Contents Preface 1. For whom the Book is Intended

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2. From Theory to Practice: Basic Aims

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3. Description of the Course

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4. The Components of the Course

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5. Skill Development Project

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5.1 Speaking

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5.1.1 Picture sets

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5.1.2 Using picture sets: young learners

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5.1.3 Example key-words

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5.1.4 Processing picture sets from beginning to elementary (B1) level

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5.1.4.1 Reading and making sense

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5.1.4.2 Spelling

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5.1.4.3 Spelling game

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5.1.4.4 Miming

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5.1.4.5 Creating key-words

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5.1.4.6 Key-words games

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5.1.4.7 Teacher’s course book: key-words game

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5.1.4.8 Lexical sets games

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5.1.5 Processing picture sets from elementary (B1) to higher-intermediate (C1) level

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5.1.5.1 Reading example key-words

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5.1.5.2 Defining words game

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5.1.5.3 Mp3 exercise

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5.1.5.4 Questioning

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5.1.5.5 One-minute speaking

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5.1.5.6 Four-minutes speaking

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5.1.5.7 For and against

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5.1.6 Interview

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5.1.7 I have a story

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5.1.8 Storytelling

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5.1.9 Intensive-storytelling

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5.1.10 Describing people

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5.1.11 Storyline picture sets

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5.1.12 Book-storytelling

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5.1.13 Situations

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5.1.14 Discussion

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5.1.15 Newspaper-storytelling

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5.1.16 Easy-words

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5.1.17 Positive effects of speaking exercises

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5.2 Writing

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5.2.1 Circle-correction method

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5.2.2 Answering questions

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5.2.3 Interview: note-taking

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5.2.4 Interview: dialogue writing

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5.2.5 Interview: in third person

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5.2.6 Collecting words: lexical sets

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5.2.7 Rewriting stories

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5.2.8 Closed-writing

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5.2.9 Describing people

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5.2.10 Writing stories about storyline picture sets

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5.2.11 Narrative compositions

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5.2.12 Essay writing: 150-300 words

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5.2.13 A summary of the writing project

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5.3 Listening for Building Vocabulary

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5.4 Reading Graded Books

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6. How to Use School Course Books more Effectively

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6.1 Pair Work

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6.1.1 Strategies of forming pairs

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6.1.2 Does and don’ts

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6.1.3 Supportive confrontation techniques

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6.1.4 Intensive pair work

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6.2 Dealing with Distorted Behaviour

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6.3 Encouraging Correction Techniques

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6.4 Supportive Assessment Strategies (Giving Marks in Schools)

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7. Teacher’s Development: Characteristics of a Good Teacher

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References

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Preface School course books do not follow modern, humanistic methodology, they provide data and spoon-feed learners’ heads with a lot of information without using them in practice. Applying a series of course book is not enough to teach and learn English effectively. However, on the book market there is not a kind of book which supports improvements in the school curriculum with a sort of extra project which operates very effectively in practice: 

How to develop listening, speaking, reading and writing effectively with extra materials and methodology.



Humanistic assessment strategies (giving marks in schools).



Supportive error correction methods.



Teacher-student interaction, supportive confrontation techniques.



How to utilize pair work in practice processing a course book.



How to be a good teacher and develop a cooperative class.

This book provides these requirements. It has been written on the basis of the ‘Revolution in English Teaching’ programme which has been operating very well in practice for 18 years. So, it is practical rather than theoretical, more than 1000 learners have taken successful intermediate, higher-intermediate and advanced exams using this methodology. It has been proved many times that if teachers apply this project (20-30% of the teaching time) with their course books (70-80% of the teaching time), their teaching process will be much better. This material serves as a catalyst for learning and spices up the teaching methods. It is written in plain English so it is easy to put into practice. The school course books (which do not have to be changed) will be more teachable, learnable and digestible for students. In addition this book develops both learners’ and teachers’: 

four basic skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing);



creativity; and



practical intelligence.

Moreover, it encourages students’: 

short and long-term motivation;



cooperative learning; and



mental and physical development for learning English.

This conceptual framework is a reasonable basis on which to build a curriculum. It provides teachers with tools and techniques for improvement. Without a doubt it can be infused into virtually any English-teaching school curriculum, in:

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

kindergartens;



primary / elementary schools;



high / secondary schools;



colleges / universities; and



private language schools.

So, we can use it from very young learners (3 years old) to adults – in any age. We want non-native English learners to learn English. In this way a non-native English teacher has got more opportunities to work out an effective methodology to teach English because he/she is familiar with the difficulties students have in the course of learning English. I am a non-native speaker of English but I think that what is very good about my not being a native speaker is the fact that: 

I can provide students with a role model; and



I have gone through a lot of the hurdles that learners go through learning a foreign language.

