I Presentations and explanations: - the ability to mediate new material or instruct effectively is an essential teaching skill; it enables the

teacher to facilitate learners entry into and understanding of new material, and thus promotes further learning, - what happens in an effective presentation: attention (the learners are alert and aware that something is coming they need to take in), perception (the learners see or hear the target material clearly it also usually means repeating the material in order to give added opportunities for reception), understanding (the meaning of the material and its connection with other things they already know), short-term memory (the material need to be taken into it; the more impact the original presentation has, e.g. it is colorful, dramatic, unusual in any way, the better as some learners remember better if the material is seen, others if it is heard or associated with physical movement (visual, aural, and kinaesthetic input), - basing the presentation on the students own choice of vocabulary, derived from their own inner words, and, thus, tapping not only intellectual but also personal emotional associations with the vocabulary, have a clear positive effect on retention, as well as on immediate attention, general motivation, and ability to read the material, - it is important to emphasize learners understanding of the meaning of the dialogue from the beginning, not just their learning by heart of the words, and to find ways of stimulating their interest in it, through the content of the text itself, the teachers presentation of it, visual illustration, or various other means, - the presentation seems likely to produce good perception and initial learning thanks to the heightened attention and motivation caused by the humor and by the fact that many of the actual texts are personally relevant to the learners (yelling at the teacher because he is late), - dramatic presentation can be very effective if you can act or have video material available, - one particular kind of explanation that is very important in teaching is instruction: the directions that are given to introduce a learning task which entails some measure of independent student activity, - guidelines on giving effective explanations and instructions: experience shows that teachers explanations are often not as clear to their students as they are to themselves. Therefore, it is worth preparing, thinking for a while about the words you will use, the illustrations you will provide, and so on; possibly even writing these out; make sure you have the classs full attention (when giving instructions for a group-work task it is advisable to give the instructions before you divide the class into groups or give materials, not after! Once they are in groups, learners attention will be naturally directed to each other rather than you etc.); present the information more than once (as learners attention wanders occasionally; also, it helps to re-present the information in a different mode, e.g. say it and also write it up on the board; be brief, as learners have only a limited attention span (in some situations it may also mean using the learners mother tongue, as a more accessible and cost-effective alternative to the sometimes lengthy and difficult TL explanation; illustrate with examples (e.g. explaining the meaning of a word, illustrate your explanation with examples of its use in various contexts, relating these as far as possible to the learners own lives and experiences); get feedback (check with your class that they have understood your explanation; but it is not enough to ask Do you understand?; it is better to ask them to do something that will show their understanding). II Practice activities - the process of learning a skill by means of a course of instruction has been defined as a three-stage process: verbalization, automatization, and autonomy. At the first stage the bit of the skill to be learned may be focused on and defined in words (verbalized) as well as demonstrated, e.g. the teacher may explain the meaning of a word or the rules about a grammatical structure as well as using them in context. The verbalization may be elicited from learners rather than done by the teacher. The teacher then gets the learners to demonstrate the target behavior, while monitoring their performance. They start practising: performing the skilful behavior again and again, usually in exercises suggested by the teacher, until they can get it right without thinking. At this point they may be said to have automized the behavior, and are likely to forget how it was described verbally in the first place. Finally they take the set of behaviors they have mastered and begin to improve on their own, through further activity. They start to speed up performance, to perceive or create new combinations, they are autonomous. Learners now have little need of a teacher except perhaps as a supportive or challenging colleague.

- practice is the activity through which language skills and knowledge are consolidated and thoroughly mastered. It is arguably the most important of all the stages of learning; hence the most important classroom activity of the teacher is to initiate and manage activities that provide students with opportunities for effective practice, - characteristics of effective language practice: validity (the activity should activate learners primarily in the skill or material it purports to practice. Therefore, speaking activities should not have learners listening to the teacher more than talking themselves); pre-learning (the learners should have a good preliminary grasp of the language they are required to practice. If they are required to do a practice activity based on something they have not yet begun to learn, they will either not be able to do it at all, or will produce unsuccessful responses), volume (the more language the learners actually engage with during the activity, the more practice in it they will get), success-orientation (it is important to select, design, and administer practice activities in such a way that learners are likely to succeed in doing the task. Repeated successful performance is likely to result in effective automatization of whatever is being performed, as well as reinforcing the learners self-image as successful language learners and encouraging them to take up further challenges), heterogeneity (a good practice activity provides opportunities for useful practice to all, or most, of the different levels within a class; e.g. Jenny is a baby. Jenny can hold a toy, but she cant ride a bicycle. What else can, or cant, Jenny do? you have provided weaker learners with support in the form of sample responses, and you have given everyone the opportunity to answer at a level appropriate to him or her), teacher assistance (helping the learners do the activity successfully; assessments and corrections made later are not enough, as they do not contribute to automatization; e.g. making the answers easier through giving hints and guiding questions); interest (if there is little challenge in the language work itself because of its success-orientation and if there is a lot of repetition of target forms (volume), then the practice might be boring, and boredom leads to learner inattention, low motivation, and ultimately less learning), - the individual practice procedure should ideally be integrated into a series of activities that help the learner progress from strongly teacher=supported controlled practice at the beginning to later automatic and eventually autonomous reception and production of the language, III Tests - test: an activity whose main purpose is to convey how well the testee knows or can do something. This is in contrast to practice, whose main purpose is sheer learning, - testing is one acceptable way of rising short-term motivation to learn specific material, but if it is used as such very often, and as the main source of pressure to learn, then there may be long-term negative results: learning process is in danger if being devalued, of being seen merely as a means to get good grades, - tests: formal (the testees are told in advance what they need to know, what the criteria are for the success, and so on) and informal (a homework assignment may function as a test if the teachers main aim in giving it is to find out whether the learners have learned some language point or not), - elicitation techniques: questions and answers (simple questions, very often following reading); true/false; multiple choice (good multiple-choice tests are surprisingly difficult to design: they often come out ambiguous, or with no clear right answer, or with their solutions over-obvious); gap-filling or completion (usually tests grammar or vocabulary); matching (e.g. unhappy sad); dictation; cloze (omitted words this tests (intensive) reading, spelling, and to some extent knowledge of vocabulary and grammar); transformation (e.g. put into the past tense); rewriting (preserving the basic meaning); translation; essay; monologue (oral), - guidelines for test preparation: validity (it should test what it is meant to), clarity (it should usually include a sample item and solution), ado-ability (it should be do-able; not too difficult, with no trick questions), 2

