PEDAGOGY OF ENGLISH

B.Ed - 11

B.Ed
(Distance Mode)

Centre for Distance and Open Learning

Jamia Millia Islamia
New Delhi-110025
EXPERT COMMITTEE
Prof. Talat Ahmad Prof. M. Mujtaba Khan
Patron Officer on Special Duty, CDOL
Vice-Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia

Prof. Mohammad Miyan Mr. Prashant Negi

Hony. Chief Advisor, CDOL, Hony. Jt. Director, CDOL
Founder Director, CDOL

Prof. Ejaz Masih Dr. Arvind Kumar

DES, F/O Education, Hony. Jt. Director, CDOL
Jamia Millia Islamia
Prof. N. K. Das Dr. Anju Mehrotra
Director, School of Education, Director, Kalka Public School,
Indira Gandhi National Open University Alaknanda, New Delhi
Dr. Jasim Ahmad
IASE, F/O Education,
Jamia Millia Islamia

PROGRAMME COORDINATOR
Najmus Shehar, CDOL, Jamia Millia Islamia
COURSE WRITERS
Dr. Neetu Mishra Shukla, Lecturer, AMITY Institute Of Education, AMITY University, NOIDA,
Uttar Pradesh
Block I: (Unit 1)
Block II: (Units 2-3)
Block III: (Units 4-6)
Block IV: (Units 7-9)

All rights reserved. Printed and published on behalf of the CDOL, Jamia Millia Islamia by Vikas® Publishing House, New Delhi
December, 2016
ISBN: 978-93-5259-591-4
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the CDOL,
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Cover Credits: Anupama Kumari, Faculty of Fine Arts, Jamia Millia Islamia
 SYLLABI-BOOK MAPPING TABLE
Pedagogy of English
Syllabi Mapping in Book

Block I Introduction to English Unit-1: English

(Pages 3-26)

Block II Teaching and Teaching Method of English Unit-2: English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching
(Pages 29-62);
Unit-3: Teaching of English
(Pages 63-134)

Block III Planning and Use of English in Teaching Unit-4: Planning in English Teaching and
Use of Teaching Aids
(Pages 137-164);
Unit-5: Context Specific Teaching
Aids in English
(Pages 165-178);
Unit-6: Student Assessment
(Pages 179-200)

Block IV English Teacher and Innovation Unit-7: English Teacher

(Pages 203-216);
Unit-8: Resources
(Pages 217-240);
Unit-9: Innovation in English
Teaching and its Future
(Pages 241-256)
 CONTENTS

BLOCK-I : INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH

UNIT 1 ENGLISH 3-26

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Structure of Content Area
1.3 History
1.4 Basic Conceptual Scheme
1.5 Future Perspective Objectives of Teaching English with Futuristic Vision
1.6 Summary
1.7 Key Words
1.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
1.9 Self-Assessment Questions
1.10 Further Readings

BLOCK-II : TEACHING AND TEACHING METHOD OF ENGLISH

UNIT 2 ENGLISH CURRICULUM AND METHODS OF TEACHING 29-62

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Place of English in School Curriculum
2.3 Its Linkage with Other Subjects and Different Stages
2.4 Unified/Specialized Approach to Curriculum
2.5 Cognitive Maps of Concepts in English
2.6 Teaching Approaches and Methods in English
2.7 Innovations in the Teaching of English with Futurist Vision
2.8 Summary
2.9 Key Words
2.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
2.11 Self-Assessment Questions
2.12 Further Readings

UNIT 3 TEACHING OF ENGLISH 63-134

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Teaching English Pronunciation
3.3 Teaching of Vocabulary in English
3.4 Teaching of Structures and Grammar in English
3.5 Teaching Reading Comprehension
3.6 Teaching of Writing in English
3.7 Teaching of Poetry in English
3.8 Summary
3.9 Key Words
3.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
3.11 Self-Assessment Questions
3.12 Further Readings

BLOCK-III : PLANNING AND USE OF ENGLISH IN TEACHING

UNIT 4 PLANNING IN ENGLISH TEACHING AND USE OF

TEACHING AIDS 137-164
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Planning in English Teaching: An Introduction
4.3 Yearly Plan
4.4 Unit Plan
4.5 Daily Lesson Planning
4.6 Summary
4.7 Key Words
4.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
4.9 Self-Assessment Questions
4.10 Further Readings

UNIT 5 CONTEXT SPECIFIC TEACHING AIDS IN ENGLISH 165-178

5.1 Introduction
5.2 Their Preparation and Evaluation, Development of Instructional Material in English
5.3 Textbook: Its Preparation and Evaluation
5.4 Summary
5.5 Key Words
5.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
5.7 Self-Assessment Questions
5.8 Further Readings

UNIT 6 STUDENT ASSESSMENT 179-200

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Nature of ‘Testing’, ‘Examination’ and Related Terminology
6.3 Types of Tests in English Language Teaching
6.4 Principles of Testing
6.5 Summary
6.6 Key Words
6.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
6.8 Self-Assessment Questions
6.9 Further Readings
 BLOCK-IV : ENGLISH TEACHER AND INNOVATION

UNIT 7 ENGLISH TEACHER 203-216

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Qualities of a Good Teacher of English
7.3 Problems and Solutions
7.4 Summary
7.5 Key Words
7.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
7.7 Self-Assessment Questions
7.8 Further Readings

UNIT 8 RESOURCES 217-240

8.1 Introduction
8.2 Classroom
8.3 Laboratory
8.4 Community
8.5 Museum
8.6 Environment
8.7 Library
8.8 Summary
8.9 Key Words
8.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
8.11 Self-Assessment Questions
8.12 Further Readings

UNIT 9 INNOVATION IN ENGLISH TEACHING AND ITS FUTURE 241-256

9.1 Introduction
9.2 Understanding ‘Innovations’
9.3 English Language Teaching and its Future
9.4 Summary
9.5 Key Words
9.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
9.7 Self-Assessment Questions
9.8 Further Readings
 English

BLOCK-I
INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH

English is a widely spoken language today. It has often been referred to as ‘global language’,
the lingua franca of the modern era and currently the language most often taught as a second
language around the world. With the Information Technology revolution and most software
and operating systems being developed in the English language, a new utility for written and
oral communication in the English language has emerged. English language has the status of
associate official language, but in fact it is one of the most important languages of India. After
Hindi, it is the most commonly spoken language in India and probably the most read and
written language in India.
In the first unit we discuss the structure and importance of teaching English language. The
history and basic conceptual schemes along with the futuristic vision and perspectives has
also been discussed here.

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UNIT–1 ENGLISH

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the nature and characteristics of language
• Elaborate with suitable examples the structure of content area of English
Language Teaching
• Analyse the history of English Language Teaching from past trends to
futuristic approach in Indian as well as global context
• Understand the conceptual scheme of ‘English Language Teaching’
• Discuss the objectives of teaching English with futuristic perspective

Structure
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Structure of Content Area
1.3 History
1.4 Basic Conceptual Scheme
1.5 Future Perspective Objectives of Teaching English with Futuristic Vision
1.6 Summary
1.7 Key Words
1.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
1.9 Self-Assessment Questions
1.10 Further Readings

1.1 INTRODUCTION

A Language teacher in the classroom shares the great responsibility of enabling the
children to develop their language skills so that they may shape and dress their
thoughts beautifully to convey their message to others without any communication
breakdown. A language teacher must ensure that s/he is up to date using the new
techniques of teaching language efficiently to the learners.
In this unit, a basic introduction to ELT, its history and conceptual scheme along
with the objectives of teaching English with futuristic vision is discussed in detail.

