Lecture 5

Teaching language skills to young learners. Listening and speaking.

Plan:
1. Reasons for listening
2. Different kinds of listening
3. Listening principles
4. What Does It Take To Teach Listening Effectively?
5. Teacher Roles in Teaching Speaking
6. Speaking activities.
7. Methods in Teaching Speaking to Young Learners

Characteristics of Young Learners

The age groups of young learners are grouped from five to fourteen years old. The main issue in teaching
language to young learners should begin with the consideration that every child is unique. Harmer
classifies the characteristics of young learners as follows:
(1) They respond to meaning even if they do not understand individual words;
(2) They often learn indirectly rather than directly;
(3) Their understanding comes not just from explanation, but also from what they see and hear, and
crucially, have a chance to touch and interact with;
(4) They find abstract concepts such as grammar rules difficult to grasp;
(5) They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and a curiosity about the world around them;
(6) They have a need for individual attention and approval from the teacher;
(7) They are keen to talk about themselves, their own lives as main topics in the classroom;
(8) They have a limited attention span unless activities are extremely engaging, they can get easily bored.

Listening
1. Reasons for listening

Teaching listening skills is possibly the hardest part of our job as EFL teachers. It is much harder when
you teach listening to Young Learners (YLs) in a non-English-speaking environment. With very little
English exposure at home or in mainstream schools in countries where English is not widely spoken, YLs
need thorough guidance in approaching listening, particularly, to authentic language. In an English-
speaking-environment, where English is everywhere, it is still crucial to teach learners to be effective
listeners. Listening plays a key part in the YLs’ language development, simply because it is their main
source of sample language and it constitutes the springboard for language acquisition and, hence, their
future spoken production.

Listening is the first and the foremost skill the students should start learning foreign language with. It is
good for students’ pronunciation because the more they hear and understand English being spoken, the
more they absorb appropriate pitch and intonation, stress and the sounds of both individual words and
those which blend together in connected speech. Listening texts are good pronunciation models, in other
words, and the more students listen, the better they get, not only at understanding speech, but also at
speaking themselves. Indeed, it is worth remembering that successful spoken communication depends not
just on our ability to speak, but also on the effectiveness of the way we listen. One of the main sources of
listening for students is the voice of their teacher. However, it is important, where possible, for students to
be exposed to more than just that one voice.
2.Different kinds of listening A distinction can be drawn between intensive and extensive listening. As
with reading, the latter refers to listening which the students often do away from the classroom, for
pleasure or some other reason. The audio material they consume in this way - often on CDs in their cars,
on MP3 players, DVDs, videos or on the Internet - should consist of texts that they can enjoy listening to
because they more or less understand them without the intervention of a teacher or course materials to
help them. Students can also use tapes and CDs to listen to their coursebook dialogues again after they
have studied them in class. There is a growing number of podcast sites from where students can download
free materials. And another way of getting students involved in a form of extensive listening is to
encourage them to go to English language films with subtitles; as they hear the English dialogue, the
subtitles help them understand; as they understand, they will, to some extent, absorb the language they
hear. Intensive listening is different from extensive listening in that students listen specifically in order to
work on listening skills, and in order to study the way in which English is spoken. It usually takes place in
classrooms or language laboratories, and typically occurs when teachers are present to guide students
through any listening difficulties, and point them to areas of interest.

3. Listening principles

Principle 1: Encourage students to listen as often and as much as possible. The more students listen, the
better they get at listening - and the better they get at understanding pronunciation and at using it
appropriately themselves. One of our main tasks, therefore, will be to use as much listening in class as
possible, and to encourage students to listen to as much English as they can (via the Internet, podcasts,
CDs, tapes, etc).

Principle 2: Help students prepare to listen. Students need to be made ready to listen. This means that
they will need to look at pictures, discuss the topic, or read the questions first, for example, in order to be
in a position to predict what is coming. This is not just so that they are in the right frame of mind (and are
thinking about the topic), but also so that they are engaged with the topic and the task and really want to
listen.