marking (decide exactly how you will assess each section of the test, and how much weighting you will give it), interest, heterogeneity (include both easy and difficult items, and make one or more of the difficult ones optional), - a reliable test is one that produces consistent results when administered on different occasions; backwash is the effect, positive or negative, that a test has on the teaching and learning that precede it; an achievement test measures how much of the material taught in a given course, or part of one, has in fact been learned; a proficiency test measures the overall language proficiency of testees, without reference to a particular course; a diagnostic test reveals the strong and weak points of a learners knowledge; a prognostic test predicts how well he or she is likely to do in a language course; discrete-point tests consist of separate items (e.g. set of items testing vocabulary); an integrative test involves whole pieces of discourse and tests a relatively broad command of the language: writing an essay for example, or doing a cloze test; distracters = incorrect answers in multiple-choice tests. ------a language course may be based on pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, or on the more communicative categories of topic, situation, notion, and function ------IV Teaching pronunciation - the aim of pronunciation improvement is not to achieve a perfect imitation of a native accent, but simply to get the learner to pronounce accurately enough to be easily and comfortably comprehensible to other (competent) speakers, - why do learners make pronunciation errors?: 1) a particular sound may not exist in the mother tongue, so he tends to substitute the nearest equivalent he or she knows, 2) a sound does exist in the mother tongue, but not as a separate phoneme (the learner does not perceive it as a distinct sound that makes ma difference to meaning), 3) the learners have the actual sounds right, but have not learnt the stress patterns of the word or group of words, or they are using an intonation from their mother tongue which is inappropriate to the TL, - the first thing that needs to be done is to check that the learner can hear and identify the sounds you want to teach; the same goes for intonation, rhythm, and stress. This can be done by requesting imitation, or seeing if learners can distinguish between minimal pairs; or by contrasting acceptable with unacceptable pronunciation through recordings or live demonstration; the next step for some learners may be some kind of explicit exhortation: this is what it ought to be, this is what you are doing wrong. It may be useful to use a sketch of the mouth, and to describe the pronunciation of a sounds in terms of lips, tongue, teeth, etc., - ideas for improving pronunciation: imitation of teacher or recorded model of sounds, words, and sentences; recording of learner speech, contrasted with native model; systematic explanation and instruction; imitation drills: repetition of sounds, words, and sentences; choral repetition of drills; varied repetition of drills (varied speed, volume, mood); learning and performing dialogues, learning by heart of sentences, rhymes, jingles; jazz chants; tongue twisters; self-correction through listening to recordings of own speech, - when we are satisfied that the pronunciation point has been satisfactorily perceived and learners can produce an acceptable version, we come on to the stage of practice: consolidating and establishing the habits of acceptable pronunciation through exercises that provide repetition and reinforcement, - dictation, reading aloud, discrimination, prediction. V Teaching vocabulary - vocabulary the words we teach in the foreign language, - what needs to be taught?: 1) form: pronunciation and spelling, 2) grammar (an item may have an unpredictable change of form in certain grammatical contexts or may have some idiosyncratic way of connecting with other words in sentence; e.g. when teaching a noun, we may wish to draw learners attention to the fact that it has no plural at all (advice); 3) collocation; 4) aspects of meaning: denotation (what the word refers to in the real word; it is often the sort of definition that is given in a dictionary), connotation (the associations, or positive or negative feelings it evokes), appropriateness (whether a particular item is the appropriate one to use in a certain context or not, e.g. formal and informal); 5) aspects of meaning: meaning relationships (how the meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others). There are various such relationships: synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms (items that serve as specific examples of a general concept; 3

dog, lion, mouse are hyponyms of animal), co-hyponyms or co-ordinates (other items that are the same kind of thing; red, blue, green, and brown are co-ordinates), superordinates (general concepts that cover specific items; animal is the superordinate of dog, lion, mouse), translation; 6) word formation (e.g. if learners know the meaning of sub-, un-, and able, this will help them guess the meanings of words like substandard, ungrateful, and untranslatable), - ways of presenting the meaning of new items: concise definitions (as in a dictionary), detailed description, examples (hyponyms), illustration, demonstration, context (story or sentence in which the item occurs), synonyms, opposite(s), translation, associated ideas, collocations, - we learn words better when we can easily assign meaning to them, but also it is much easier to learn words in groups, where one can be associated with another, - you will get better results if the words you teach have clear, easily comprehensible meaning, if items can be linked with each other, or with ones already known, through meaning- or sound-association; it is better to teach vocabulary in separated, spaced sessions than to teach it all at once, - people tend to remember words that have personal or emotive significance; people commonly attempt to link items together in sense units, or find some reason to associate them, or look for personal significance; words at the beginning of a list tend to be remembered better, - ideas for vocabulary activities: brainstorming round the idea (e.g. write a single word in the centre of the board, and ask students to brainstorm all the words they can think of that are connected with it (this activity is for revising words the class already knows, but also new ones may be introduced, by the teacher or by students); identifying words we know (the students are given the new text, and are asked to underline all the words they know; then they get together in pairs to compare), - multiple-choice, matching (note that the last option, if the learner has all the others right, becomes obvious. This problem can be corrected by the provision of more items in Column B than in A), odd one out, writing sentences (spelling and pronunciation of the items are not tested, but most other aspects are), dictation (it test aural recognition and spelling only), dictation-translation, gap-filling, gap-filling with a pool of answers (we know the words with which the gaps are to be filled), translation, sentence completion (it tests denotative meaning). VI Teaching grammar - grammar the way words are put together to make correct sentences, - units of language: the sentence (a set of words standing on their own as a sense unit, its conclusion marked by a full stop or equivalent (question mark, exclamation mark)), the clause (a kind of mini-sentence: a set of words which make a sense unit, but may not be concluded by a full stop), the phrase (a shorter unit within the clause, of one or more words, but fulfilling the same sort of function as a single word, e.g. was going, a long table), the word (the minimum normally separable form), the morpheme (a bit of a word which can be perceived as a distinct component), - parts of sentence: subject, verb, object, complement (it refers to the same thing as the subject; it comes after verbs like be, become, seem), adverbial (it adds further information, e.g. yesterday, at home, on his own), - guidelines: a good presentation should include both oral and written forms, and both form and meaning; it is important for learners to have plenty of contextualized examples of the structure and to understand them. Visual materials can also contribute to understanding; like grammatical terminology, explicit rules are helpful to older or more analytically-minded learners, - the aim of grammar practice is to get students to learn the structures so thoroughly that they will be able to produce them correctly on their own, - types of grammar practice: 1) awareness (e.g. learners are given extracts from newspaper articles and asked to underline all the examples of the past tense that they can find), 2) controlled drills (e.g. wrote or say statements about John, modeled on the following example: John rinks tea but he doesnt drink coffee. A) like: ice cream/cake), 3) meaningful drills (e.g. choose someone you know very well, and write down their name. now compose true statements about them according to the following model: He likes ice cream; OR He doesnt like ice cream. A) enjoy: playing tennis), 4) guided, meaningful practice (learners form sentences of their own according to a set pattern, but exactly what vocabulary they use is up to them, e.g. complete the sentence: If I had a million dollars), 5) (structure-based) free sentence composition (learners are provided with a visual or situational cue, and invited to compose their own responses, e.g. a pictured is shown to the 4