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1.2 STRUCTURE OF CONTENT AREA

‘Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a

stone’.
– Emerson
Learning a language means different things to different people, similarly teaching
of language conveys a different set of meaning to the teacher/ trainer. The following
section will discuss the structure of content area of English language.

Views on the Nature of Language

Language learning is based on the firm foundation on how the ‘nature’ of language
is perceived by the Language teaching practitioners, the curriculum planners and
other stake holders. Linguists studying the ‘nature’ of language have discerned
three distinct views over the past ages: Structuralism, Functionalism and
Interactionism.

1. Structuralism
The foundation of this view of language was laid by Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss
Linguist, in his book Course in General Linguistics (1916). He outrightly rejected
the notion of studying ‘speech’. He stressed on the significance of seeing language as
a ‘living’ phenomenon, having a basic structure with a robust underlying system of
language. In his view, language is composed of two prime aspects:
• The language system and
• The act of speaking
For instance the word ‘cat’ is made up of three letters ‘c’, ‘a’, and ‘t’, together
these letters create a word ‘cat’ which refers to a ‘feline’ animal. But on the basis of
its use in different contexts it may result in infinite meaning, ‘your cat amused me all
day long’. Thus the meaning of a word is ‘determined’ to some extent from the
context but at the same time it remains ‘undetermined / yet to be determined’ in
many ways. Saussure further explained these signs as having two aspects: signifier
and signified. Signifier is the generic meaning and signified refers to the interpretation
it lends itself to in a particular context. Thus, to know a language means the
knowledge of signifiers and the relationship between these signifiers.
According to structuralism, language is a rule governed system of structurally related
elements for the transmission of meaning. These elements are usually described as:

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• Phonological units (phonemes)

• Grammatical units (phrases, clauses, sentences)
• Grammatical operations (adding, shifting, joining or transforming elements)
• Lexical items (function words and structure words)
So, from the perspective of Structuralism, English language teaching must involve the
teaching of following elements:
• Phonemes at phonological level
• Morphemes at morphological level
• Syntax at syntactical level
• Semantics at the meaning level
• Pragmatics at the contextual level
Let us understand this with the help of the following figure depicting the structure of
language:

Fig. 1.1 Structure of Language

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The hierarchical nature of language structure is as described below:

Phonetics
This is the level which concerns itself with the smallest units of language. It is the
study of human sounds in general without specifying what function which sounds may
play in a particular language.

Phonology
This is the level of functional classification of the sounds of any particular language.
It is the system of sounds which lends meanings differentiated in a language. It serves
as the building blocks for the next higher linguistic levels, such as morphology.
For instance- /e/ (phoneme 1) + /n/ phoneme 2) = /en/ (morpheme)
/f/ (phoneme 1) + /u/ (phoneme 2) + /l/ (phoneme 3) = /ful/
(morpheme)
/d/ (phoneme1) + /i/ (phoneme2) +/s/ (phoneme 3) = /dis/ (morpheme)
Phoneme is the smallest unit of language which distinguishes meaning – the
organizational unit of phonology.

Morphology
Morphology is the study of words, their internal structure and the changes which
they undergo when altered to form new words (word formation) or when they have
different roles within a sentence (grammatical inflection). Thus we have two levels of
morphology:
• Lexical morphology – word formation
• Inflectional morphology – Grammar
Morphemes are said to be of two types: free morphemes and bound morphemes
• Free morpheme: one which can occur on its own. Most words in a
dictionary are instances of free morphemes. Their occurrence does not
depend on that of another word with which they are associated.
For e.g.:
Music lexis category
• Bound morpheme: one which can only occur in connection with a further
(free) morpheme
For e.g.:
-al musical, lexical, categorical
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Syntax
This level is concerned with the meaning of words in combination with one other to
form phrases and sentences. It specifically looks at the differences arising in meaning
owing to changes in word order, the addition or subtraction of words from
sentences or certain changes in the form of sentences. It also deals with the
relatedness of different sentence types, along with the analysis of ambiguity in
sentences.
On + cloud + nine = phrase
Lovely + song = phrase

Semantics
This level deals with the meaning and overlaps all the above mentioned levels.
Look at the following sentence:
When I came to know that I topped in the annual examination I was on cloud
nine.
‘On cloud nine’ symbolically here means ‘to be in high spirit / feel elated’.
Anyone who doesn’t know about this phrase and what it implies will be utterly
confused as to what the sentence is communicating.

Pragmatics
The main concern at this level is with the use of language in specific situations and
context. The meaning of sentences need not be the same in an abstract form and in
practical use. In the latter case one speaks of utterance meaning.
The area of pragmatics relies to a great extent on the notion of ‘speech act’
which is concerned with the actual performance of language in a given context. This
involves the notion of proposition which roughly refers to the content of a sentence;
and its intent and effect in a given context.
Thus, a course based on this view of language would deal with language teaching
as a process of mastery of its constituent units.
For instance, a sample course based on this view would be like the one given
here:

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COURSE A
Unit 1 The Simple Present Tense
Unit 2 The Present Continuous Tense
Unit 3 The Present Perfect Tense
Unit 4 The Present Perfect Continuous Tense

2. Functionalism
The structuralism view was challenged by the ideas of ethnographic anthropologist,
Malinowski and the linguist J. R. Firth, both of whom viewed language primarily as
action. In their view language plays the significant role of realizing social acts in the
context of a particular situations and culture.
In the words of Malinowski (1923/66:307), ‘a statement spoken in real life, is
never detached from the situation in which it has been uttered… the utterance has no
meaning except in the context of situation.’ In his view, language performs certain
functions in the daily life of people living within a community.
These functions he described in three ways:
• Language realizes action such as handing a book to somebody and telling
him how to read it.
• Language performs social function by way of expressing feelings and
emotions.
• Language also functions to realize phatic communion, creating ‘ties of union’
by way of engaging in small talk, sharing information, exchanging greetings,
gossiping, getting along together as a group / community.
Malinowski’s original concept of context of situation was developed and elaborated
by J. R. Firth. Firth (1968/173) who focused on the actual language context. In his
work he described how a text is a constituent feature of the context in which it
occurs. His description comprised of categories that function in the context of a
given situation. For instance, he established the situational relations as:
• Who the participants are in the given interaction
• What the relevant objects and events are therein
• What effects the verbal interaction has in the given context
The linguistic tradition established by Malinowski and Firth was later elaborated
and developed by Halliday (1973,1975) and came to be known as British
Contextualism / Hallidayan tradition of Systemic Functional Linguistics ( SFL).
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This approach to description of language held meaning as a ‘socially constructed

activity’. Thus, language was visualized as socio-semiotic in nature by SFL, which
meant that language was a dynamic process which not only facilitated social
encounters and buoyed social action but which actually created those social contexts
as well. The Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), treated the organization of
language (as social context) as functionally diverse in nature.
Michael Halliday’s (1975) analytical description of language development is
primarily based on the study of his son, ‘Nigel’ and the course of his language
development is two and a half years old. His description is essentially socially
oriented and significantly differs from cognitive descriptions, as he stressed on the
fact that language develops owing to the innate drive of the child to connect,
communicate and interact with people around him. On the basis of his observations
and recordings, Halliday put forth three phases of language development. Central to
all phase is the link between sound, form and meaning:
• Sound
• Form
• Meaning

