Productive and Receptive Skills in the ESL Classroom - Speaking Skills - Activate Phase
The final stage of the lesson will be the activate and the activate phase is going to form the main speaking activity within the lesson. So, it's very very important that here, we do a good demonstration of what it is that we're expecting them to do, that we elicit the type of target language we're expecting them to produce from the activity. So, one way we could go around it is to, firstly, form pairs. Each pair is going to be given a card and onto that card they're going to write the country and a month. What the teacher can then do, just to add a little bit of spice to it, is to collect all of the cards and shuffle them around and then redistribute them to the pairs so that they get a card that doesn't have their country or their month on it. What they're then going to do is to be asked to create a weather forecast for that country in that particular month. Now obviously, this will be written down and once all of the students have completed their forecast, what we can then do is the main speaking activity, where they would actually read out this particular information. So, obviously, we would need to feedback on that afterwards. If there are any common mistakes between all of these feedback sessions, then we can cover those after the session has finished.
Below you can read feedback from an ITTT graduate regarding one section of their online TEFL certification course. Each of our online courses is broken down into concise units that focus on specific areas of English language teaching. This convenient, highly structured design means that you can quickly get to grips with each section before moving onto the next.
The most widely used teaching equipment include: the board (white or black), CD/DVD player, TV screen or monitor, interactive whiteboard, compute.
Teaching aids include: visual aids (photos, flashcards, videos, real objects), worksheets, dictionaries, course books , resource books et.
As I plan to teach preschoolers, I would definitely use a board during my lesson.
They love to write or draw on the board, we can use it for role-plays, games, can stick pictures or flashcards on it etc/ Visual prompts are absolutely necessary to keep preschoolers interested in the lesson, so I would use them at Engage and Activate stage.
Toys, flashcards , real objects attract kids ? attention and allow visual learners to take more out of them then just a verbal explanatio.
CD player is much convenient than a cassette recorder as it doesn?t required rewindin.
Songs, stories and dialogues allow kids to hear how to pronounce words ?properly?, improve their pronunciatio.
Listening to the songs allows kids naturally memorize the words expressions and make learning more efficien.
DVD/TV screen and monitor might be used with young learners as they attracted by the colorful moving pictures and it?s much easier to understand video rather than audio, but it certainly shouldn?t be overused and must have some purpose and task.
Course book is necessary to use with young learners I think, as it?s a kind of guide that provides the main program, but of course it might be adopted by the teacher according the students needs and some supplementary materials can be added if necessar.
Recourse book is also quite important as it helps to develop games and activities for the lesso.
I think one of the best choice might be a book of ?500 Activities foe the primary classroom? by Carol Read, as it gives really interesting ideas for classroom activities that can be modified according students age and leve.
Worksheets and some printable materials are useful and essential for study phase , as they allow the teacher to get an idea of where each individual student needs an attentio.
As for me, computers are more suitable for older students and individual home learning, as they give a great opportunity to practice the language via different chats, forums, skype et.
OHP is a useful teaching aid , but from my experience many schools are not supplied with it , or provide just one or two projects for the whole school that make its use very inconvenient, so I wouldn?t rely on it too muc.
Before the lesson teacher must check that all printable materials are ready and the equipment works wel.
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