class; they describe it using the appropriate tense), 6) (structure-based) discourse composition (learners hold a discussion or write a passage according to a given task, e.g. the class is given a dilemma situation and asked to recommend a solution; they are directed to include modals), 7) free discourse (as above but without any specific direction), - errors (which are consistent and based on a mis-learned generalization) and mistakes (occasional, inconsistent slips). VII Topics, situations, notions, functions - when new topics and situations are presented, learners have to perceive and understand both the underlying theme and the language which is used to express it, - some ideas for presentation of new topics or situations: 1) write the name of the topic in the middle of the board and invite the class to brainstorm all the associated words they can think of, or ask what they know about it and/or what they would like to know; 2) give the title of a text and invite the class to write down sentences or expressions they expect will occur within it; 3) present a recorded dialogue and ask the class to tell you where they think it is taking place and who the characters are; 4) present a text, ask for an appropriate title; 5) express your own, or someone elses, opinions about a topic, invite discussion; 6) teach a selection of words and expressions, ask the class what they think the situation or topic is, - topics and situations define general themes or communicative events, whereas notions and functions are the ways particular meanings are realized in language, e.g. a topic may be the family and a situation may be visiting a friends home, whereas notions and functions may be things like time past (it may include past tenses, phrases like a month ago, in 1990, last week, and utterances using temporal clauses beginning with when, before, after) or inviting (it may include phrases like Would you like to?, I suggest, How about?), - the number of possible topics and communicative situations is virtually infinite, whereas the number of functions and notions is in principle finite. It has therefore been suggested that syllabuses for language courses should be based on a taxonomy of functions and notions, since they represent the basic units underlying a communicative system more realistically than the categories of lexis and grammar which may be taught detached from particular communicative contexts, - a notion is a concept, or ides: it may be quite specific, in which case it is virtually the same as vocabulary (dog, house, for example); or it may be very general (time, size, emotion, movement), in which case it often overlaps with the concept of topic; a function on the other hand is some kind of communicative act: it is the use of language to achieve a purpose, usually involving interaction between at least two people. Examples would be suggesting, promising, apologizing, greeting. Very often functions are binary; that is to say, the performance of one implies a certain response or set of responses which take the form of another, complementary function, e.g. suggestions or invitations are typically followed by acceptance or rejection; unitary functions may occur on their own, e.g. informing, with no necessary expected response,

- a holistic view emphasizes the importance of dealing with whole, meaningful chunks of language in context, rather than decontextualized items such as lists of vocabulary, or isolated examples of grammatical structures, -some techniques of teaching such samples contextualized within texts: learning by heart (memorized chunks of language or formulaic utterances associated with particular communicative contexts furnish the learner with a rich and reliable vocabulary or ready-made expressions which contribute significantly to his or her overall mastery of the language), varying a theme (taking the basic text and elaborating on it, e.g. presenting the class with the situation of two people meeting at some kind of social gathering and getting to know one another, through a written text; then the class is to suggest other ways the meeting might have developed), - we should not lose sight of the importance of the communicative acts and overall interactive context of 5

language use by over-stressing accurate pronunciation or grammar; and conversely, we should not spend all our time on holistic communication, neglecting useful intensive study of specific language problems,

------Language proficiency can be defined in terms of accuracy and fluency; if a learner has mastered a language successfully, that means he or she can understand and produce it both accurately (correctly) and fluently (receiving and conveying messages with ease); when the objective is accuracy, teacher and learners are chiefly concerned with getting the language right: forming correct sounds, words, sentences. When it is fluency, they are concentrating on the message: communicating or receiving content, On the whole, the teaching of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar will tend to be accuracy-oriented: in these we are mainly interested in getting learners to say the sounds right, to use the words to express the appropriate meaning, or to construct their sentences in a way that sounds acceptable. In the teaching of language content within the more holistic categories of topics or functions we are beginning to move over towards fluency, with more emphasis on producing appropriate language in context: equal importance is attached to form and message. In teaching the four skills, the emphasis will usually be firmly on fluency.

In most classroom procedures, a clear orientation one way or another is evident. Lack of awareness of such orientation can lead to confusion and frustration: as, for example, when the teacher gives a writing assignment whose ostensible aim is fluency-oriented (to tell a story or to answer a letter), and then assess it on the basis of grammar or spelling. ------VIII Teaching listening - the objective of listening comprehension practice in the classroom is that students should learn to function successfully in real-life listening situations, - informal speech has various interesting features: brevity of chunks (it is usually broken into short chunks. In a conversation, for example, people take turns to speak, usually in short turns of a few seconds each), pronunciation (is often slurred, and notably different from the phonological representation given in a dictionary), vocabulary (is often colloquial), grammar (informal speech tends to be somewhat ungrammatical, e.g. utterances do not usually divide neatly into sentences, unfinished clauses are common), there is a certain amount of noise (bits of the discourse that are unintelligible to the hearer, for a number of reasons. We usually comprehend somewhat less than 100 per cent of what is said to us, making up for the 6