PHASE I
These meanings develop around seven recognizable functions. It is with the help of
these functions that the child gets things done in his environment. Halliday’s functions
which he also referred as ‘micro-functions’ are given below:
Table 1.1 Phase I
1 Instrumental (General Demand , "I would like to ..." Problem solving,
language is used to Specific Demand) collecting materials,
communicate role playing,
preferences, choices, persuading
wants, or needs Convincing
2 Regulatory (General command , " Come to me and I making rules in games,
language is used to specified/intensified will tell you ...." giving instructions,
control command) "You are teaching
required ...." regulating behavior
ensuring observation of
norms and regulations
3 Interactional (general greeting / " Both of us ...." Structured role play,
language is used to personalized "I'll be the teacher dialogues and
interact and plan, greeting) you be the discussions,
develop, or maintain a student ...." talking in groups and
play or group activity or pairs
social relationship
4 Personal language is ( Learning "I am a soft spoken Expressing personal
used to express Expressions of person ...." feelings in public and
individuality Feeling) interacting with others
in diverse social
contexts
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English

5 Heuristic (initiation, response,

language is used to find acknowledgement, "Tell me how ...." Probing things and
things out, wonder, or imitation) "Where did you people with questions
hypothesize purchase that from?" and answer,
"What is this inquiry and research for
object?" seeking further
information

6 Imaginative (Pretend Play, "Let's assume ...." Creative Stories and

language is used to Jingle, Rhyme) "I met a giant on my dramatizations,
create, explore, and way back home self-composed poems,
entertain. yesterday… " and riddles, nonsense
jingles and word play
for amusement and
entertainment
7 Informative/ "I'll let you know Sharing information,
Representational about the Conveying messages,
Use language to explain conditions ..." telling about the real
"I did this as I world to others,
believe..." expressing a
proposition, assumption
and other such things.

PHASE II
This phase is characterized by:
• Transition from monologue into dialogue
• Nigels’ set of social functions, language as learning and learning as doing
• Pragmatic function of language – for doing things
• Mathetic function referring to the use of language for enabling learning,
which is different from learning of words / language
According to Halliday, ‘Phase II can be said to end when the child has mastered
the principles of grammar and of dialogue, and thus effectively completed the
transition to the adult language system’.

PHASE III
According to Halliday the child’s structures of language in the Phase II are
‘functionally specific,’ which is the transition stage between child and adult language:
the language is either pragmatic or mathetic. As the child moves closer to adult
language, this functional binary makes a significant shift to a more abstract plane,
where the adult language becomes ‘pluri-functional’. The following behaviour
becomes more evident in the child’s language:
• Ideational (expressive-cognitive, evocative, connotation)
• Interpersonal (representational, reverential, cognitive, denotative)
• Textual
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Each of these functions represent a major system, having distinct linguistic

properties and options, embodied in the larger language constellation.
Here, the ideational system embodies the speaker’s (Halliday makes a shift
from the notion of a “child” to “speaker” in the Phase III) personal experience and
interpretation of his internal and external realities.
The interpersonal system enables the speaker to take on and assign social
roles, to observe and encroach.
The textual function enables the construction of text, which can be tenanted by
the other two meta functions.
The practice of language teaching based on this view advocates that language is
a vehicle for performing functions in different situations. Hence language learning
should involve practice of definite structures in particular situations for performing
certain functions, such as, asking for information, providing information, seeking
opinions, accepting/ rejecting opinions, questioning for seeking further information,
and other such multiple functions.
For instance the contents page of a syllabus following this view to language learning
would look something like the one given below:

Course B
Unit 1 Buying a Shirt
Unit 2 In the library
Unit 3 An Interview
Unit 4 At the Bank

3. Interactionism
In due course of time, the work and words of Dell Hymes on ‘communicative
competence’ gained precedence over what comprises ‘nature of language’.
According to his view, in order to be efficient in speaking a language, one does not
only need to be aware of its vocabulary and Grammar, rather one should also be
aware of the context in which words are used. In the speaking model as per his view
the following aspects of the linguistic situation are considered:
S Setting and Scene The setting refers to the exact time and place
while scene describes the environment of the
situation

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P Participants This refers to who is involved in the speech

including the speaker and the audience.
E Ends The purpose and goals of the speech along with
any outcomes of the speech.
A Act Sequence The order of events that took place during the
speech.
K Key The overall tone or manner of the speech.
I Instrumentalities The form and style of the speech being given.
N Norms Defines what is socially acceptable at the event.
G Genre The type of speech that is being given.
Source: Hymes, Dell. Foundations of Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach.
Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1974.

This interactionalist view takes a holistic perspective of language as performing a

crucial role in various social interactions. It requires not just a knowledge of what to
say and when (structures/ functions to be used), rather it includes the competence of
using language appropriately (when, where, how, and to whom). It includes strategic
competence to communicate in real life communication situations. Knowing how to
use a language means having ‘communicative competence’ which is different from
‘linguistic competence’. While linguistic competence tells you whether a sentence is
grammatical or not, communicative competence allows you to know whether an
utterance is appropriate or not within a given situation.
A syllabus following this view to language learning would look something like the one
given below:

Course C
Unit 1 Going to the Market
Listening task
Reading Task
Vocabulary

Keeping the above in mind we can discern that the object of study for a course on
‘English language’ would include the following components as in the chart given here:

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Components of Language

Substance Form Meaning

Phonic Graphic Syntactic Semantic

Phonological Graphological

Grammatical Lexical

(Saraswathi, 2004)

While teaching English Language, as teachers we must not just focus on the
content, rather the text (prose/poetry/drama/essay) should be exploited for the
development of language skills of the learners. Sufficient use of tasks based on the
real life context from the text should be encouraged, quizzes, creative writing, role
plays, dramatization must be promoted in the Language classroom for development
of communicative competence of the students.

Activity 1
Read the following sentences and identify the function of language.
1. Be Careful!
2. Do not tell lie.
3. Why does it rain?
4. What if there were no clouds?
5. I saw you in the market, you went there to purchase stationary…

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What is the difference between free morpheme and bound morpheme?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
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2. State the functionalist view to Language in your own words.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

1.3 HISTORY

In order to get a fair perspective on the teaching of English, this section is sub
divided into two parts:

Historical Perspective on Teaching of English in India

The history of English language teaching in India is tabulated below:
Table 1.2

S. No. Method of Salient Features

Teaching
1. Michael West’s West believed that the position of English language in India
Reading Method is basically that of Library Language hence the natives need
(1926) to improve their skill of reading. Language learning is based
around practical use. He suggested graded reading texts with
strict vocabulary control.
2. The MELT The MELT was planned by the state education departments
campaign (1952) jointly with the British Council, Madras.
3. The Bridge Intensive This was initiated by the British Council, Madras. Brendan
Course ( 1960s) J. Carroll, then English Studies officer at the British
Council, designed an intensive course to bridge the gap
between what the college entrants knew and what they were
expected to know. It was designed to enable learners to cope
with undergraduate studies through the medium of English.
4. The Bombay Project First experiment at the undergraduate level; a skills based
(1977) approach for Teaching English was adopted. No textbooks
were prescribed and this prevented students from
memorizing answers
5. The In reaction to the Structural Syllabus, Dr. N. S. Prabhu, and
Communicational his colleagues evolved a new task oriented Procedural
Teaching Project or Syllabus for teaching English. The basic principle was
the Bangalore ‘acquisition through deployment’. According to Prabhu’s
Project (1979-1984) argument language is best learnt when the focus is not on
form but on meaning. This has become an internationally
acclaimed project in English Language Teaching.

Contd...