So I am particularly aware of difficulties in language structures, in vocabulary and in the four basic skills that learners might have. Consequently, I can provide both students and teachers with a methodology that works very effectively in practice.

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1. For Whom the Book is Intended This course is a useful programme for teachers facing problems during their teaching career. Using this material in practice, they can overcome these difficulties. So, this project is for you, as a teacher, if you do not know how to: 

use school text-books more effectively: you have a great deal of theory and no practice, no repertoire of effective exercises;



develop learners’ listening, speaking, reading, writing skills, and you cannot integrate them into your teaching;



improve learners’ practical intelligence;



utilize pair work and group work;



confront with students supportively;



be strict, fair and friendly at the same time and more to the point, how to be their leader and friend; and



deal with ‘black sheep’ (distorted behaviour) and 'problemed' learners.

In addition: 1

If you give way to safe routines but want to improve your teaching by trying out new strategies.

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If you do not have enough time to experiment to build up your own teaching process or you want to benefit from a programme which has been operating well in practice for 18 years.

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If you use the grammar translation method (transmission of information) which psychologically blocks using the target language and delays learners’ thinking in English. Without practice i.e. skills, the ‘material’ never consolidates, does not become a habit and is soon forgotten. So, if you do not follow modern, humanistic methodology.

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If you are an experienced teacher and you need a theory, a project to back your teaching up.

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If you cannot find help which supports improvements in the curriculum and in the way it is taught.

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If you work under constant pressure with little time to think about the quality of what you are doing.

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If you have lack of clear aims, goals, objectives, and your students have a long history of not learning the language. You know relatively little about your learners’ learning, how to learn effectively.

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If making mistakes is a part of learning, and correction is a part of teaching, and you do not know how to do the two of them go together, and how to give encouragement. If you do not know:

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

when to correct;



or whether to correct;



or what to correct;



or how to correct.

If you 'overcorrect' your learners i.e. act as a critic. In this case, your students are under stress when they have to stand up in English because the risk element is felt.

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Consequently, during your teaching process the student-talking-time is very low to none, conversely, the teacher-talking-time is extremely high. 10 If your assessment strategy is based on the transmission model e.g. grammar tests, words-tests etc. 11 If you are afraid of your students and have a defensive attitude towards them. As a result, you and your students enter the class with extremely high level of stress. In this respect, your English lessons are a meeting point for ‘teacher-killing students’ and ‘students-killing teacher’ and discipline problems are intolerable. 12 If you 'over teach' your students i.e. you always show how clever you are, in addition, how foolish they are. 13 If your teaching process is a matter of acquiring a set of rules and building up vocabulary without using it. Consequently, your students do not become skilled performers. 14 If there are a lot of 'blackspots' during your English lessons i.e. learners who are just physically present and do not make any mental efforts. 15 If you do not know how to make your teaching be the induction period to learning i.e. homework and autonomous learning are not organic parts of the teaching, learning process. Learners do not want to make homework, because they do not enjoy it; they do not read 50 graded books in English in a year and they do not deal with extra listening and other materials at home etc.

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2. From Theory to Practice: Basic Aims Communication has become the organizing principle. The central task is to create a communicative climate within which language acquisition can take place naturally. This climate reflects a holistic approach to language, in which the skills of listening, understanding, speaking, reading and writing are not artificially separated, but are integrated in a meaningful total experience. However, speaking and writing are the most important of these skills, since to some extent they presuppose the other two skills. More particularly, in the centre is speaking, which, of course, involves listening, because learners first hear the teacher’s voice. In addition, when they communicate with each other, they hear and listen to each other. On the other hand, it is not a separated listening activity i.e. it is the organic part of the speaking and develops automatically. Through speaking exercises, e.g. ‘Interview’; ‘Storytelling’; ’Oneminute speaking’; ‘Four-minutes speaking’; ‘Situations’ etc. students gain verbal routine, enthusiasm and confidence. OUR SKILL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

(induces the other skills)

SPEAKING

LISTENING for READING

building vocabulary

WRITING

SCHOOL TEXT-BOOKS

The two programmes strengthen each other. We integrate the acquired skills into the course books, which reinforce their content, language items and grammatical structures. Learners have got a positive attitude to the target language and want to progress in reading, listening and writing. In this respect, the speaking competence induces the other skills: 1

During writing development, oral exercises (‘Interview’, ‘Storytelling’, ‘One-minute speaking’, ‘Four-minutes speaking’, etc.) are done in written form, as homework.