deficit by guessing the missing items or simply ignoring them and gathering what we can from the rest), redundancy (the speaker normally says a good deal more than is strictly necessary for the conveying of the message. Redundancy includes such things as repetition, paraphrase, glossing with utterances in parenthesis, self-correction, the use of fillers such as I mean, well, er), non-repetition (the discourse will not be repeated verbatim), - characteristics of real-life listening situations: informal spoken discourse (most of the spoken language we listen to is informal and spontaneous), listener expectation and purpose (the listener almost always know in advance something about what is going to be said: who is speaking or the basic topic. Linked to this is his or her purpose: we normally have some objective in listening beyond understanding for its own sake e.g. to find out something), looking as well as listening (only a very small proportion of listening is done blind to the radio or telephone for example), ongoing, purposeful listener response (the listener is usually responding at intervals as the discourse is going on), speaker attention (the speaker usually directs his or her speech at the listener, takes the listeners character, intention etc. into account when speaking, and often responds directly to his or her reactions by changing or adapting the discourse), - listening activities based on simulated real-life situations are likely to be more motivating and interesting to do than contrived textbook comprehension exercises, - guidelines for the design of listening texts and tasks: 1) texts: most listening texts should be based on discourse that is either genuine improvised, spontaneous speech, or at least a fair imitation of it, speaker visibility; it is useful to the learners of you improvise at least some of the listening texts yourself in their presence); video also makes a positive contribution to the effectiveness of listening practice, in that it supplies the aspect of speaker visibility and the general visual environment of the text; learners should be encouraged to develop the ability to extract the information they need from a single hearing (as in real-life situations discourse is rarely replayed). The discourse, therefore, must be redundant enough to provide this information more than once within the original text, 2) tasks: learners should have in advance some idea about the kind of text they are going to hear. It activates their relevant schemata (their own previous knowledge and concepts of facts, scenes, events) and enables them to use this previous knowledge to build anticipatory scaffolding that will help them understand; a listening purpose should be provided by the definition of a pre-set tasks, which should involve some kind of clear visible or audible response, e.g. Listen and find out where the family are going for their summer holidays. Mark the places on your map; the task should usually involve intermittent responses during the listening, - types of listening activities: 1) no overt response (the learners do not have to do anything in response to the listening, e.g. stories (retelling a well-known story, reading a story from a book; if it is well-chosen, learners are likely to be motivated to attend and understand in order to enjoy it), songs, entertainment: films, theatre, video (if the content is really entertaining learners will be motivated to make the effort understand without the need for any further task)), 2) short responses (obeying instructions, ticking off items, true/false, detecting mistakes (e.g. the teacher tells a story the class knows, but with a number of deliberate mistakes. Listeners raise their hands or call out when they hear something wrong), cloze (the listening text has occasional gaps, learner write down what they think might be the missing word), guessing definitions (the teacher provides brief oral definitions, learners write down what they think it is), skimming and scanning (learners are asked to identify some general topic or information (skimming), or certain limited information (scanning)), 3) longer responses (answering questions (given in advance; the listening text provides the answers), note-taking, paraphrasing and translating, summarizing, long gap-filling), 4) extended responses (problem-solving (problem is described orally, then discussion), interpretation). IX Teaching speaking - characteristics of a successful speaking activity: learners talk a lot, participation is even, motivation is high (learners are eager to speak: because they are interests in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective), language is of an acceptable level, - problems with speaking activities: inhibition (learners are often worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts), nothing to say, low or uneven participation, mother-tongue use, - solutions: use group work (a bigger amount of time remaining for positive, useful practice; it lowers the inhibitions), base the activity on easy language, make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest, 7

give some instruction or training in discussion skills (e.g. tell learners to make sure that everyone on the group contributes to the discussion), keep students speaking the TL, - topic-based activities (they simply asks participants to talk about a subject, the main objective being clearly the discussion process itself) and task-based activities (they ask to perform something, where the discussion process is a means to an end), - a good topic is one to which learners can relate using ideas from their own experience and knowledge; it should also represent a genuine controversy, in which participants are likely to be fairly evenly divided, - a task is essentially goal-oriented: it requires the group to achieve an objective that is usually expressed by an observable result (e.g. find out everyones opinions), - activities: describing pictures, picture differences (two different pictures, one student can see only one picture), things in common (talking to one another to find out as many things as they can that they have in common), shopping list, solving a problem, - other kinds of spoken interaction: interactional talk (this is to some extent a matter of learning conventional formulae of courtesy: how to greet, take leave, begin and end conversation, apologize, etc. But even more than this it is culture-linked: how the interactional function of speech is realized in different languages depends as much on cultural convention as on knowledge of the words of the language.), long turns (the ability to speak at length; e.g. telling jokes or stories, describing a person or place in detail, recounting the plot of a film, play, or book), varied situations, feelings, relationships (the activities based on role play), - interactional uses of language (the primary purposes for communication are social, the emphasis is on creating harmonious interactions between participants rather than communicating information. E.g. greeting, making small talk, telling jokes, giving compliments), - transactional uses of language (language is being used primarily for communicating information, they are message oriented rather than listener oriented. E.g. news broadcasts, lectures, descriptions, and instructions), - role play all sorts of activities where learners imagine themselves in a situation outside the classroom, sometimes playing the role of someone other than themselves, and using language appropriate to this new context; related techniques: dialogues (learning them by heart and then performing them in different ways, e.g. in different moods, in different role-relationships (a parent and a child, wife and husband, etc.); finally, the learners can suggest a continuation), plays (a class learns and performs a play), simulations (the individual participants speak and react as themselves, but the group role, situation, and task they are given is an imaginary one. X Teaching reading - reading activities should probably stress reading for understanding rather than exact decoding of letters; we should not insist too strongly on our learners understanding every word, but rather encourage them to go for the overall meaning of a text; learners will probably read more successfully if given whole meaningful units of text to read rather than disconnected bits, - the process of reading can be defined as constructing meaning from a written text. The construction of meaning that occurs in reading is a combination of bottom-up processes (decoding and understanding words, phrases, and sentences in the text) and top-down ones (our expectations, previous knowledge constructs (schemata) of the text content and genre); learners should be encouraged to combine top-down and bottom-up strategies in reading, which means in practice doing such things as discussing the topic of a text before reading it, arousing expectations, eliciting connections between references in the text and situations known to the learners, - text and comprehension questions: guessing the answers before reading is one way of motivating learners to read a text, - task is useful for two reasons: it may provide the learners with a purpose in reading and make the whole activity more interesting and effective; moreover, we need to know how well our learners are reading, and we can get this information through looking at the results of comprehension tasks, - ideas for reading activities: pre-question (a general question is given before reading, asking the learners to find out a piece of information central to the understanding of the text), do-it-yourself questions (learners compose and answer their own questions), provide a title, summarize, continue, preface (learners suggest what might have happened before), gapped text, mistakes in the text, comparison (two texts on a similar topic), responding (a letter or a provocative article), re-presentation of content (representing the content 8

through a different graphic medium, e.g. a drawing that illustrates the text, coloring, marking a map), - the texts should be accessible: if learners cannot understand vital information without looking up words or being given extra information from elsewhere then the activity will be less useful as an aid to improving their reading skills as such, - the crucial contributory factor to reading speed is encouraged automatization of recognition of common words or word-combinations,

