone enjoys describing events in their lives, talking about pictures and places, and sharing their thoughts and ideas. Many also like to create stories and songs, too! So, how can we, as teachers, help our ELT students develop this type of enthusiasm for sharing and writing in English?

Children enjoy the beginning stages of writing, when they are learning the letters or characters. Young learners are very willing to work at tracing letters and words. They are usually eager to learn how to print their names and the names of their brothers, sisters and pets. It’s this interest in writing that we want to maintain as we help our students learn and continue to develop their English writing skills. Yet writing can be a challenging skill for children to learn. So what can we do to help them retain their interest in writing while they develop their skills and confidence in writing in English?

To be able to write in English, students must have a basic foundation and understanding of the spoken language. To get our students prepared to write, we need to provide opportunities for them to recycle and review the language they already know. They need to know how to identify and talk about objects and people in English in order to write something about them. Of course, they must also know how to write the alphabet letters so that they can learn to spell words that they know. Finally, they need to know some basic sentence patterns in order to write sentences that are meaningful to them.

Students must also be able to read some words and sentences because the skill of reading goes hand-in-hand with learning to write. Reading provides the opportunity for students to become more familiar with language patterns, and it develops their vocabulary. Yes, reading, as well as listening and speaking, are important in helping our students learn to write. So our writing activities should always include these skills as part of the pre-writing steps.

Steps for Beginner Writers:

1. Use pictures to stimulate comments and discussion

Have students draw their own pictures or bring in photos. Or, you can provide pictures for them from magazines, the internet and other sources.

Some of the first recognizable pictures that most children draw are pictures of themselves and their family. If they have pets, they often like to draw them. Favorite places, like houses and landscapes with the sun, are also among the first things that children like to draw. Therefore, as you prepare your young students for writing activities, primarily focus on having them draw these types of pictures.

2. Have students describe and talk about their pictures

Be sure to provide plenty of chances for your students to talk about and share pictures. Children enjoy talking about people, places and events that are important to them. Let them share their pictures and thoughts about these pictures with each other. This also gives them a great opportunity to review and practice their English. It helps them remember what they already know and builds confidence.

3. Help students write down what they have said

For young writers, this often means that you will do much of the writing at the very beginning. You write down the sentences that your students use to describe their pictures. Then you can have the students trace the sight words or the key vocabulary. As the children develop more ability and confidence in their writing, they can start writing the descriptions on their own under their pictures. They may start with one or two words in the beginning and will gradually start to write a sentence on their own. More confident and experienced students of English can write their own longer descriptions of their pictures (two to three sentences). The main goal of this step in writing is to encourage and capitalize on the natural interest that children have in describing what they see.

4. Have the students read each other’s captions and descriptions of the pictures

After they read, they can share ideas with each other in small groups. Then you can have them work together in small groups to add another sentence to the description.

5. Have students use their descriptions to create their own little books

As beginner ELT students become more skilled in writing words and sentences, they can expand on their own one-sentence descriptions by adding extra words, like adjectives, or one or two more sentences. If you have them describe several of their own pictures, they can then put them together to make their own small book. This is a great motivator for the students. They will enjoy reading their books and will be look forward to writing more. You could also let them take their books home to share their stories, and new writing skills, with their families.

You can also motivate your students of all levels to write by providing them with real-life writing exercises. For example, they can write about something that happened while they were all together in your English class. Start by talking about what happened as a class and then encourage each of the students to draw a picture and write a sentence or two about the event. Next have them share their sentences with the class and finally combine all the sentences into a story. It becomes a small book that was written by the class.

Other types of real-life writing activities include making lists of vocabulary words, making lists of things to buy at the store, and writing notes, text messages and emails to friends. You can also have your students create their own comic strips or keep a simple journal in which they share thoughts in English with you.

These are just a few of the ways you can keep your students engaged in writing in English. There are many activities that can be used which give children a realistic reason to write. Whatever activity you choose to use should be one that is motivating and that taps into your students’ interests. Doing this will help keep your students enthusiastic about writing in English.

It would be great to hear your comments on this blog. I’d also love to see you at my free webinar on teaching writing this Friday, 19 April. You can sign up here.

Visit Let’s Share for more videos, blogs and upcoming events by our Let’s Go authors.

26 March 2013
by Oxford University Press ELT Leave a comment

Where ELT and first language education meet: an interview with Nathalie Reverchon

Nathalie Reverchon is the International Teacher Training Manager for Oxford Primary Education International (OXED) at Oxford University Press. She has extensive experience as an ELT teacher and trainer in the UK, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Afghanistan, and Switzerland.

Q: What trends can you see happening in ELT across the various countries that you’ve taught and provided teacher training in? Are there any similarities that you’ve seen?

Well, I think one trend that I have seen is in the types of people who work in this field. I’m always amazed by how motivated and resourceful English language teachers are. Because they are often working in a very isolated context, most ELT teachers have that ‘get up and go’ attitude – the one that allows them to leave their comfortable surroundings and move to a completely different country to teach English. That takes a special type of person. And then to be able to not just make a go of it but to actually make a success of it takes somebody who has real initiative, who’s really creative, and who has a lot of energy and enthusiasm.

At the same time, some of the energetic, vibrant methods that teachers use in ELT perhaps don’t always fit some of the more sober education systems that are out there, so I think it’s equally important to be able to adapt to your surroundings. Being able to understand the context always helps. English teachers who go somewhere, learn the local language and really embrace the culture I think are in a really unique position to be able to understand both sides of the coin and bring the best of both worlds together through teaching.