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6. The Loyola The Loyola College, Madras experimented with a

Experience (1980s) communicative syllabus at undergraduate level. This was the
first introduction of Communicative language Teaching at
the tertiary level in India.
7. The UGC The CDC analyzed the current ELT scenario in various parts
Curriculum of the country and arrived at a blueprint for English
Development Cell or Curricula: General English, English major as well as
CDC ( 1987) postgraduate courses. The goals of learning were redefined
on the basis of needs; a learner centered, interactive, skill
oriented methodology was recommended. Different
Syllabuses were suggested to meet the needs of learners with
different levels of competence.
8. The CBSE Interact This was the joint effort of the British Council and Marjon’s
English Project College , Plymoth. The CBSE, New Delhi selected
( 1990s) teachers of English at the higher secondary level ; they were
trained in the UK and helped in the complete overhaul of the
syllabuses for English in Classes 9 and 10.An interactive
methodology was adopted for teaching of English.
9. EFLU Innovative The English Language Teaching Institutes Support Scheme
Practices (ELTISS), a Government of India sponsored project, was
launched in 1985 at the beginning of the seventh Five-Year
Plan and has continued since. EFLU monitors the academic
programmes of the 17 ELTIs, and provides academic
support to them in the form of syllabus design, materials
development and train-the-trainer courses
10. CBSE - Continuous It has been mandatory for English teachers to attend capacity
and Comprehensive building and CCE workshops every year, having evaluation
Evaluation (CCE) in as their primary objective, focusing on merging teaching
2009 with testing

Historical Perspective on Teaching of English in the World

You must be aware that Latin was being studied as a foreign language all over the
world in the past around the European world, primarily because it was the only
language of education, trade, commerce, religion and government function in the
European world. However, in the sixteenth century other foreign languages such as
French, Italian, and English steadily gained in importance because of the political
changes in Europe, thereby gradually displacing Latin as a language of spoken and
written communication.
For teaching the classical language Latin the grammar school initiated the curious
language learner into peculiar practices such as rote memorization of word list,
verses and other such monotonous drills of language structure.
The students were initially rigorously introduced to Latin Grammar, which was
taught through rote learning of Grammar rules and structural pattern, study of
conjugation and translation of written sentences and dialogues from one language to
another. The fact that these activities are too challenging for the learner was brushed
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aside with the belief that being a divine language, Latin is not easy to master. It is
challenging and the cumbersome exercises of the language learning process were
helpful in taxing the mind and development of intellectual abilities.
The language textbooks in those times consisted of statements of abstract
Grammar rules, long lists of vocabulary, and all forms of complex sentences for
translation. This was because, speaking a foreign language was never the goal of
teaching, this was also the precise reason that the texts and dialogues picked up for
translation were from some classical text with words, phrases no longer having
contemporary value and usage.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, this approach based on the study of
classical languages such as Latin had become the standard way of studying foreign
languages in most of the Grammar/Language schools. A typical textbook in those
times consisted of texts which were organized around select Grammar points. Each
Grammar point was listed explicitly, rules on its use were explained in detail, and it
was illustrated by sample sentences. This was followed by tedious practice exercises
of the application of the rule in context which had no real life connection.
Due to its strict adherence to grammatical structures, language forms, rules of
conversion and exact translation this approach to foreign language teaching came to
be referred to as the Grammar-translation method.
In the mid- and late nineteenth century, this method soon became unpopular as
being impractical, in several European countries. The emerging demand for
communication skill in the target language among the Europeans demanded for oral
proficiency in foreign languages. This shift resulted in an upsurge in deliberations on
what is the best way to teach foreign languages and ideas were presented and
discussed by different linguists hailing different perspective on the issue.
The linguists shared many beliefs about the principles on which a new approach
to teaching foreign languages should be based. The principles based on natural
language learning brought about the ‘Direct Method’. This method was initially
received whole heartedly but gradually lost its sheen as it focused more on teaching
procedures rather than the complete methodological basis.
Given here in the table is a brief description of the advent of fresh method/
approach to Language Teaching with their main features over the years to give you
an overview of the history of development taking place in the world relating to the
teaching of English Language.

16
 English

Table 1.3 New Approaches to ELT

Approaches and Brief description Salient Features:

methods
Grammar Translation of grammar • Learning language through detailed analysis of grammar
translation rules from the language rules
familiar to the learners to • Reading and writing are the major focus
the target language or vice • Vocabulary selection is based on reading texts
versa.
• Words are taught through dictionary study, memorisation
and bilingual word lists
• Translation is a central technique.
Direct Method Teaching directly in the • Lessons begin with a brief dialogue
target language through • No translation is used.
the use of demonstrations • Exercises are given in a target language
and visual aids.
• Grammar is taught inductively with rule explanation at
the end.
It stems from the fact that language learning is like any
other learning. It emphasizes vocabulary acquisition
through exposure to its use in situations.
Audio-lingual • It involves habit formulation through repetition and
memorization in order to avoid errors at all costs
• It gives learners numerous opportunities to speak
• Provides opportunity for quick reinforcement
• Attends to structure and form more than meaning
• Native-speaker-like pronunciation is sought
• Linguistic competence is the desired goal
• The teacher is expected to specify the language that
students are to use.
Cognitive Code An approach to language • It refers to mental processes
teaching which stresses • It emphasizes linguistic competence and performance
the learners’ mastery of • Speaker learns language through mastery of its rules.
the rules of the target
language
Situational It is a method based on • It uses real life situations to provide meaning
Method structural syllabus in • Rule explanation is often given either at the beginning or
which language is taught end
by association with • It involves visual and linguistic situation.
characteristics of
surrounding pictures,
gestures, etc.
Communicative It means using procedures • Meaning is paramount.
Language where learners work in • Contextualization is a basic premise
teaching pairs or groups employing • Comprehensive pronunciation is sought
language resources in
• Effective communication is sought
problem solving tasks,
Richards and Rodgers • Teachers help learners in any way that motivates them to
(1995:66). work with the language
• Intrinsic motivation will spring from an interest in what
is being communicated by the language.
Humanistic Marks a shift from Stevick identifies three dimensions of such an approach
Approach Behaviorist and • Emphasize centrality of the learner - learner is more
Cognitivist approach to a important than the content and teacher, one needs to be
more humanistic approach very clear of the purpose for which the learner is
to language learning. learning any particular language
Methods such as Total
• Learner autonomy – the learner is an independent,
Physical Response, The
autonomous being and cannot be subjected just any
Silent Way, Community
thing
Language Learning,
Suggestopaedia • Focus should be on the process of learning: ‘learning to
learn’

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English

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Write a short note on the Humanistic approach to ELT.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the features of Grammar-translation method in language

teaching?
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

1.4 BASIC CONCEPTUAL SCHEME

Practitioners of English language teaching essentially come across the following key
terms which define some of the basic conceptual schemes in ELT:
• Approach: A specific and certain way or a system for doing something is
based on a belief or a theory about the best way to learn a language. For
example, teachers who believe that learners should be able to communicate
in the language they are learning prefer to choose approaches/methods
which include speaking and listening activities. Such as offered in the
communicative approach.
• Authentic material: It refers to written or spoken texts which a first
language speaker might read or listen to. They may be taken from
newspapers, radio, the internet, etc. The language in the texts is not
adapted or made easier for learners/ for the language learning
process.
• Bilingual: It refers to a person who is competent in using two or more
language for performing various language functions in real life contexts.
• Contextualise: To put new language into a situation that makes it more
meaningful, for instance, when teaching the past simple tense showing
learners a series of pictures of a family holiday that went wrong.