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Students want to: 

make homework now that they enjoy it; and



use their acquired speaking ability in written form.

At pre-intermediate / intermediate level they are able to write compositions (200 words) without help in 20 minutes. Speaking encourages the development of a very important ability: we should think in the target language i.e. in English not in the mother tongue in the writing process.  2

At the stage of the first ‘Intensive-storytelling’ learners have competence: 

to figure out the meaning from short-texts;



of automatic information processing; and



to create mental pictures, models in the context instead of thinking it through in the native language. In other words they translate English into English.

They need new challenges in order to try out the gained skills. They start to read graded books e.g. Oxford Bookworms, Penguin Readers etc. The slogan is ‘read one book in a week’. In this case, they read about 40-50 graded books a year. The induction period to reading starts in the speaking phase. However, reading books encourages speaking and writing:

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

students use a wide range of vocabulary;



the fluency of the written and spoken performance is increased; and



information processing in English is encouraged.

Learners have got the tape script version of the stories at home. In the ‘Intensivestorytelling’ phase they have to ‘closed-write’ the listening material and after that correct it from the written form of the stories. In addition, they have to ‘closedwrite’ the audio script of the ‘Picture sets’ (with the ‘Example key-words’). The main goal – besides listening development – is to improve their spelling competence. This exercise is very useful for the writing skill: they can write down the words of the compositions, essays correctly without hesitation and, of course, without the help of the dictionary.

Specifically, students do not like listening and fail for one of these reasons: 

Students who are learning to listen cannot keep up. They are so busy working out the meaning of one part of what they hear that they miss the next part. Or they simply ignore a whole chunk, because they fail to sort it all out quickly enough.



They are unable to get things repeated.



They have limited vocabulary etc.

To overcome these problems, at early stages it is important to develop their confidence and enthusiasm for listening. The inducing point is speaking again.

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Besides the audio scripts of the ‘Storytelling’ short texts, the ‘Picture sets’, and the audio scripts of the teacher’s course books, other listening materials can be processed by our ‘Listening for building vocabulary’ strategies:

Closed - writing

Listening for revising vocabulary

Right-brained listening

Listening everywhere

These exercises have got some beneficial effects: 

an extensive active vocabulary can be built;



they support the fluency of speaking and writing;



learners are not afraid of listening, and they have got a positive attitude to it;



they can solve the listening tasks of the school course book and exam more effectively; and



they want to try out their listening ability in more complex situations e.g. watching films, television programmes in English etc.

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5.1.16. Positive effects of speaking exercises

These activities have been selected from a lot of other ones and have been improved in practice. We have been using them for fifteen years. They are the most effective ones to motivate learners who enjoy and like them very much. As a matter of fact, these exercises strengthen and consolidate each other’s effects on: 

speaking English;



other basic language skills – listening, reading and writing;



cooperative learning;



learning other subjects;



motivation;



creativity;



practical intelligence;



mental and physical development of learning; and



stammer.

On speaking English. Learners can use the English language spontaneously and fluently because they learn how to think and speak in the target language. They have got the ability to speak and understand without translation: speak and understand instantly. So, the words come out of their mouth easily and fast Students are actively involved in the speaking process: active production rather than passive recognition. In addition, they adopt risk-taking, rather than risk-avoiding, strategies. They can demonstrate a general good level of competence in accuracy, range, fluency and discourse management in English. Learners become skill performers of the English language. They can handle the oral interaction with reasonable confidence. Their communication is effective and consistent. They acquire the ability to use body language in order to express themselves more effectively during the communication. Students do the following oral tasks very well: 

exchanging and evaluating information;



persuading, defending ideas, negotiating and getting things done;



interacting in interpersonal relations and socializing;



expressing, discussing and discovering ideas;



formulating and responding to value judgements;



discussing certainty, necessity, obligation, offering etc. (‘Situations’);



expressing and responding to emotions (‘Situations’);



analysing actions, facts and opinions;



developing arguments logically ;



discussing and arguing critically;



challenging, expanding and qualifying ideas;



talking about abstract topics;

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

presenting and expanding an argument;



explaining and reasoning a point of view or argument;



imagining and hypothesising; and



describing processes.