- frank explanation of efficient reading strategy can help learners help themselves, - learners should learnt when a dictionary is necessary and when an intelligent guess is preferable, - tasks should encourage learners to apply their own background knowledge and experience to the reading of texts, - it is best to give the task in advance, so that learners know what their purpose is in reading. The exception is the case of extensive reading (novels or stories) when a task may distract and spoil the readers enjoyment, - we should make sure that our learners are provided with a variety of different kinds of reading tasks, and encourage them explicitly to use different strategies,

- the use of authentic texts with less proficient learners is often frustrating and counter-productive; as they become more advanced, it would seem sensible to start basing their reading practice on a wide variety of authentic (or near-authentic) texts, and on tasks that represent the kinds of things a reader would do with them in real life rather than on conventional comprehension exercises. XI Teaching writing - differences between written and spoken discourse: permanence (written discourse is fixed and stable so the reading can be done at whatever speed, time, ale level of thoroughness the individual wishes; spoken text in contrast is fleeting, and moves on in real time), explicitness (the written text has to make clear the context and all references; in speech, the real-time situation and knowledge shared between speaker and listener means that some information can be assumed and need not be made explicit); density (the content is presented much more densely in writing; in speech, the information is diluted and conveyed through many more words: there are a lot of repetitions, glosses, fillers, producing a text that is noticeably longer and with more redundant passages), detachment (the writing of a text is detached in time and space from its reading; the writer normally works alone, and may not be acquainted with his or her readers. Speaking usually takes place in immediate interaction with known listeners, with the availability of immediate feedback), organization (organized and carefully formulated vs. improvised, disorganized stream-of-consciousness kind of discourse), slowness of production, speed of reception (writing is much slower, but we can usually read a piece of text and understand it much faster than we can take in the same text if we listen while someone reads it aloud to us), standard language (a generally acceptable standard variety of language vs. sometimes a regional or other limited-context dialect), a learnt skill (most people acquire the spoken language intuitively, whereas the written form is in most cases deliberately taught and learned), sheer amount and importance (spoken far longer than a representation of the same information in writing (largely because of redundancy), - writing as a means: writing is widely used as a convenient means for engaging with aspects of language other than writing itself (e.g. noting down new vocabulary, copying out grammar rules), so it is used as a means of getting the students to attend to and practice a particular language point, or as a method of testing it: providing information as to how well something has been learned in a form which the teacher can then check), - writing as an end: other activities take as their main objective the writing itself. At the micro level they practice specific written forms at the level of word and sentence); at the macro level the emphasis is on content and organization: tasks invite learners to express themselves using their own words, state a purpose for writing, specify an audience (e.g. narrating a story, writing a letter), - writing as both means and end: a third kind of activity combines purposeful and original writing with the learning or practice of some other skill or content (e.g. a written response to the reading of a controversial newspaper article combines writing with reading), -too much of the correcting of mistakes can be discouraging and demoralizing and can distract both learners and teachers attention from the equally important aspects of content and organization, -rewriting the compositions, incorporating our suggestions for improvements, is very important: it reinforces learning and is an integral part of the writing process as a whole, - peer-correction is a valuable exercise itself. 10

XII The Syllabus - it specifies all the things that are to be taught in the course(s) for which the syllabus was designed (e.g. a beginners course): it is therefore comprehensive, - the actual components of the list may be either content items (words, structures, topics) or process ones (tasks, methods); the items are ordered, usually having components that are considered easier or more essential earlier, - the syllabus generally has explicit objectives, on the basis of which the components of the list are selected and ordered, - it is a public document, - optional features: a time schedule, preferred approach or methodology; it may list recommended materials, - types: grammatical, lexical, grammatical-lexical, situational (it takes the real-life contexts of language uses as their basis: sections would be headed by names of situations or locations such as Eating a meal or In the street), topic-based (it usually indicates a fairly clear set of vocabulary items, which may be specified (e.g. Food, The Family)), notional (notions are concepts that language express. General notions may include number, time, place, color; specific notions look more like vocabulary items: man, woman, afternoon), functional-notional (functions are things you can do with language, e.g. identifying, denying, promising), mixed or multi-strand (in these you may find specification of topics, tasks, functions, and notions, as well as grammar and vocabulary), procedural (it specifies the learning tasks to be done rather than the language itself or even its meanings, e.g. map reading, doing scientific experiments, story-writing), process (the only one that is not pre-set. The content of the course is negotiated with the learners at the beginning of the course and during it, and actually listed only retrospectively). XIII Materials

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- the coursebook should be related to critically: we should be aware of its good and bad points in order to make the most of the first and compensate for or neutralize the second, - the texts may be unsatisfactory because they are boring or trivial in content, or because all the texts in the book seem to be the same genre, style, and overall topic. Interest may be added by challenging or original tasks; sameness of genres can only be solved by providing supplementary texts, - if the tasks are too short and do not provide for much learner activity, they can be extended by, for example, adding further similar items, or by making items open-ended instead of close-ended so that each can trigger a number of learner responses, or by simply supplementing with further activities of your own, - supplementary materials: computers, books, overhead projectors, video equipment, audio equipment, posters, pictures, games, - worksheet a page (or two) of tasks, distributed to each student to do either in class or at home, intended to be written on, and usually taken in by the teacher to be checked, - workcards they are made in sets, each card offering a different, fairly short task. They are not written on: a student does one card, writing answers on a separate piece of paper or in a notebook, and then exchanges it for another, working through as many of the set as there is time for. Answers are often available for selfchecking at some central location in the room, or on the back of the card itself, - workcards are permanent are re-usable, take more effort and time to produce, but are more attractive to look and work on, and more individualized (students have a choice as to which cards they do, and in which order), and the range of tasks available can be much more varied; worksheets disposable.

