PRONUNCIATION

Should we teach
pronunciation?
According to Wong (1987), sounds
are less crucial for understanding
than the way they are organized (as
cited in Brown, 2008, p. 339).
Native speakers rely more on stress
and intonation than accurate
articulation of a particular sound.

Factors that affect

pronunciation

Native language
Age
Exposure
Innate phonetic ability
Identity and language ego
Motivation/concern for good
pronunciation

Common speaking
strategies

Asking for clarification (what?)

Asking someone to repeat something
Using fillers
Using conversation maintenance cues (uhhuh, right, yeah, okay, hm)
Getting someones attention
Using paraphrases for structures one cant
produce
Appealing for assistance from the interlocutor
Using formulaic expressions
Using mime and nonverbal expressions

READING

READING
How do we read?
Some assumptions about reading

The nature of reading

Reading aloud

Silent reading

Manner

Utterance of every word

Silent

Speed

Usually slow

Usually fast

Purpose

Usually to share information

Usually to get information

Skills involved

Pronunciation and intonation Skimming, scanning, predicting; Guessing

unknown words; Understanding details;
Understanding relations between
sentences and between paragraphs;
Understanding references; Understanding
inferences

Activity type

Collective activity

Individual activity

Management in

Easy to manage as it can be Difficult to manage as teachers cannot see

the classroom

observed and heard

what is going on in the students minds

What do effective readers

do?
Effective readers:

have a clear purpose in reading;

read silently;
read phrase by p
concentrate on the important bits, skim the rest, and
skip the insignificant parts;
use different speeds and strategies for different
reading tasks;
perceive the information in the target language rather
than mentally translate;
guess the meaning of new words from the context, or
ignore them;
have and use background information to help
understand the text. phrase, rather than word by
word;

What do we read?
Calendars

Clothes size labels

Magazines

Addresses

Graffiti on walls

Radio/TV guides

Phone books

Childrens scribbling

Advertisements

Name cards

Informa1 letters

Posters

Bank statements

Business letters

Travel guides

Credit cards

Rules and regulations

Cookbooks

Maps

Electronic mail

Repair manuals

Anecdotes

Telegrams

Memos

Weather forecast

Fax messages

Time schedules

 bear in mind what we read in real life, so

that when selecting authentic reading
materials for our ESL/EFL classroom, go for
a greater variety to meet the needs of
different students.
ESL/EFL textbooks also use a lot of nonauthentic texts, i.e. simulated text.
Simulated texts are aimed for beginner
students who are probably not able to handle
genuine authentic text.
It is believed that the reading of such texts will
help students to acquire the necessary
receptive skills they will need when they
eventually come to tackle authentic materials
(Harmer, 1983).

Skills involved in reading

comprehension
Two broad levels in reading:
Visual signal from the eyes
A cognitive task of interpreting the
visual information, relating the received
information with the readers own
general knowledge, and reconstructing
the meaning that the writer had meant
to convey.

Skills needed in reading

Recognising the script of a language;
Understanding the explicitly stated
information;
Understanding conceptual meaning;
Understanding the communicative
value (function) of sentences;

 Deducing the meaning of unfamiliar

lexical items;
Understanding relations within
sentences;
Understanding references;
Recognising indicators in discourse;
Recognising the organization of the text;
Making inferences.

Strategic skills needed in

reading
Distinguishing the main idea from
supporting details;
Skimming: reading for the gist or
main idea;
Scanning: reading to look for specific
information;
Predicting: guessing what is coming
next

Principles and models for

teaching reading
Principles for teaching reading:
The texts and tasks should be accessible to
the students.
Tasks should be clearly given in advance.
Tasks should be designed to encourage
reading for the main meaning rather than
test the students understanding of trivial
details.
Tasks should help develop students reading
skills and strategies rather than test their
reading comprehension.
Teachers should help the students to read on
their own, so that they eventually become
independent readers

Models for teaching

reading
The Bottom-up Model
The Top-down Model
The Interactive Model

The Bottom-up Model

This model of teaching reading is
based on the theory in which reading
(and listening, too) is regarded as a
process of decoding, which moves
from the bottom to the top of the
system of language

The Top-down Model

This model of teaching reading is
based on the theory in which reading
is regarded as a prediction-check
process, a psycholinguistic guessing
game (Goodman, 1970).
In the Top-down Model, not only
linguistic knowledge but also
background knowledge is involved in
reading.

The Top-down Model

Therefore, it is believed that in
teaching reading, the teacher should
teach the background knowledge
first, so that students equipped with
such knowledge will be able to guess
meaning from the printed page

The Interactive Model

This model of teaching reading is based on the
theory in which reading is viewed as an
interactive process.
According to the Interactive Model of reading
(also called as the Schema Theory Model),
when one is reading, the brain receives visual
information, and at the same time, interprets or
reconstructs the meaning that the writer had in
mind when he wrote the text. This process does
not only involve the printed page but also the
readers knowledge of the language in general,
of the world, and of the text types.

 Based on such understanding,

teaching reading in the classroom
divides reading activities into
basically three stages, in which
bottom-up and top-down
techniques are integrated to help
students in their reading
comprehension and in increasing
their language efficiency in
general.

WRITING
Writing a text has quite a number of
differences which separates it from
speaking. Not only are there differences
in grammar, vocabulary, but also in
spelling, layout and punctuation.
Despite these differences, many of
these factors are as those for speaking,
need to be considered and
incorporated.

 Despite these differences, many of

these factors are as those for
speaking, need to be considered and
incorporated.
Spelling
Layout and punctuation
Creative writing