18
 English

• Discourse: It refers to larger units of language in the form of paragraphs,

debates, essays, interviews, conversations and others.
• Drill: A technique teachers use to provide learners with practice of
language. It involves guided repetition of words or sentences
• Error: A mistake that a learner makes when trying to say or write
something above their level of language or language processing.
• Fluency: It refers to Oral Fluency and Written Fluency. Oral fluency –
being able to speak at a natural speed without stopping, repeating, or self-
correcting. In oral fluency activities, learners are advised to focus on
communicating the meaning and ideas, rather than trying to be correct.
Written fluency on the other hand refers to being able to write without
stopping for a long time to think about what and how to write. In a written
fluency activity, learners give attention to the content and ideas of the text,
rather than trying to be correct.
• Interlanguage: Language learners create their own version of grammatical
systems for the new language which they use as they are learning the new
language. Interlanguage is the latest version of the language that learners
creates and has elements drawn from the rule of their mother tongue and
from the rules of the new language. This interlanguage is constantly
changing and developing as learners learn more of the new language.
• Language laboratory: A room in a school where learners can practice
language by listening to recordings or CDs and by recording their voice
while speaking. Teachers might use language laboratories to provide
learners with an opportunity to work on listening or pronunciation in a self-
independent mode
• Task: An activity that learners complete. For example, problem-solving
activities or information-gap activities are tasks. Task may also be used as
another word for activity.
• Input rich environment: Refers to an environment that provides ample
opportunities for acquisition of language to the learner.
• ELT: English Language Teaching.
• ESL: English as a Second Language.

19
English

• EFL: English as a Foreign Language.

• ESP: English for Specific Purposes.
• EAP: English for academic purposes.
• First language: It refers to the native/mother tongue.
• Second Language (L1): It refers to any significant language other than L1
used by the native for performing various functions of language in different
contexts.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What do you understand by interlanguage?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. Write the full forms of the following abbreviations: ELT, EFL, and EAP.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

1.5 FUTURE PERSPECTIVE OBJECTIVES OF TEACHING

ENGLISH WITH FUTURISTIC VISION

With the advent of liberalization and globalization of the Indian economy the demand
in people with good command over language skills has increased tremendously. A
report by British Council in 2012 noted that although English is widely perceived as
a valuable life and employability skill among Indians, however, in the latest Education
First survey, India ranked on 25th position out of 63 nations. There are research
surveys which have revealed that students who are fluent in English language earn
34% more that those who speak other language. Hence there is a keen desire
among students and parents to focus on proficiency in English language.
English in India has acquired a coveted position, its role in India may be visualized in
the following six ways:

20
 English

• As a means of communication
• As library language
• As an international language
• As a medium of instruction at higher level
• As cultural language
• As a link language ‘lingua franca’
Giving fresh perspective to ELT in India the Position Paper on ‘Teaching of English’
in the NCF 2005 states:
A national curriculum can aim for:
• A cohesive curricular policy based on guiding principles for language
teaching and acquisition, which allows for a variety of implementations
suitable to local needs and resources, and which provides illustrative
models for use.
Further it states:
The aim of English teaching is the creation of multilinguals who can enrich all
our languages; this has been an abiding national vision. The multilingual
perspective also addresses concerns of language and culture, and the
pedagogical principle of moving from the known to the unknown.
Amongst the objectives of teaching English as a Second Language in India,
the NCF 2005 states-
o Second-language pedagogy, more than the teaching of any other
curricular subject, must meet the most stringent criterion of universal
success: the spontaneous and appropriate use of language for at least
everyday purposes. (BICS – Basic Interpersonal Communication
Skills)
o Language in education would ideally and ordinarily build on such
naturally acquired language ability, enriching it through the
development of literacy into an instrument for abstract thought and the
acquisition of academic knowledge. We can then speak of a
“cognitive academic linguistic proficiency” (cf. Cummins 1979) as
language and thinking skills that build on the basis of a child’s

21
English

spontaneous knowledge of language. This is a goal of language

education, and education through language. (This discussion has most
often been in the context of language education in the mother tongue.)
• Such cognitive and academic skills, moreover, are arguably transferable
across languages, to a second language. (CALPS-Cognitive Academic
Language Proficiency Skills)
It is also reiterated in the position paper that ‘intelligibility’ should be the
criteria for language learning.
Source: NCF-2005 (Position paper on Teaching of English, page 3-5)

Thus, the objective of Teaching of English with a futuristic vision is to develop

BICS and CALPS in the language learner, which has to be achieved by making
them efficient bilinguals at the same time the focus is on ‘communicative
competence’ (Hymes) and learner ‘intelligibility’ while using English language to
communicate in real life contexts.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. What do you understand by BICS?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. State the concept of CALP.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

1.6 SUMMARY

• The foundation of this view of language was laid by Ferdinand de Saussure,

a Swiss Linguist, in his book Course in General Linguistics (1916).
• According to structuralism, language is a rule governed system of
structurally related elements for the transmission of meaning.

22
 English

• The area of pragmatics relies to a great extent on the notion of ‘speech act’
which is concerned with the actual performance of language in a given
context.
• The structuralism view was challenged by the ideas of ethnographic
anthropologist, Malinowski and the linguist J. R. Firth, both of whom
viewed language primarily as action. In their view language plays the
significant role of realizing social acts in the context of a particular situations
and culture.
• For teaching the classical language Latin the grammar school initiated the
curious language learner into peculiar practices such as rote memorization
of word list, verses and other such monotonous drills of language structure.
• The aim of English teaching is the creation of multilinguals who can enrich all
our languages; this has been an abiding national vision.
• The multilingual perspective also addresses concerns of language and
culture, and the pedagogical principle of moving from the known to the
unknown.

1.7 KEY WORDS

• English language Teaching (ELT): It is a programme that combines the

academic study of language and communication with practical training
in English language teaching.
• National Curriculum Framework (NCF): The National Curriculum
Framework is one of four National Curriculum Frameworks published in
1975, 1988, 2000 and 2005 by the National Council of Educational
Research and Training (NCERT) in India.

1.8 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Morphemes are said to be of two types: free morphemes and bound
morphemes.
(a) Free morpheme- one which can occur one its own. Most words in
a dictionary are instances of free morphemes. Their occurrence
23
English

does not depend on that of another word with which they are
associated.
For e.g.
Music lexis category
(b) Bound morpheme- one which can only occur in connection with a
further (free) morpheme
For e.g.
-al musical, lexical, categorical
2. In the functionist view to language, language was visualized as socio-
semiotic in nature by SFL, which meant that language was a dynamic
process which not only facilitated social encounters and buoyed social
action but which actually created those social contexts as well.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. The humanistic approach to ELT marks a shift from Behaviorist and
Cognitivist approach to a more humanistic approach to language learning.
Methods such as Total Physical Response, The Silent Way, Community
Language Learning, Suggestopaedia are based on the psychological
foundation of Humanism which believes in learner centrality, independence,
autonomy and the process of ‘learning to learn’.
2. The features of Grammar-translation method are as follows:
• Learning language through detailed analysis of grammar rules
• Reading and writing are the major focus
• Vocabulary selection is based on reading texts
• Words are taught through dictionary study, memorisation and bilingual
word lists
• Translation is a central technique.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Interlanguage is the latest version of the language that learners creates and
has elements drawn from the rule of their mother tongue and from the rules

24
 English

of the new language. This interlanguage is constantly changing and

developing as learners learn more of the new language.
2. ELT stands for- English Language Teaching
EFL stands for- English as a Foreign Language
EAP stands for- English for Academic Purposes

Check Your Progress - 4

1. BICS refers to the Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills; these include
the ‘surface’ skills of listening and speaking which are generally acquired
quickly by many students; owing to input rich environment at school and
home. It usually takes two years to acquire BICS.
2. CALP / Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency is the basis for a child’s
ability to meet the academic demands placed upon them in school and the
various subjects. Cummins states that, it takes between 5-7 years for a
child to acquire CALPS.

