Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom

Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom

Marcos Peñate Cabrera ,Spain) Plácido Bazo, Spain)

Introduction

The teaching of English as a foreign language is now one of the most important subjects in most European primary schools. The implementation of English has brought along the need to establish clear objectives that are different to the ones traditionally assigned to secondary schools. While in secondary schools we still find, in many cases, a teaching based in the formal aspects of the language, i.e. grammar; primary school teachers have had to adopt a different approach as the age of the children make the teaching of formal aspects not advisable. As a result of this point of view, the different Educational Departments have decided to establish, as the main purpose of the EFL teaching, the development of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, the implementation of this approach has not been trouble-free as many teachers insist on asking their children to understand every single word they listen to or read, or expect their pupils to write or speak without making the mistakes normally found in the process of acquiring any language.

The main purpose of this paper is to provide some guidelines that we hope can be useful to teachers of English as a foreign language in primary schools.

Listening

Listening is the language skill which learners usually find the most difficult. This often is because they feel under unnecessary pressure to understand every word. To achieve the aims related to this skill, the teacher plays an important role that is defined in the following steps.

1. It is important to help pupils prepare for the listening task well before they hear the text itself. First of all the teacher must ensure that the pupils understand the language they need to complete the task and are fully aware of exactly what is expected of them. Reassure the pupils that they do not need to understand every word they hear.
2. The next important step is to encourage pupils to anticipate what they are going to hear. In everyday life, the situation, the speaker, and visual clues all help us to decode oral messages. A way to make things a bit easier to the pupils is to present the listening activity within the context of the topic of a teaching unit. This in itself will help pupils to predict what the answers might be. The teacher can help them further by asking questions and using the illustrations to encourage pupils to guess the answers even before they hear the text.
3. During the listening the pupils should be able to concentrate on understanding the message so make sure they are not trying to read, draw, and write at the same time. Always give a second chance to listen to the text to provide a new opportunity to those who were not able to do the task.
4. Finally, when pupils have completed the activity, invite answers from the whole class. Try not to put individual pupils under undue pressure. Rather than confirming whether an answer is correct or not, play the cassette again and allow pupils to listen again for confirmation. You may be given a variety of answers, in which case list them all on the board and play the text again, so that the class can listen and choose the correct one. Even if the pupils all appear to have completed the task successfully, always encourage them to listen to the text once more and check their answers for themselves.

Speaking

First of all, we must take into account that the level of language input (listening) must be higher than the level of language production expected of the pupils. So we have many speaking activities used in the first levels that enable pupils to participate with a minimal verbal response. However in the last levels, pupils are encouraged to begin to manipulate language and express themselves in a much more personal way.

In primary schools two main types of speaking activities are used. The first type, songs, chants, and poems, encourages pupils to mimic the model they hear on the cassette. This helps pupils to master the sounds, rhythms, and intonation of the English language through simple reproduction. The games and pair work activities on the other hand, although always based on a given model, encourage the pupils to begin to manipulate the language by presenting them with a certain amount of choice, albeit within a fairly controlled situation.

In order for any speaking activity to be successful children need to acknowledge that there is a real reason for asking a question or giving a piece of information. Therefore, make sure the activities you present to the pupils, provide a reason for speaking, whether this is to play a game or to find out real information about friends in the class.

Once the activity begins, make sure that the children are speaking as much English as possible without interfering to correct the mistakes that they will probably make. Try to treat errors casually by praising the utterance and simply repeating it correctly without necessarily highlighting the errors. And finally, always offer praise for effort regardless of the accuracy of the English produced.

Reading

In order to make reading an interesting challenge as opposed to a tedious chore, it is important that pupils do not labour over every word, whether they are skimming the text for general meaning or scanning it to pick out specific information. Other things to keep in mind are:

1. When choosing texts consider not only their difficulty level, but also their interest or their humour so that children will want to read for the same reasons they read in their own language: to be entertained or to find out something they do not already know.
2. As with listening activities, it is important to spend time preparing for the task by using the illustrations (a usual feature in reading activities for children), pupils' own knowledge about the subject matter, and key vocabulary to help the pupils to predict the general content of the text. Discuss the subject and ask questions to elicit language and to stimulate the pupils' interest in the text before they begin reading. Also make sure that the pupils understand the essential vocabulary they need to complete the task before they begin to read.
3. While the children are reading the text, move around the class providing support if pupils need it. Where possible, encourage pupils to work out the meaning of vocabulary as they come across it, using the context and the supporting illustrations.
4. Do not encourage pupils to read texts aloud unless this is to learn a play or recite a poem. Reading aloud inhibits most pupils and forces them to concentrate on what they are saying as opposed to what they are reading and the meaning is very often lost.