Principle 3: Once may not be enough. There are almost no occasions when the teacher will play an audio
track only once. Students will want to hear it again to pick up the things they missed the first time - and
we may well want them to have a chance to study some of the language features on the tape. In the case
of live listening, students should be encouraged to ask for repetition and clarification when they need it.
The first listening to a text is often used just to give students an idea of what the speakers sound like, and
what the general topic is (see Principle 5) so that subsequent listenings are easier for them. For
subsequent listenings, we may stop the audio track at various points, or only play extracts from it.
However, we will have to ensure that we don’t go on and on working with the same audio track.

Principle 4: Encourage students to respond to the content of a listening, not just to the language. An
important part of a listening sequence is for teachers to draw out the meaning of what is being said,
discern what is intended and find out what impression it makes on the students. Questions such as ‘Do
you agree with what they say?’ and ‘Did you find the listening interesting? Why?’ are just as important as
questions like ‘What language did she use to invite him?’ However, any listening material is also useful
for studying language use and a range of pronunciation issues.

Principle 5: Different listening stages demand different listening tasks. Because there are different things
we want to do with a listening text, we need to set different tasks for different listening stages. This
means that, for a first listening, the task(s) may need to be fairly straightforward and general. That way,
the students’ general understanding and response can be successful - and the stress associated with
listening can be reduced. Later listenings, however, may focus in on detailed information, language use or
pronunciation, etc. It will be the teacher’s job to help students to focus in on what they are listening for.
4. What Does It Take To Teach Listening Effectively?

a. Motivation
YLs love visuals, animations, games, fun things to watch, listen and do. Their main motivation is
expressing their world to others and sharing experiences with peers. Listening tasks and materials should
raise learners’ interest and keep them engaged while they are doing things with the language they hear.
Listening in class also has to be a chance for YLs to use all their imagination, creativity, curiosity and
energy to learn.
b. Engaging Listening Tasks

What makes a listening task engaging for YLs? YLs are in the stage of their life in which they are
gathering information from their world experience. They are gradually developing the abilities to listen
carefully to get something done or just get the gist of what has been said for a purpose. In other words,
learners are learning to decode messages purposefully and manage information with confidence. The
teacher’s job is to create real-life conditions in the language classroom, as much as possible, in order to
‘train’ YLs to develop effective strategies for understanding oral messages that have some connections
with their world. Listening tasks must therefore clearly reflect YLs’ real life experiences and everyday
new discoveries.

How can teachers make listening tasks more engaging? Think of all the different situations when YLs
listen carefully to people around them. In which situations would they listen up for important details?
Possibly, when they need to follow instructions to make something, e.g. crafts, or to do something ‘fun’,
e.g. playing a guessing game. In these situations, there is a clear purpose for listening and extracting key
information. While carrying out realistic tasks, they can still activate the world knowledge they have
gained through games, books, stories or simply from parents’ or teachers’ talk. Selecting or designing
materials that can feed YLs’ endless curiosity and spark their imagination is just vital to make tasks
engaging. While keeping learners motivated, listening tasks also need to create the opportunity for
meaningful language exposure and life experience.

c. Appropriate YL Materials

Listening tasks need to be manageable in order to avoid demotivation or information overload for YLs.
Authentic materials can offer a chance for real language exposure though task grading will be necessary,
e.g. through visual aids or pre-listening tasks, not necessarily vocabulary pre-teaching. For instance, you
could choose to use an example as a pre-listening task with an immediate response as to build learners’
confidence before approaching the actual task. Listening materials surely need to feature motivating tasks,
but also they need to provide interesting content and be visually attractive to a child aged 8-11. Selecting
listening materials can be hard. You need to walk in your learners’ shoes and see the world with their
eyes not your own. Talk to your YLs as much as you can to find out about their interests and make a list
of topics that are age and culturally appropriate to your class, not YLs in general. Materials should always
have a fun and competitive element to make the exposure to real language more enjoyable.