1.9 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Write a descriptive note on structuralism, functionalism and interactionism.

2. Provide a diagrammatical representation of the structure of language.
3. Analyse the direct method of teaching language.
4. State the importance of teaching English with a futuristic approach.
5. Elaboratern Halliday’s functions of language.
6. Compare and analyse the historical perspectives of ELT in India and the
World.

1.10 FURTHER READINGS

Ambedkar, B. R. 1989. Thoughts on Linguistic States, Writings & Speeches.

Maharashtra Govt., India, vol. 1.
Bhatia Kamala and B.D. Bhatia. 1972. The Principles and Methods of Teaching.
Delhi: Doaba House Publishers.

25
English

Bhatia, T.K. and Ritchie, W.C. 2006. Bilingualism in South Asia. In T.K. Bhatia
and Ritchie (eds.) the Handbook of Bilingualism. Malden. MA; Oxford:
Blackwell.
Council of Europe. 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

26
 English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

BLOCK-II
TEACHING AND TEACHING METHOD OF ENGLISH

English in India is used not only for communicating with the outside world, but also for inter-
state and intrastate communication. Due to the great ethnic and linguistic diversity found
within our nation, English acts as an indispensable ‘link’ language. English symbolizes in
Indian minds better education, better culture and better intellect. English also serves as the
communicator among Indians who speak different languages. English is very important in
some systems like the legal, financial, educational and business in India. Therefore, it is
important that it should be taught in a way which is systematic, effective and novel at the
same time.
The second unit discusses about the school curriculum and the position English language
holds in it. The link of English with other subjects and registers, the different stages and
approaches for the teaching of it and the innovations with which it is taught keeping in the
futuristic vision is also explained in this unit.
The third unit talks about how a teacher should teach English language to the learners.
Pronunciations are an important aspect of teaching English because that is how we learn to
speak it fluently. They should be taught with care. Role of vocabulary, Grammar and its
structures, reading comprehension, writing and poetry in English teaching is also explained in
this unit.

27
English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

28
 English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

UNIT–2 ENGLISH CURRICULUM AND METHODS OF

TEACHING

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the importance of English Language in the school curriculum
• Analyse its linkage with other school subjects and different stages
• Elaborate with suitable examples the unified/specialized approach to
curriculum
• Discuss the use of cognitive maps of concepts in English
• Critically evaluate the Teaching Approaches and Methods in English
• Understand the innovations of Teaching English with futuristic vision

Structure
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Place of English in School Curriculum
2.3 Its Linkage with Other Subjects and Different Stages
2.4 Unified/Specialized Approach to Curriculum
2.5 Cognitive Maps of Concepts in English
2.6 Teaching Approaches and Methods in English
2.7 Innovations in the Teaching of English with Futurist Vision
2.8 Summary
2.9 Key Words
2.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
2.11 Self-Assessment Questions
2.12 Further Readings

2.1 INTRODUCTION

English has acquired a special position for itself in India where it enjoys the status
of an associate language, it is seen as a language of multiple opportunities. Its use
has become a necessity by compulsion. English has developed over a course of
more than 1,400 years. Due to the worldwide influence of British Empire, modern
English spread around the world from 17th to mid-20th centuries. English has now
become a common and leading language for international discourse in many
regions and professional context, such as science, law, and navigation. Therefore,

29
English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

it is important to learn English as is it the lingua franca in many regions around the
world.

2.2 PLACE OF ENGLISH IN SCHOOL CURRICULUM

English Language was first introduced by the British in India with the sole purpose of
making their administration of this country easier and efficient by harnessing the
human resource available in the natives. The intentions as expressed by Macaulay
was ‘to prepare a class of people who will be Indian in their origin but English in
their thought, belief and behaviour’.
After the attainment of independence, drastic change in the outlook of our
thinkers and other stakeholders took place with regard to the place of English in the
school curriculum. The government of India appointed several commissions from
time to time to study the whole structure of education and suggest measures for its
improvement. The issue of the place of English was of central concern in the reports
of these commissions.
The first important commission, after the attainment of freedom was appointed by
the government of India in 1948 under the chairmanship of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan.
This was also popularly known as the University Education Commission. The
commission was not in favour of abolishing English altogether from the curriculum
citing it as providing window to the world literature, culture, knowledge, and
wisdom:
‘English, however, must be continued to be studied. It is a language which is
rich in literature - humanistic and technical. If under sentimental urges, we
should give up English, we would cut ourselves off from the living stream of
ever growing knowledge.’

(The University Education Commission, 1948-49)

The Report clearly said that:
‘Our students who are undergoing training at schools which will admit them
either to university or to a vocation must acquire sufficient mastery of English
to give them access to the treasures of knowledge.’
In 1952, the Government of India appointed another commission with special focus
on the Secondary School Education in the country, particularly to make
recommendations on the re-organization of the structure of Secondary Education.

30
 English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

This report also advocated for the study of English:

‘It should be recognized that even in regard to many of the diversified courses
in instruction as matters stand at present, a knowledge of English will be
extremely useful for understanding the subject matter and for further study of
the subject.’
(Mudaliar Commission 1952-53)
This commission also recommended that study of English should be given due
position in secondary schools and facilities should be made available at the middle
school stage for its study on optional basis. It recommended the following languages
to be studied at the middle school stage:
• Mother-tongue or regional language.
• Hindi for non-Hindi regions. And a modern Indian language for Hindi
regions
• English (optional)
At the secondary stage, the commission recommended the study of two languages to
equalize the language load on pupils of both Hindi and Non-Hindi areas.
1. Mother-tongue or Regional language/or a composite course of mother-
tongue and classical language.
2. The second language to be chosen from among the following:
• Hindi (for those whose mother-tongue is not Hindi)
• Elementary English (for those who have not studied it in the middle
stage)
• Advanced English (who had studied it in middle stage)
• A modern Indian language (other than Hindi).
• A modern foreign language (other than English).
• A classical language
In this formula, the place of English was situated after the mother or the regional
language. To put it simply, pupils from both Hindi and Non-Hindi regions of the
country were free to study English as a second language as per their choice. This
formula was the only possible solution that would result in not imposing Hindi as a
compulsory language in Non-Hindi regions, this recommendation catapulted both
Hindi and English as permanent official languages of the country.
In 1956, the Central Advisory Board of Education recommended a three
language formula to resolve the complex status of Language Teaching in the country.
31
English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

Two optional formula were prepared in which English was proposed to be studied
either as a second or a third language.
While in formula No.1, English was to be studied in second or third place; in
formula No.2, English was recommended to be studied as a second language.
Upholding the need for uniformity in standards across the country, in both Hindi
and Non-Hindi areas, pupils were expected to study English as a second language
instead of a third language at the regional level. Hence, English language was not
rejected outrightly, it was recognized that it should be one of the languages studied
by students in schools.
In 1964, Dr. D.S. Kothari was appointed as the Chairman of another education
commission, popularly known as the Kothari Commission or National Education
Commission. This commission also emphasized on the need for continuing the study
of English as a foreign language:
‘As English will, for a long time to come, continue to be needed as a library
language in the field of higher education, a strong foundation in the language
will have to be laid at the school stage.’