Writing

In primary schools, EFL pupils progress from writing isolated words and phrases, to short paragraphs about themselves or about very familiar topics (family, home, hobbies, friends, food, etc.)

Since many pupils at this level are not yet capable either linguistically or intellectually of creating a piece of written text from scratch, it is important that time is spent building up the language they will need and providing a model on which they can then base their own efforts. The writing activities should therefore be based on a parallel text and guide the pupils, using simple cues. These writing activities generally appear towards the end of a unit so that pupils have had plenty of exposure to the language and practice of the main structures and vocabulary they need.

At this stage, the pupils' work will invariably contain mistakes. Again, the teacher should try to be sensitive in his/her correction and not necessarily insist on every error being highlighted. A piece of written work covered in red pen is demoralizing and generally counter-productive. Where possible, encourage pupils to correct their own mistakes as they work. If there is time, encourage pupils to decorate their written work and where feasible display their efforts in the classroom.

The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. VIII, No. 12, December 2002

Teaching English Worldwide: A New Practical Guide to Teaching English ,Paul Lindsay (2000)

Designed as a comprehensive introduction to the field of teaching English as a second or foreign language, Teaching English Worldwide is a helpful instrument for both those who need a basic self-training in teaching English and those who are planning to take a pre-service training course in the profession. Not only does the book provide the main points of the theoretical knowledge that would-be teachers need, but it constantly supports theory with procedures, techniques, and activities useful for the teaching of all aspects of the English language.

In his "Note from the Author," Paul Lindsay traces his experience as a teacher of English and claims that an all-purpose teaching method does not exist. Good teachers should be less concerned with methods and approaches than with adapting their teaching to the students, after studying their needs, by choosing suitable materials and practical techniques. His last suggestion is "to keep an open mind on new ideas about teaching and learning. Try interesting new ways but don't get hooked on one method" (page ix).

The book is organized into 21 chapters and 5 appendices, plus an answer key for the review questions and exercises proposed for self-testing at the end of each chapter.

The first two chapters ("Basic Questions" and "Managing your Classroom") focus on basic issues such as: a) the role of the teacher, considered not as a mere explainer but as a sensitive helper and attentive organizer; b) the nature of the four skills, analysed in detail in the central part of the book; c) the communicative needs of students at different levels of language proficiency; and d) the importance of creating a relaxed learning environment and of organizing positive learning relationships and activities.

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters set out to discuss the preliminary knowledge of language levels that enables teachers to approach the teaching of the four skills: "Presenting Meaning and Context," "Teaching Vocabulary," "Understanding Basic Verb Forms," and "Teaching Pronunciation."

In order to help students understand the meaning of the new language it is necessary that teachers convey in very clear and easy ways the meaning and context. This may be realized through a wide range of techniques, from the use of mimic sounds, gestures, and facial expressions to the exploitation of pictures, photographs, objects (realia), and songs. It goes without saying that the meaning of a lexical item depends on the situation of occurrence, thus teachers should always simulate, as best the classroom facilities can afford, the context of the situation where the word is employed (e.g., authentic material such as magazines and newspapers, or everyday situations in familiar environments such as home, school, friends, shops, and the like). They also should be careful to choose situations that are interesting for their students, since this device helps them remember new words. [-1-]