Teaching speaking
The Nature of Speaking
Speaking is a complex cognitive process and an active use of language to express meaning. It requires the
language users to speak fluently, to be able to pronounce phonemes correctly, to use appropriate stress
and intonation patterns, and to speak in connected speech. Speaking as a process of building and sharing
meaning and information through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols in variety context. In EFL
context, the language users are also urged to speak in different genres and situation, and they will have to
be able to use a range of conversational and conversational repair strategies.
1. Teacher Roles in Teaching Speaking lists several principles that teachers need to consider in
preparing students to communicate in English:
1. Introducing and practicing patterns in ways that feel meaningful to the children, such as in games, in
situation where the children genuinely want to express themselves, and through personalization.
2. Practicing new patterns in combination with the other patterns the children have learned, so the
children can internalize them more easily.
3. Giving the children many opportunities to guess how to use the patterns flexibly in situation.
4. Giving the children confidence to speak out in front of others by talking independently with other
children and the whole class.
5. Building the children’s inner strength to deal with situations, by presenting them with puzzles to
overcome and solve, and making sure they are finally successful.
The roles of teacher are classified in teaching speaking, as follows:
1. Prompter: The teachers provide the students with discrete suggestions, leave them to struggle by
themselves, and give them chunks not words, without disrupting the discussion.
2. Participant: The teachers participate in the discussion by introducing new information and by ensuring
the continuation of students’ engagement. The main point is the teacher should not monopolize the
conversation.
3. Feedback provider: The teachers can give some feedbacks by giving helpful and gentle correction and
by telling the students about their performance. Besides that, they should avoid over-correction, since it
might lead to students’ reluctance to continue the dialogue.
4. Observer: The teachers should observe the class speaking activity and find out what makes the activity
breakdown.
5. Resource: The teachers have to provide some tools to improve their students’ oral competence.
6. Organizer: The teachers manage the classroom to set the activities and get the students engaged.

3. Speaking activities. Teaching speaking to young learners should rely on children characteristics to
make the learning meaningful. Scientists endorses twelve activities to promote speaking, namely:
Discussion
After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The students may aim to arrive
at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the
discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the
discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each
other about irrelevant things.
Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they
are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment.
For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role Play
Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles.
Brain Storming
On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the context, either
individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good
characteristic of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be
open to sharing new ideas.
Storytelling
Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create
their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students
express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a
story has to have.
Information Gap
In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that
other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve
many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important
role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need.
Story Completion
For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then,
each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to
add from four to ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.
Reporting
Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to
their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have
experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
Picture Describing
For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss
the picture with their groups, and then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole
class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking
skills.
Find the Differences For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different
pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis. Students
in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures.
Picture Narrating
This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the
sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can
include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.

4. Methods in Teaching Speaking to Young Learners Audio Lingual Method (ALM) The principle of
Audio-lingual Method (ALM) can be applied in teaching speaking to young learners, since it holds an
assumption that one can learn language by developing habits based on pattern of language by
emphasizing repetition and habit. The two important features of ALM are drill with choral response and
dialogues. Moreover, the dialogue provides the learners with grammatically controlled scripts. It can be
applied in a child-friendly role-play. Besides, the teacher can also use puppets to introduce dialogue. It
will be very beneficial for reluctant or shy students who tend to feel comfortable to speak with puppets,
rather than with adults.
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
CLT is an approach and philosophical orientation that connects classroom-based language learning with
the language that the learners need in order to enable the students to be able to speak outside classroom.
Further, one of the goals in CLT is to develop the fluency of the learners. Therefore, the teacher should be
able to build classroom activities in which students must negotiate meaning, use communication
strategies, correct misunderstanding, and work to avoid communications breakdown.