(Kothari Commission, 1964-66)

The commission proposed a modified three language formula. One of the criteria it
laid down for preparing its language formula is stated below:
‘English continues and will continue to enjoy a high status so long as it occupies
the principal place as the medium of instruction in the universities. Even after
the regional language replaces English as the media of higher education in
universities, a working knowledge of English will be valuable asset for all
students and a reasonable proficiency in the language will be necessary for
those who proceed to the university.’
The curriculum prescribed by the commission was:

Lower primary level (1 to 4)

• One language (regional)
• Mathematical studies
• Environmental studies
• Creative studies
• Health studies
• Work experience

32
 English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

Higher primary level (5 to 8)

• Two languages (one regional and one national) and preferably a third
language
• Mathematical studies
• Science studies
• Social studies
• Art
• Physical education
• Work experience
• Moral studies

Lower secondary level (IX and X)

• Three languages
• Mathematical studies
• Science studies
• Social studies
• Art
• Physical education
• Work experience
• Moral studies

Higher secondary level (XI and XII)

• Two languages (one modern Indian language and one classical or foreign
language)
• Any three subjects from (a) one additional language, (b) History,
(c) Economics, (d) Logic, (e) Geography, (f) Psychology, (g) Sociology,
(h) Art, (i) Physics, (j) Chemistry, (k) Mathematics, (l) Biology,
(m) Geology, (n) Home science.
• Art
• Physical education
• Work experience
• Moral studies

33
English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

For the first time English was recommended to be studied as a foreign language
in schools. The National Policy on Education (1968, 1986) and the Programme of
Action (1992) reinforced the commitment to the Three Language Formula as the
best means to resolve the concerns related to language education in our country. It
implied that all efforts should be made by the state government to implement the
formula in letter and spirit. This further indicates that the medium of instruction in at
least the primary classes, must be the mother tongue of the child. Unfortunately, it
seldom happens due to the multilingual nature of our society.
Each Indian state is rich with multi-cultural strands, besides displaying a great
degree of multilingualism as evident in the table given below:
Table 2.1 Indian States and the Languages Spoken

Other Languages with

Set States, Major Language Significant Population
A. Kerala, Malayalam (96.6%) Kannada, Tamil
Punjab, Punjabi (92.2%) Hindi, Urdu
Gujarat, Gujarati (91.5%) Hindi, Sindhi
Haryana, Hindi (91.0%) Punjabi, Urdu
U.P., Hindi (90.1%) Urdu, Punjabi
Rajasthan, Hindi (89.6%) Bhili, Urdu
H.P., Hindi (88.9%) Punjabi, Kinnauri
Tamil Nadu, Tamil (86.7%) Telugu, Kannada
West Bengal, Bangla (86.0%) Hindi, Urdu
A.P., Telugu (84.8%) Urdu, Hindi
B. M.P., Hindi (85.6%) Bhili, Gondi
Bihar, Hindi (80.9%) Urdu, Santali
Orissa, Oriya (82.8%) Hindi, Telugu
Mizoram, Lushai (75.1%) Bangla, Lakher
Maharashtra, Marathi (73.3%) Hindi,Urdu
C. Goa, Konkani (51.5%) Marathi, Kannada
Meghalaya, Khasi (49.5%) Garo, Bangla
Tripura, Bangla (68.9%) Tripuri, Hindi
Karnataka, Kannada (66.2%) Urdu, Telugu
D. Sikkim, Nepali (63.1%) DBhotia, Lepcha
Manipur, Manipuri (60.4%) Thadou, Tangkhul
Assam, Assamese (57.8%) Bangla, Boro
E Arunachal, Nissi (19.9%) Nepali,Bangla
Nagaland, Ao (14.0%) Sema, Konyak
Source: Subhash. 2013. Three Language Education Formula in Multilingual India: Problems
and Prospects. International J. Educational Research 2013 Vol.1 Issue 4, ISSN: 2306-7063.

34
 English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

Language policy planning in India presents both collaborative/additive and

competitive bi-multilingualism. While the policy statements and implementation
strategies inform us that the collaborative bilingualism or multilingualism is advocated,
the choice of people and demands indicate there is competitive bilingualism or
multilingualism, i.e. individuals using the language of their choice.
The All India Council for Education recommended the adoption of the Three
Language Formula in Sept. 1956. According to this formula, every child has to learn
the following:
• The mother tongue or the regional language
• The official language of the union or the associate official language of the
Union so long as it exists (official language of the union is Hindi and its
associate official language is English)
• Modern Indian language or a foreign language, not covered under (1) & (2)
above and other than that used as the medium of instruction.

The First Language (L1)

The language that is spoken by our parents, in the neighborhood, and which is
generally the first one to be introduced to us in our childhood is known as our first
language or L1. As we feel more at ease in using our first language in our day to day
conversation, it was recommended by the government that the medium of instruction
in primary school must be the first language of the child/ mother tongue. Being a
teacher you might have experienced that at the primary stage most of the instruction
takes place only through the regional language or through the children’s mother
tongue. The learner in primary school gets exposed to ‘acquisition rich environment’
as most of the time it is the mother tongue which is used for communication and for
other purposes as well. The first language is often acquired naturally, through
interaction with family members, community and peers without much formal
instruction. But despite this general competence in L1 – effective communication in
our first language, most of the learners do not have a complete knowledge of all the
sounds and letters of the language or its grammar. Hence, formal instruction in the
first languages is essentially required in the School.

The Second Language (L2)

One of the aims of education is to broaden the horizons of knowledge by multiple
exposure. Language is a wonderful means for showing different ways of looking at
things, perceptions, notions’ and values to the learner. Thus, in the interest of the
35
English Curriculum and
Methods of Teaching

learner’s holistic personality development, it is crucial for them to develop such

ability which enables him/her to gain knowledge from every possible source.
Therefore, the learner needs to learn the second language (L2) which in our country
usually is either Hindi or English. The second language is learnt consciously and
deliberately for a specific purpose i.e., to gather information, acquire new
knowledge about the culture, beliefs, values of the people, and gain wider
perspectives on the culture of the native users of the language. The sounds, letters,
and grammar of the second language require deliberate instructions by the teachers
and conscious learning by the students. Under the three language formula, second
language (L2) is taught at a later stage in the primary school curriculum, after the
child has already learn one language well i.e. his/her L1. We use first language to
communicate and to express our feelings and thoughts in our day-to-day life
situations. On the other hand, second language is often used in situation other than
personal.

The Third Language (L3)

The spirit of the three-language formula thus provides Hindi, English, and Indian
languages, preferably a south Indian language for the Hindi-speaking States, and a
regional language, Hindi, and English for the non-Hindi-speaking States. The
underline merit of this formula in the promotion of multilingualism succinctly
represents the multilingual character of the nation (Kachru 1997; Krshnamurti 1998;
Schiffman 1999; Sridhar 1996). But it has been remarked by many that ‘this formula
has been observed more in the breach than in the observance’. The Hindi-speaking
states function largely with Hindi, English, and Sanskrit, whereas the non-Hindi-
speaking states, such as Tamil Nadu, function through a two-language formula, that
is, Tamil and English. However many states such as Orissa, West Bengal, and
Maharashtra among others implemented the formula in true spirit.
In north Indian states, except a few states such as Gujarat, most of the states
have opted for English as a second language. The objective of learning English as a
second language in school was more to develop comprehension skills rather than
literary language. However, it has its inherent challenges as there are states where
English is taught as any other school subject, it is not the medium of instruction,
hence, students get limited exposure to the language. The result is that the students
lack proficiency in both receptive and productive skills of language.
Regarding the position of language teaching in a multilingual and multicultural
country like ours, the National Curriculum Framework -2005 has worked out some

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suggestions based on the findings of linguists and psychologists and associated

discipline:

Read excerpts from NCF, 2005 (take special note of the underlined phrases)

‘English does not stand alone.