What has been focused on in the previous paragraph can be easily summarized by observing that the teaching of meaning and context is not merely a matter of transmitting a long list of new words or lexical items, but rather the more complex procedure of teaching the vocabulary of a language. This entails recognizing an item in its spoken and written forms, as well as its grammar and pronunciation; knowing both its denotative and connotative meanings, its collocations, and its registers of use. The author suggests various strategies for the teaching of vocabulary. Lexical sets and semantic networks function well when each word refers to clearly differentiated concepts, and the words are presented via an action, realia, or a visual context. On the other hand, the use of synonyms does not work with beginners because it imposes an overloading task on them. Synonyms are instead useful with intermediate students, as are antonyms, or instructing students to use word formation strategies. Finally, the use of spidergrams or mental maps is helpful in tracing a constellation of relations among items belonging to general categories. I would like to add that making associations, exploring ranges of meaning, or learning words in groups provide cognitive strategies that are helpful in order to understand, categorize, and store new items in the mental lexicon. Moreover, teachers should always make the context of use explicit because this inferencing strategy, involving a greater amount of mental energy, allows better retention of words (Mondria & Wit de-Boer, 1991).

The fifth chapter is meant to make would-be teachers aware of the different uses and meanings that verb forms may have and of the difficulties that students encounter in understanding basic grammar. The author claims that students need to learn the main points of grammatical correctness, but that this alone does not provide them with the skills necessary to communicate appropriately and to participate in communicative situations. The aim of teachers, then, should be to pay attention to the different illocutionary forces that the same speech act may have depending on the situation and the participants. How to enable students to recognize the different communicative functions of utterances is not one of the purposes of the chapter, and, unfortunately, there is nothing of the kind in any other part of the book. However, in the list of recommended readings that closes the chapter, good references are made to authors such as Close (1992) and Ur (1988).

This first set of observations closes with a focus on how to teach pronunciation. After devoting a few notes to sound, stress, and intonation, the author offers some tasks to practice phonemic transcription, so that teachers can become aware of the difficulties students meet when they try to learn correct pronunciation. For each task good pieces of advice are given. A complex matter such as the teaching of pronunciation cannot be approached thoroughly in a few pages. Here again, a useful list of further readings is given for both theoretical references and practical activities. In the teaching of pronunciation I have found a real help in proverbs because they are usually built on rhetorical devices such as rhyme and repetition. They represent a relaxing way of learning new sounds and can later be exploited in speaking and writing activities.

The next chapters center on the four skills in the commonly accepted sequence: "Teaching Listening," "Teaching Speaking," "Teaching Reading," and "Teaching Writing."

To develop listening skills, Lindsay provides some useful tips. Teachers should exploit different listening strategies, and select appropriate materials with a specific listening purpose in mind. The main tip the author gives is the need to help students develop listening skills rather than testing their listening ability. To do so, he suggests that teachers should make students more confident about the listening task by introducing the chosen material with global understanding questions and by dividing students into pairs or small groups so that they can share difficulties in finding answers to the proposed activities. Common tasks are listed: putting events or items in the right order, true/false statements, multiple choice questions, note-taking. It is worth emphasizing the importance of teachers being familiar with the crucial role that different types or stages of memory (e.g., echoic, working, long-term memory) play in the development of listening abilities (see Cohen et al, 1986; Smyth & Wing, 1987 ). [-2-]

Speaking is introduced through three stages: elicitation of appropriate functional language, intensive oral practice, and developing oral fluency. The first goal may be reached by asking questions, using synonyms and antonyms, giving instructions, using realia and visual aids, gestures, and mime. Intensive practice involves repetition, echo questions, simple substitutions of dialogue prompts, or combining sentences. These activities enable students to become more accurate in specific language structures. Fluency is undoubtedly the most difficult skill to develop since it is highly dependent on interest in the topic and preparation of required vocabulary. Thus it is good practice to let students choose the topics and let them break the ice by starting with warm-up activities. Role-play, games, and information-gap activities are suitable for the development of oral fluency. As for accuracy, Allan (1991) suggested the use of taping a ten-minute talk from notes for self-correction of errors.

Reading is seen as an additional exposure to the foreign language, and it contributes to the development and updating of vocabulary. I may add that it is a good device to increase systemic knowledge (syntactic and morphological) as well as schematic knowledge (encyclopaedic, socio-cultural, topic, and genre). Intensive reading is useful in the language classroom to analyse grammatical features, to learn how discourse markers are used to connect parts of text, and to infer the meanings of new words and lexical items relying on the context. These aspects may be elicited by true/false activities, questions, or cloze exercises. Lindsay emphasizes the importance of extensive reading, which has the great value of letting students feel more at ease when they have to develop their writing skills.