On other basic language skills – listening, reading and writing. Learners are cognitively and actively involved in the oral exercises, which are very good intellectual challenges, a higher level achievement. Success breeds commitment, confidence and enthusiasm. They have got a positive attitude to the target language and want constant improvement. In this respect, they want to try out their abilities on new fields: listening, reading and writing. There is a correlation between students’ oral language development and their listening-reading-writing skills. Consequently, speaking induces the other three abilities and serves as a catalyst. For example, in our project writing is mainly using acquired speaking skills in written form. On cooperative learning. Practising these fifteen oral exercises, learners work in pairs where their cooperative learning strategies are developed. Specifically, they function as autonomous cooperative beings during the problem solving process: they have cooperative relations with other autonomous persons. They learn how to: 

give support and a chance for the other speaker to speak;



establish effective interrelationship and interaction with the teacher and each other;



communicate efficiently;



build up a positive atmosphere in the English group;



trust in each other;



encourage each other;



develop good group feeling;



handle a wide range of communicative functions;



take part in an integrated community where older and younger students can learn very well together;



become better team members; and



produce a thinking web together.

On learning other subjects. Learners are able to figure out the meaning from texts, books etc. by automatic information processing. Moreover, they have verbal tools to verbalize the processed information and put their ideas into words. As a result of these abilities, learners have better school results in other subjects for instance in history, biology, literature etc., because they are taught how to learn. So, they bridge the acquired abilities to the mother tongue as well. On the other hand, there are students who are interested in subjects as history, chemistry etc.. For them we offer GCSE books and they process them with a special method at home. Here there are two beneficial effects: 

they learn English; and



study the subject at the same time.

Learners become skill performers of high level English and they can study subjects in English in foreign universities. On motivation. With the help of these exercises we can develop a much more positive attitude in students who have poor short-term, long-term motivations. In this case they: 

are motivated to learn and take part in the activities;



come to the English lessons enthusiastically;



are positive in their attitude to the target language and associated culture; and

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

they do what is required to get through the course (lessons) with personal commitment or involvement.

On creativity. Students absorb linguistic creativity, they discover their creative resources and put them into practice. In addition, their improvisation abilities are used and improved. It is common knowledge that our right brain is responsible for creativity, imagination and artistic skills. However, these abilities are not utilized by exercises in schools. Consequently we mainly use our left brain in our life. To foster a more whole-brained scholastic experience, in our teaching project we apply right-brained exercises: 

visuals (Picture sets);



songs;



miming and movement;



role playing (at ‘Storyline picture sets’; ‘Situations’; ‘For and Against’);



‘Defining words in three or more sentences’;



‘Book-storytelling’;



‘Discussion’;



‘Newspaper-storytelling’;



‘One-minute Speaking’; and



‘Four-minutes Speaking’.

Learners are cognitively and actively involved in these activities, which are a very good intellectual challenge. Their fantasy flies and they improvise freely. They can produce new and original ideas. Consequently they are more creative in life, not just in the English lessons. On practical intelligence. It is a kind of intelligence that operates on real-world contexts through efforts to achieve adaptation, shaping of, and selection of real-world environments. Intelligence can be understood in terms of (a) the internal world of the individual, (b) the external world of the individual, and (c) the experiences of the individual in the world (behavioural intelligence). Intelligence consists of general abilities that help people achieve their goals.

The English class is a miniature society:

T= Teacher. S= Student. += Positive attitude to the others.

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The members of the class have got the following abilities: 

communicative;



practical problem solving;



verbal tools;



cooperative; and



social competence in interpersonal conflicts.

There is a basic rule in connection with the class interaction: learners should be helpful and supportive with each other, and have positive attitude towards the other students. If I am positive with the other learner: Me + S, he/she will have the same attitude to me: Me +S. We can convert this basic principle to the society:

P= People of the external world. += Positive attitude to the others.

If I am positive with other people: Me+

P, they will be positive with me:

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Me +P. That is to say our interpersonal behaviour is reflected by other people. Our learners gain the abilities to be helpful, supportive and positive with other human beings that they can apply in real life. This is the crucial importance of happiness, because we can find the golden mid path in social interaction, and get on well in life. To sum up, these oral exercises build up psychological “muscle” for inclusion in healthy integrated interpersonal behaviour in everyday life. On mental and physical development of learning. The variety and the physical setting of the exercises make it possible to maintain a high level of concentration, an expanded attention span. Students give maximum attention, concentration, involvement and want to participate. Our learners are able to take part in the English lessons with maximum concentration for four times forty-five minutes (180 minutes) without break. This gained ability can be utilized during: 

other learning processes;



examinations; and



real-life situations.

On stammer. In our teaching programme we have had two learners who stammer in the mother tongue. However, when they speak in English they do not do that. They are confident and very fluent, even in case of excitement and stress, such as on the English exam. When we discovered this, it was an amazing and fantastic experience both for the teacher and the learner.

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