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XIV Topic content

- course content often conveys a hidden curriculum: underlying messages that go beyond factual 13

information. These may have to do with religious or political beliefs, or with attitudes towards certain kinds of people, nationalities, or cultures. It is very important to be aware of such subtext, as: 1) so as not to unconsciously express support for attitudes you do not approve of, or denigrating those you do, 2) because learners who identify with groups who are discriminated against in course content may actually feel disadvantaged and learn less well (e.g. female learners using materials that present the male as superior),

- the learning and teaching of a piece of literature as a process containing three main stages: encounter and impact (objective: to get learners to perceive the basic form and meaning of the text, and for it to make some kind of real impact on them, both intellectually and emotionally), understanding and familiarization (to get learners to interact with the text thoroughly and repeatedly so that they become familiar with the words and ideas, are confident they know the sequence of events and characters; and to help them to understand and appreciate the text in more depth and detail, analysis and interpretation. XV Lesson planning - aspects of the lesson: transaction (some kind of purposeful give-and-take which results in a product: an acquisition or a definable mental or physical change in the participants), interaction (a lesson is seen as something which involves relaxed, warm interaction that protects and promotes the confidence and happiness of all participants), goal-oriented effort, a satisfying, enjoyable experience, a role-based culture, a conventional construct, a series of free choices, - in a lesson which is entirely taken up with one kind of activity, interest is likely to flag; varied lessons provide regular refreshing changes in the type of mental or physical activity demanded, - guidelines for ordering components of a lesson: 1) put the harder tasks earlier, as students are fresher and more energetic earlier in the lesson, 2) have quieter activities before lively ones, as it can be difficult to calm down a class who have been participating in a lively, exciting activity. The exception to this is when you have a rather lethargic or tired class of adults; here stirring activities early on can actually refresh and help 14

students get into the right frame of mind for learning; 3) think about transitions: e.g. if you have a sharp transition from a reading-writing activity to an oral one, devote some thought to the transition stage; 4) pull the class together at the beginning and at the end: this contributes to a sense of structure; 5) end on a positive note: the point is to have students leave the classroom feeling good, - evaluating lesson effectiveness: 1) the learner were active, attentive, enjoying themselves (they are likely to be learning better; enjoyment and motivation are important as they make it more likely that learners will attend and contribute to learners holding a long-term positive attitude towards language lessons and learning in general), 2) the class seemed to be learning the material well, 3) the lesson went according to plan, 4) the language was used communicatively throughout (but non-communicative activities can also teach), 5) the learners were engaging with the foreign language throughout, - we should make a habit of having a reserve activity ready as part of the regular lesson plan (as we can find ourselves with extra time on our hands at the end of a lesson); similarly, we should note in advance which component(s) of the lesson we will sacrifice if we find ourselves with too little time for everything; keep a watch or clock easily visible, do not leave the giving of homework to the last minute, as at the end of the lesson learners attention is at a low ebb, and you may run out of time before you finish explaining; if you have papers to distribute and a large class, give a number of papers to people at different points in the class, ask them to take one and pass the rest on; if you are doing group work, give instructions and make sure these are understood before dividing into groups or handing out materials. XVI Classroom interaction - the most common type of classroom interaction is that known as IRF Initiation-Response-Feedback: the teacher initiates an exchange, one of the students answers, the teacher gives feedback (assessment, correction, comment), initiates the next question and so on, - interaction patterns: 1) group work, 2) closed-ended teacher questioning (IRF): only one right answer get approved, 3) individual work, 4) choral responses (a model given by the teacher is repeated by all the class in chorus), 5) collaboration (usually in pairs; this is different from group work, where the task itself necessitates interaction), 6) students initiates, teacher answers, 7) full class interaction (e.g. debate), 8) teacher talk (e.g. writing form dictation; no initiative on the part of the student); 9) self-access (students choose their own learning tasks), 10) open-ended teacher questioning, - question a teacher utterance which has the objective of eliciting an oral response from the learner(s),

- a problem of double messages, e.g. the teacher says explicitly that the intention is to discuss; but the introductory question, though clear, actually discourages discussion: it is a yes/no question inviting a single, brief answer, so it does not forward the declared teaching objective, - group work, advantages: it is of particular value in the practice of oral fluency; it fosters learner responsibility and independence, can improve motivation and contribute to a feeling of cooperation and warmth in the class. There is even some research that indicates that the use of group work improves learning outcomes, - individualization on language learning: materials of various kinds are made available, and the learners choose which to work on; Ur: a situation where learners are given a measure of freedom to choose how and 15

what they learn at any particular time. The opposite is lockstep learning, where everyone in the class, in principle, is expected to do the same thing at the same time in the same way. In individualized learning a higher proportion of responsibility for learning is placed on the shoulders of the learners themselves,

- IRF only a minority have a chance to express themselves, and these are usually the more advanced and confident. Individual work provides far more accurate and comprehensive feedback. On the other hand, IRF is a convenient and easily administered activation technique that quickly provides the teacher with some indication of what some of the class knows. Also, it allows the teacher to monitor immediately, and learners may also learn from each others responses. Later, however, when they know the material better they are probably better served by individual, group or pair work which allows active participation of more students simultaneously, - the extra exposure contributes to the consolidation of learning, particularly if the teacher speaks expressively or dramatically. XVII Giving feedback - feedback is information that is given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance; it has two main distinguishable component: assessment and correction. In assessment, the learner is simply informed how well or badly he or she has performed (e.g. a percentage grade on an exam, or the response No to an attempted answer to a question in class). In correction, some specific information is provided on aspects of the learners performance: through explanation, or provision of better or other alternatives, or through elicitation of these from the learner. In principle, correction should include information on what the learner did right, as well as wrong, and why, - any meaningful feedback is going to involve some kind of judgment; it is more useful to accept that there is judgment involved (than trying to be non-judgmental), but to try to make the attitude to this more positive: that mistakes are a natural und useful part of language learning; giving feedback on them is to help and promote learning, - audio-lingualism: negative assessment is to be avoided as far as possible, since it may inhibit or discourage learning; positive assessment provides reinforcement of correct responses, and promotes learning, - humanistic methodologies: assessment should be positive or non-judgmental, as its crucial function is to preserve and promote a positive self-image of the learner as a person and language learner, - skill theory: the importance of the provision of constant and honest assessment,

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- formative evaluation its main purpose is to form: to enhance, not conclude, a process, - summative evaluation the teacher evaluates an overall aspect of the learners knowledge in order to summarize the situation: how proficient he or she is at a certain point in time, for example, or how much he or she has progressed during a particular course, - the most common way of gathering information for assessment is through tests; the usual criterion is an arbitrary level which the learner is expected to have reached; however, tests are a one-off event which may not necessarily give a fair sample of the learners overall proficiency; they are not always valid (actually testing what they say they are) or reliable (giving consistent results); and if they are seen as the sole basis for a crucial evaluation, they can be extremely stressful; other options: 1) teachers assessment (the teacher gives a subjective estimate of the learners overall performance), 2) continuous assessment (the final grade is some kind of combination of the grades the learner received for various assignments during the course), 3) self-assessment (the learners themselves evaluate their own performance, using clear criteria and weighting systems agreed on beforehand), 4) portfolio (the learner gathers a collection of assignments and projects done over a long period into a file; and this portfolio provides the basis for evaluation), - criteria: 1) criterion-referenced: how well the learner is performing relative to a fixed criterion), 2) normreferenced: relative to the group, 3) individual-referenced: relative to his or her own previous performance, - assessment grades: 1) letters, words, or phrases (A, B, Good, Excellent!), 2) profiles (this kind of expression of assessment comprises a number of separate grades on different skills or sections of knowledge, so that there is a possibility of describing the performance of an individual learner in more detail, showing his or her various strengths and weaknesses), - on the whole, we should go for encouraging, tactful correction; assessments should be given in an atmosphere of support and warm solidarity, so that learners feel that the teachers motive is honestly to promote and encourage their learning, not to put them down, but we have to remember that the giving of praise can easily be devalued through overuse.

