Language Teaching Skills for English

Language Teaching Skills for English

Humans communicate through both verbal and non-verbal means. When it comes to literary skills for a language teacher, acquiring the nitty-gritty of a language becomes imperative. Let’s look into the fundamentals required for an English language teacher.

1.     Language

         Languages are systematic, symbolic, and social. A language consists of repeated elements which occur in some patterns. As a child, a language is acquired unconsciously. In isolation, the sounds or letters do not possess meaning. The sounds or letters in a language become meaningful with the inferred agreement of a group of speakers reflecting the social requirements. We use language in order to communicate human experience.

          When it comes to teaching of English in particular, grammar and vocabulary becomes two inseparable fundamentals. The carry-over trait of a language makes it important to know about two concepts: interlanguage (IL) and errors.  Interlanguage is the transitional states of a learner’s language as s/he moves toward the target language. A learner at these states develops an internal grammar with errors. In these states, less complex grammatical structures occur.

·            Grammar: The acquisition of grammatical structures in second language proceeds in a predictable order, from simple to complex.

There are various approaches in teaching of grammar:

Ø   Formed-focused approach: This approach is based on structures of language. In this approach, the students are usually asked to drill structures, or to practice patterns by transforming one sentence pattern into another demanding zero active participation of the learners and delimiting the scope of using language for communication in real life.

Ø   Functional approach: This approach is based on meaning where learners are given scope for utilizing language for communication. Different types of tasks are used to make the learners actively involved in the learning process. Here, the specific forms are used in doing the task and the forms are studied and analysed t the end of the task sequence.

Ø   Language-awareness approach: In this approach, activities play a vital role. Here, the learners are made to discover the rules by drawing their attention towards the specific forms used in the process of completing a task.

Vocabulary: We can say that we have knowledge about a word if 

The brain-based teaching of vocabulary is based on how the brain learns by naturally by getting involved in learning.

Click on the video to explore brain-based teaching of vocabulary

Click on the links to explore some of the online resources available on vocabulary:

www.vocabulary.com

www.dictionary.com

www.thesaurus.com

www.idiomsite.com

1.     Reading Skill: Reading is basically an interaction between a text and a reader. A text is any piece of spoken or written communication. For example, newspaper, notice, pamphlets, articles, websites, advertisements, and so on. The main aim of reading is to comprehend a text. It is the process through which the reader draws information from the text based on:

·       The prior knowledge

·       Purpose of reading

·       Nature of the text

·       Context in which it is read

For a child to become more successful in reading skill, s/he needs to develop an awareness of a) the information about the sound structure of words in memory, and b) the letter combinations or patterns    

      Following are the strategies which a teacher adopts for making the learners acquire reading skill:

1.          Listening Skill: Reading and listening are receptive skills which provide us with an exposure to the second language. Listening aids to language acquisition. Below are the sub-skills of listening:

These skills help the learners to:

·            Pick up a language

·            Build vocabulary

·            Improve pronunciation

·            Develop knowledge about a language

4.    Speaking Skill: Speaking is a productive skill. There are three key features of learner’s speech:

·       Fluency, where meaning of the message communicated is the focus.

·       Accuracy, where correct grammar and pronunciation are the focus.

·       Complexity, where more advanced grammatical forms is used to communicate the message exactly. Here both meaning and form are focused.

From these features the sub-skills of speaking can be derived:

·       Able to pronounce new sounds with proper articulation, and stress  

·       Able to use discourse markers and intonation in speech

·       Selecting proper vocabulary according to the situation

·       Producing correct grammatical structures according to the communicative purposes

·       Expressing specific communicative functions like request, explain, describe and so on

·       Using cohesive and cohesion for managing communication

·        Able to regulate conversations and discussions during interactions

·       Able to correct oneself

Click on the link to explore to familiarize with sounds:

www.ipachart.com

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/apps/learnenglish-sounds-right

In a teaching-learning situation, listening and speaking strengthens language learning skills as a whole. The parallel learning of the skills are:

listening	speaking
Identify sounds	Produce meaning sounds
Divide sounds into meaningful groups	Produce sounds in meaningful chunks
Understand syntactic patterns	Produce language in syntactically accepted pattern forms
Interpret stress, rhythm, and intonation	Produce language using appropriate stress, rhythm, and intonation
Identify information	Convey information
Identify emotional/ attitudinal tone	Formulate appropriate response

                                                                                     (Nagaraj 1996)

5.     Writing Skill:

Here is a case study about a government school teacher’s experience.

Writing is a difficult skill for many second language learners. It is a complex process where not only basic elements of a language such as grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation but also abilities to generate ideas, sequence the ideas, draft a complete text and editing it is required. While teaching writing to second language learners, teacher should make learners aware of a) the purpose of writing and b) awareness of the reader or the audience.

In the process of writing, to construct an effective paragraph is important. While constructing a paragraph, following factors should be considered:

·       The ideas in a paragraph should flow smoothly from one sentence to the next. This can be achieved by focusing on a single idea and then by giving supporting details.

·       All the supporting sentences should connect to each other and to topic sentence. The cohesive devices like conjunctions, linkers, articles, or pronouns are used to achieve it.

·       All the topic sentences as well as the supporting details should related to the main topic to maintain unity.

The process of writing involves the following stages:

Reference

Chakrakodi, R. (2016). Learn English Teach English. Navi Mumbai: Oxford.