ENG515 Midterm Short Notes by MAS All Rounder

Known as passive skills Can be contrasted with productive skills

Productive Skills

Speaking & writing Known as active skills

The Four Strands/Principles For Teaching Reading

A well-balanced language course should consist of four roughly equal strands:

1. Learning through meaning-focused input - learning through listening and reading where the learner’s attention is on the ideas and messages conveyed by the language.
2. Learning through meaning-focused output - learning through speaking and writing where the learner’s attention is on conveying ideas and messages to another person.
3. Language-focused learning - learning of language features such as pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and discourse.
4. Fluency development - developing fluent use of known language items and features over the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Meaning-focused Input - Activities

Extensive reading Shared reading Listening to stories Watching TV or films Being a listener in a conversation

Meaning-focused Output – Activities

Talking in conversations Giving a speech or lecture Writing a letter Writing a note to someone Telling a story

Language-focused learning - Activities

Pronunciation practice Using substitution tables Learning vocabulary

Fluency development - Activities

Reading Repeated reading Repeated retelling

Ten-minute writing

Reading

Recognizing language Reader reconstructs meaning of a text It is conscious and unconscious thinking process It is done by comparing text with prior knowledge

Lecture: 02

Learning to Read

L2 students need to think in English Reading material need to be much more controlled Teachers need to focus on most useful words Connect prior & existing knowledge

Lecture: 03

Prerequisites for Formal Reading Instruction

Phonemic awareness  Understanding that words & syllables are comprised of sequence of elementary speech sounds  Focus of activities on sounds of words, not on letters or spelling  Use strategies that make phonemes prominent  Begin with simple words: listen for initial /s/ in sat, sit, sad,  Teach how to blend phonemes into words, Explicit instruction in sound identification, matching to sound symbols Decoding word, naming it, meaning Written expressions Motivation

Spoken Language & Reading

Experience approach Learners should bring a lot of experience and knowledge to reading, It helps focus on small amounts of new information

Various methods;

Each learner draws picture, illustrating something Learners take picture to teacher who asks what it is about Teacher writes description as learner said, using same words even if it is non-standard English This becomes learners text of day, they read it back to teacher, Learners take the description away to practice reading to classmates, friends and family These pictures and texts are gathered to be a personal reading book

Phonics and the Alphabetic Principle

Phonics & Decoding

When good readers see unknown word, they decode it, name it & attach meaning Sense about purpose of letters Engaging learners in activities to recognize letters visually Developing students’ awareness of sounds of individual words

Lecture: 04

Phonics involves spelling-sound relationships. It has significance for both learning to read and for learning to spell

The Role of Phonics in a Reading Program

Reading interesting texts Introduce phonics with known words Concentrate on first letters of a word Use phonics in one-to-one reading instruction Teaching of the most frequent, simple, regular spelling-sound correspondences Teaching them to sound out all the sounds in a word

Productive Phonics: System & Item Learning

Some words can be dealt with by rules, but others have to be learned as unique items. Unpredictability of English spelling system is major obstacle to learning to spell.

Designing a Focused Spelling Program for Reading

Use attractive materials Keep learners motivated Make learning fun Measure progress Encourage thoughtful processing Do mastery testing Give regular practice

Lecture: 05 Intensive Reading

Directs learners’ attention to features of text that can be found in any text

Directs learners’ attention to the reading text:

Provides useful information about learners’ performance:

Intensive EFL/ESL Reading

Various ways o True or false statements o Filling gaps in summary