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XVIII Classroom discipline

- some important factors contributing to classroom discipline: 1) classroom management skills (e.g. knowing how to organize the beginning of a lesson), 2) the choice of an appropriate methodology (is likely to ensure that students feel they are learning in a way that is right and useful for them, and they will therefore be more willing to cooperate), 3) the fostering of interpersonal relationships (feelings of respect and goodwill between individuals), 4) a good lesson planning (a carefully and clearly organized lesson makes for purposeful and orderly process), 5) student motivation (the more interesting and motivating the learning activity, the more likely it is that students will be cooperative and stay on-task),

- how to prevent the arising of problems: 1) careful planning (when a lesson is clearly planned and organized there is likely to be a constant momentum and a feeling of purpose, which keep students attention on the task in hand), 2) clear instructions (as problems sometimes arise due to student uncertainty about what they are supposed to be doing; also, too much hesitation and mind-changing can distract and bore students, with obvious implications for discipline), 3) keep in touch (you need to be constantly aware of what is going on in all quarters of the classroom, so that students know you are aware of them all the time, which discourages deviant activity; also, you yourself are able to detect a students incipient loss of interest or distraction and do something about it), - when the problem is beginning: 1) deal with it quietly (a quiet but clear-cut response that stops the deviant activity), 2) dont take things personally (try to relate to the problem, not the student, as the object to be attacked and dealt with; dont let the student pull you into personal conflict), 3) dont use threats (they are often a sign of weakness; do not use them as a weapon to make an impression or intimidate; use them only as a real option), 18

- when the problem has exploded: 1) explode yourself (often a swift, loud command will do the trick, with a display of anger, but dont do it too often, or it loses its effect), 2) give in (e.g. if students refuse to do homework you might say, All right, dont. It immediately defuses the situation), 3) make them an offer they cant refuse (some strategies are: postponement (Lets come back to this tomorrow at the beginning of the day), or compromise, or arbitration. XIX Learner motivation and interest - characteristics of motivated learners: positive task orientation (the learner is willing to tackle tasks and challenges, and has confidence in his or her success), ego-involvement (the learner finds it important to succeed in order to maintain and promote his or her own positive self-image), need for achievement, high aspirations (the learner is ambitious), goal orientation (the learner directs his or her efforts towards achieving the goals of learning or specific learning activities), perseverance (the learner consistently invests a high level of effort in learning, and is not discouraged by apparent lack of progress), tolerance of ambiguity (the learner is not disturbed by situations involving a temporary lack of understanding or confusion), - integrative motivation the desire to identify with and integrate into the target-language culture, - instrumental motivation the wish to learn the language for purposes of study or career promotion, - intrinsic motivation the urge to engage in the learning activity for its own sake; it is associated with what has been termed cognitive drive - the urge to learn for its own sake, which is very typical of young children and tends to deteriorate with age, - extrinsic motivation motivation that is derived from external activities, - global motivation the overall orientation of the learner towards the learning of the foreign language, - situational motivation it has to do with the context of learning (classroom, total environment), - task motivation it has to do with the way the learner approaches the specific task in hand, - most good teachers seem to accept that it is their responsibility to motivate learners, and invest quite a lot of effort in doing so, - some sources of extrinsic motivation: the desire of students to please some other authority figure such as parents, their wish to succeed in an external exam, or peer-group influences; other sources are certainly affected by teacher action, e.g. success and its rewards (the teachers most important function here is simply to make sure that learners are aware of their own success), failure and its penalties (the teachers job is to make learners aware of when they are failing, but we should be careful as constant awareness of shortcomings may lower motivation and demoralize them), authoritative demands (learners are often motivated by teacher pressure (zone of proximal development the next stage in achievement), tests (this is a useful incentive, provided there is not too much stress attached, and provided it is not used too often), competition (to beat their opponents), - global intrinsic motivation the generalized desire to invest effort in the learning for its own sake, - it is in the arousing of interest that teachers invest most effort, and get most immediate and noticeable payoff in terms of learner motivation; how to do this: 1) clear goals (learners should be aware of the objectives of the task), 2) varied topics and tasks, 3) visuals (to have something to look at that is eye-catching), 4) tension and challenge: games(game-like activities provide pleasurable tension and challenge); 5) entertainment (it produces enjoyment, which in turns adds motivation; e.g. jokes, stories, movies, video clips), 6) play-acting (role play and simulations that use the imagination and take learner out of themselves), 7) information gap (e.g. finding out what is in a partners picture), 8) personalization (tasks that have to do with them themselves), 9) open-ended questions (much more stimulating than the ones with only one right answer, - fluctuations in learner interest: extended lack of eye contact with the whole class lowers attention (therefore, the teacher should address the whole class as often as possible); blackboard writing holds students attention, particularly when the teacher is writing something they had said themselves; students who have something to look at attend better; organizational activities (e.g. giving out papers) are accompanied by a lowering of attention. XX Younger and older learners - young children learn languages better? There is some evidence that the older the child the more effectively he or she learns; probably, the teenagers are the best learners (however, pronunciation is learned more easily by younger children (survival motive the dependence on (foreign-language-speaking) people around to 19