Q: What similarities are there between teaching English as a first language and as a foreign language to young learners?

I think the similarities are becoming more apparent. In the past, mainstream teaching really relied on the standard textbook teaching method, and I don’t think this really worked in ELT. I think mainstream schools now are really finding the impact of investing on really good teacher training and making the learning more interactive in the classroom, something that is already apparent in a lot of ELT classrooms. In a similar way, I see some mainstream materials moving over into ELT as secondary language learners’ levels are becoming higher overall. There’s a kind of cross pollination happening which is really interesting.

Q: What advice would you give to teachers who are ELT teachers interested in using OXED primary materials like the Oxford Reading Tree?

For ELT teachers interested in using first language resources like Oxford Reading Tree (ORT) or other OXED primary materials, I would really encourage them to have confidence in their understanding of pedagogies, of methodologies, and of approaches. This might require a lot of adaptation to match the class type and size, but the principles are really effective teaching methods and will make really engaging classes.

Q: Do you think there are advantages to using the Oxford Reading Tree as a textbook over using it just as reading materials?

I think there are real advantages to using the ORT in the classroom because at a younger age, children are less able to explicitly analyze the language in the way that an adult would be able to. In fact, teachers of primary schools in the UK won’t simply use just a textbook to teach literacy. The approach that is taken as a first-language approach is based on how you learn your first language: through natural acquisition such as stories, fun and games, songs and so on. The idea of ORT is to use that child-centered methodology and build up this bank of really rich stories that appeal to children. Children are really motivated by the stories; they want to know what’s happening.

Also, one of the main appeals with ORT that I’ve seen where it’s being used in different countries around the world is the visual appeal. The ORT teams of authors, Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta have worked together so well to create these stories which have a lot of humour in them. And that humour is reflected in the pictures. So even children who are perhaps struggling with the words themselves can engage and appreciate the story on a visual level. That can really support their comprehension as they’re starting to engage with English. I think it’s a really nice child-friendly way into English.

There’s also some really rich vocabulary which is one of the biggest differences with materials designed for ELT. Because we’re seeing it used in so many international schools as well, the ORT team are continuing to develop as many resources and materials to support teachers who are using it in a second language context and who have a mixture of language abilities in the classroom. In these types of classrooms, it’s very important to have that scaffolding that the ORT has. As we know, in ELT you can either grade your material, or you can grade your task, and what they’ve developed with the ORT teacher support materials is extension for higher level children but then also a lot more structured tasks for the lower level students.

Some of the mystery, or the feeling of being overwhelmed that surrounds the ORT comes from looking at the storybooks. But actually less-confident teachers or busy teachers will be glad to know that the teacher resources are there to support you to use it in the classroom.

Is there anything you’d like to ask Nathalie?

12 March 2013
by Oxford University Press ELT 22 Comments

Five things I think I know about teaching reading

Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto, co-author of Let’s Go, shares five principles for teaching reading effectively in the classroom.

I’ve tried quite a few different approaches to teaching literacy over the years, initially with students learning to read in their first language, and now with students learning to read English as a foreign language. Like most teachers, I’ve settled on a fairly eclectic approach that seems to work well for me, and my young learners. Here are five principles that work for me.

1. Build a strong oral foundation first

When students begin learning to read in their first language, they have a working vocabulary of between 2,500 and 5,000 words. They learn to connect printed text to words that they already know. We want to be sure that our young learners have a strong foundation of oral language before we begin asking them to attach symbols to sounds, particularly since they will be working with a much smaller vocabulary to begin with.

2. Introduce text from the beginning

I think it’s important to have students looking at printed text long before you begin working on reading skills. By the time my students begin having dedicated reading lessons, they’ve already figured out that English writing goes from left to right and from the top of the page to the bottom, big letters are about twice as big as the little letters and appear at the beginning of a sentence, and that we can tell where words begin and end because of the spaces between words. They’ve become familiar with the graphic look of English before having to deal with it.

3. Teach phonics in context

Phonics can be a useful key for students learning how to make sense of English sound/spelling patterns. Teach the patterns in the context of words that students have already learned orally. Go through your students’ coursebook looking for words they’ve learned that illustrate the patterns you want to teach. That way they only have to focus on one new thing – linking sounds and letters – rather than learning a new word in order to practice the phonics skill. Practice reading the words in the context of sentences (and later, stories) that are also made up of words your students have learned orally.

4. Teach both accuracy and fluency in reading

Both skills are important in developing independent readers. As students become better at applying sound/spelling strategies, phonics shifts into spelling practice and word study, equally important in order to keep expanding your students’ reading vocabulary. To develop fluency, students need a lot of opportunities to read, and be read to. Include reading in every class. Let your students read the lyrics of their songs, or conversations, or grammar lessons – after they’ve learned the language orally, of course! Read to them, so they can enjoy understanding stories even if they don’t understand every word. Create a class library and let them take books home between classes (with audio CDs, if they aren’t yet fluent readers and don’t have anyone at home to read to them). Help them create their own stories to share and read.

5. Engage multiple senses in teaching reading

Have students trace letter and word shapes, sing or chant to help reinforce phonics, use letter cards to build words and word cards to build sentences. Ask them to act out or dramatize stories. Let them write sentences and stories and draw pictures to illustrate them. Record them reading their stories to create audio books. Encourage students to use multiple senses to help them become more effective readers.

How about you?

What have you learned about teaching reading? It would be great to hear in your comments to this blog. I’d also love to see you at my webinar on Saturday, 23 March. You can sign up here.

Visit Let’s Share for more videos, blogs and upcoming events by our Let’s Go authors.

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