supply childrens need), - foreign language learning in school should start early? Not supported by research evidence; there may not be a critical period at all; despite everything, an early start to language learning is likely to lead to better long-term results if early learning is maintained and reinforced as the child gets older, - children and adults learn languages the same way? In an immersion situation, where people are acquiring language intuitively for daily survival, this may to some extent be true; but in the context of formal courses, differences are apparent: adults capacity for understanding and logical though is greater, and they are likely to have developed a number of learning skills and strategies which children do not yet; moreover, adult classes tend to be more disciplined and cooperative (one of the reasons is that most adults are learning voluntarily and often have a clear purpose in learning, so they feel more committed and motivated), - adults have a longer concentration span? The problem is not the concentration span itself children will spend hours absorbed in activities that really interest them but rather the ability of the individual to preserve with something of no immediate intrinsic interest to them. Here, older learners do exhibit noticeable superiority, as they tend to be more self-disciplined, - it is easier to motivate children? In a sense, this is true, but you can also lose it more easily: monotonous, apparently pointless activities quickly bore young learners; older ones are more tolerant of them, - teaching children: they have a greater immediate need to be motivated by the teacher or the materials in order to learn effectively. Prizes and similar extrinsic rewards can help, but more effective are elements that contribute towards intrinsic motivation: interest in doing the learning activity itself. Such elements are effective if they are based on an appeal to the senses to activate the children in speech and movement. 3 very important sources of interest: pictures (visual stimulus; if they are not supplied with something to look at that is relevant to the learning task in hand they will find and probably be distracted by something that is not; the more clearly visible, striking, and colorful the better; the teachers own quick sketches on the board, too, and of course the childrens own drawing), stories (both visual and aural; they love having stories told to them; moreover, stories are pure language and one of the simplest and richest sources of foreign language input for young learners; the most effective combination in teaching is pictures and stories together), and games (both visual and aural, plus they activate language productions and sometimes physical movement; once you call a language-learning activity a game you convey the message that it is just fun, not to be taken seriously: a message that is anti-educational and potentially demoralizing; calling something a game when our goal is in fact serious learning may harm the learning; we should design our games in such a way that they are productive of language learning they become an excellent, even essential, part of a program of childrens learning activities. Ur: include game-based procedures, but think of and present them as game-like language-learning activities), - teaching adolescents: they may be considerably more difficult to motivate and manage, and it takes longer to build up trusting relationships; most adolescents may prefer their teachers to value and respect them rather than to be their friends. They also like to feel that the teacher has authority and is clearly in control; teaching adults is easier and less stressful, but often demands extra areas of expertise on the part of the teacher (as it is directed towards special purposes, e.g. for business). XXI Large heterogeneous classes - all classes of more than one learner are in fact heterogeneous (another definition sometimes applied to such classes is mixed-ability classes of learners among whom there are marked differences in level of performance in the foreign language),

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- problems with: 1) discipline, a, b largely caused by boredom and lack of challenge; vary task and materials and make activities interesting, 2) correcting written assignment, c enlist the help of the students themselves in correcting and improving each others work, 3) interest a, b, e, g make activities interesting and provide variety, involve students own ideas and experiences, use open-ended tasks, 4) effective learning for all, d, f, g: in individualized activities students learn at their own pace and sometimes choose their own tasks and materials. The strategy of compulsory plus optional tasks allows learners to decide for themselves what quantity of content and level of challenge to aim for, 5) materials, all textbook materials very often need to be adapted in order to add variation and interest, to get more collaboration and participation, and to introduce elements of choice and individualization, 6) individual awareness, c, d, e while students are engaged in collaborative activity (e.g. pair work on a textbook task), go from pair to pair listening in and getting to know them, or even take one or two aside for a brief talk. Periods of individual reading or writing tasks also allow you time for personal interaction, 7) participation, b, c, d, g interesting stimuli will raise students motivation to engage in the task; the use of collaborative and individual work; the use of openended cues rather than closed-ended ones, - the compulsory + optional strategy the class is given material or a task and told that a certain minimal component of it has to be learned or done by everyone, the rest only by some. The basic attainment requested should be accessible to all, including the slowest; but provision should be made for more, or more advanced, work by those for whom it is appropriate. Thus, everyone should be able to succeed; but the amount actually done to achieve this success will vary from individual to individual; the syllabus should define what material every learner is expected to master, and what further items are suggested for learning for the more advanced. E.g. in vocabulary lists, compulsory items will be carefully presented, practiced and tested, while the optional ones will be taught more casually and checked only in the optional sections of the tests. As for practice activities, different amounts of work may be demanded from different learners simply by defining the time they are to spend on it rather than the numbers of items, pages, or books they are to get through. As for tests, instead of making all sections compulsory, two or three of the sections may be made optional. Alternatively, the entire test may be made up of sections of gradually increasing difficulty, with the overall instruction: Do as much as you can in the time. Learners who tackle the more difficult optional sections may then be rewarded by bonus marks; or, if you know your students well, they may be told in advance who is expected to do what in order to pass or get full marks, - open-ending means the provisions of cues or learning tasks which do not have single predetermined right answers, but a potentially unlimited number of acceptable responses. As for close-ended cues, learners who are at a lower level and have not yet mastered the language will either not respond at all, or are quite likely 22

to get the answer wrong. The more advanced learners are also neglected: the item is easy and boring, provides them with no opportunity to show what they can. As for open-ended cues, the more advanced learners can make up more sophisticated and longer answers, the less advanced can listen to other learners response and use them as models before volunteering simpler ideas of their own. Questions a very simple way to make this activity more heterogeneous is to invite students to choose which they want to answer first. In this way individual students can immediately select questions which they are sure they know the answers to, or consider more interesting. Matching students may be told that they may combine any item from Colum A with any item from Column B provided they can justify it. Or delete either Column A or B and ask students to suggest their own matching subjects or predicates. Slot-filling delete, or tell students to ignore, the entire second part of each sentence and invite them to suggest a variety of possible endings. The same strategy (partial deletion of individual items) works well with many types of textbook exercises, and results in a more interesting, as well as heterogeneous, activity. Designing your own activities: 1) brainstorm the open nature of the task means that contributions of vastly differing level and content will be acceptable (e.g. show the class a picture and ask everyone to say one utterance about it), 2) recall and share the class is exposed to some kind of material, e.g. a set of words or phrases, then it is withdrawn and students are asked to write down as much as they can remember of it. Then they come together in twos to share results. This is a good opportunity for cooperation and peer-teaching, 3) doing your own thing each student writes or says a totally individual response to a stimulus; responses may be simple or sophisticated: the main objective is to get individuals express their own ideas in their own way (e.g. a topic is given to the class, e.g. A good friend, and students are given 5 minutes to write down a paragraph or two about it, 4) fluid pairs giving a task which involves short exchanges with as many other members of the class as they can find (e.g. students fill in forms answering certain questions about themselves, then they try to find as many students as possible who answered the same way), 5) passing it round (each student writes something on a large piece of paper and passes it on to their neighbor who adds a further sentence, and so on XXII And beyond - burn-out a feeling of disillusionment, boredom, loss of momentum.

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