It needs to find its place
• Along with other Indian languages
i. In regional-medium schools: how can children’s other languages
strengthen English teaching/learning?
ii. In English-medium schools: how can other languages affect English.
iii. Can Indian languages be valorised, reducing the perceived hegemony
of English?
• In relation to other subjects
A language across the curriculum perspective is perhaps of particular relevance
to primary education. Language is best acquired through different meaning-
making contexts, and hence all teaching is in a sense language teaching. This
perspective also captures the centrality of language in abstract thought in
secondary education; whereas in the initial stages contextual meaning supports
language use, at later stages meaning may be arrived at solely through language.
The aim of English teaching is the creation of multilinguals who can enrich all
our languages; this has been an abiding national vision. The multilingual
perspective also addresses concerns of language and culture, and the
pedagogical principle of moving from the known to the unknown.
(NCF-2005. Position Paper on Teaching of English pp 3-4)

This, clearly marks the significance of English Language in the school curriculum.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Why is it important to study English?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. State one major difference between the first language and the second
language.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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2.3 ITS LINKAGE WITH OTHER SUBJECTS AND DIFFERENT

STAGES

The multilingual perspective of our education policies supports additive bilingualism,

wherein another language is introduced with the aim of opening wider opportunities
to the learner. It was never intended to bring down the significance of one’s mother
tongue / regional language. However, unfortunately, the way the three language
formula was implemented across the Indian states, it was reported that the mother
tongue/ regional languages were facing a tough competition with English language.
As, majority of parents demand special focus on proficiency in English language
owing to multiple reasons cited in the beginning of this unit.
The concern of these parents and children is that their children are not able to
gain proficiency in English Language, thus they are not able to capture the various
job and education opportunities available to the fluent users of English Language.
Higher Education in India is still offered in the English medium, corporate sector also
demands fluent speakers of English. The researchers have indicated that one of the
main reasons for this failure to acquire fluency is the lack of input rich environment /
prevailing of ‘acquisition poor environment’ – where the teacher themselves do not
use the target language with fluency and appropriate expressions, the only exposure
the learner gets to L2 is in school, there is seldom any support at home and in the
local environment. Another big reasons is the fact that English is being taught as just
another subject and not as a medium of instruction.
Researchers in the field of ESL have realized that in order to attain
communicative competence in English Language, practitioners need to adopt a
broader perspective. English should not be taught merely as a subject but rather as
a means of communicating knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and beliefs across the
curriculum.
Recent development in the field of ELT have revealed the strong relationship
between language learning, development of cognitive processes and subject specific
construction of knowledge.
• Language is visualized as a linking tool for constructing subject specific
knowledge, and conceptualization by engaging in relating concepts,
critically analyzing related concepts, exploring and exchanging ideas and
thoughts.
• Language is said to be self-reflexive as it engages in mental activities
bringing more clarity and precision in thinking.

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• Language manifests itself in performing discourse functions such as

explaining, differentiating, critiquing, naming, and so on.
• Different school subjects are different language registers
Thus different school subjects should also serve as points of exposure to
different registers of English language.
English in Indian setting is an instrument, a means for acquiring knowledge. The aim
of teaching English in India is to help students to acquire practical command of
English. In other words, it means that students should be able to understand speak
English, read and write English. The National Curriculum Framework level (NCF
2005) mentions that the goals for second language curriculum as twofold.
• Attainment of a basic proficiency such as is required in natural language
learning.
• The development of language in to an instrument for abstract thought.
It is advisable for the teacher to keep in mind the aims of teaching English. These
goals need to be set in line with the objectives mentioned in the syllabus guidelines of
National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005).These language objectives have been
delineated at two levels.
• At elementary level
• At secondary level
The objectives of teaching English at Elementary level is meant to focus on it as
a skill based subject , Hence, at the Elementary level the objective of teaching
English should be to develop all the four fundamental skills among them i.e.-LSRW
- Listening - Speaking - Reading and - Writing
This can be done by familiarizing the child with the spoken language by exposing
them to the language in meaningful, interesting and real life situations through the
mother tongue, signs, visuals, pictures, sketches, gestures, letters, words, single
word questions and answers. Slowly the exposure to the language should move- to
enable them to read and write, besides listening and speaking.
Hence the objectives of teaching English at Elementary level will be to enable the
learners.
• To listen English with proper understanding
• To speak English correctly, i.e. producing sounds with proper stress and
intonation

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• To transform the silent written / printed language in to living speech

• To enrich vocabulary through telling, re-telling, reading aloud
• To read with ease
• To follow the instructions given in the target language
• To recite the small poems
• To classify the words, nouns, action words (verb), describing words,
adjectives, linkers (conjunctions)
• To write words simple meaningful sentences correctly
The objectives of teaching English at secondary level intend to generate in the learner
an appreciation of literature available in English, different genres and styles of writing.
The four skills objectives: Listening, Speaking, Reading’ and Writing (LSRW) are to
be realized at both the levels. To these linguistic objectives, literature adds two more
aspects:
• Creativity
• Appreciation
These two objectives are purely at higher level. Linguistic and literary objectives are
inter-linked with each other. They are not independent and inseparable. It is true that
literary objectives cannot be realized at the primary level. But we see that their seeds
are sown in language teaching from elementary level that is from the very beginning.
At this level, an attempt is to be made to encourage the learners to begin
appreciation of literary forms of the English writings and the cultural enjoyment of
the English language. The material thus presented should be suitably adapted to the
needs of their course in a simple and suitable linguistic point of view. At the close of
school career an average learner should be able to:
• Understand and follow talks in English on general topics within the
prescribed vocabulary and sentence structures.
• Talk freely within the range of language items and express suitably.
• Read books and similar other material written in simplified English as per
the structures and vocabulary, and to follow easy books with detailed
notes. This material should within their group.
• Write correctly in English on familiar topics fit to be expressed within the
range of the prescribed vocabulary and sentence structures.
• Write creatively and independently on general topics.
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• Create wider reading interest.

• Speak in a given situation (production skill) (fluency & accuracy in speaking
& writing)
• Develop study skill / reference skill.
• Achieve greater proficiency.
These aims focus on receptive as well as productive language skills. The learners,
who will be making a transit from school education to university education will
require both BICS and CALPS for success in academics and proper assimilation of
knowledge:
BICS : Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills
CALPS : Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency Skills

Check Your Progress - 2

1 Differentiate between the unified and specialized curriculum in your own

words.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. Mention the twofold goals of second language curriculum as stated by

NCF (2005).
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2.4 UNIFIED/SPECIALIZED APPROACH TO CURRICULUM

Recent development in the field of Linguistics, Pedagogy and Psychology have

inspired new approaches to curriculum.
The Unified approach to curriculum seeks to develop language proficiency along
with the mastery of subject matter, critical thinking, and other cognitive skills through
the use of a unified / integrated syllabus (both language and subject matter e.g.

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science, geography, history, environmental studies). The general procedure in such

an approach to curriculum include the following steps:
• Content and language needed for identified topics is identified.
• Aims in terms of content learning, language learning, and skills learning are
formulated.
• Resources are identified which would facilitate a variety of learner
engagement such as whole class, group based, pair work and individual
activities, focusing on different aspects of content and language.
• Identify informal assessment procedures which can be used to assess
student learning in content as well as language learn
The Language across Curriculum approach and Content based instruction
syllabus, can be said to have a base of unified curriculum. Here, teachers draw on a
range of interesting, context based, crucial and engaging activities with high intrinsic
motivation value, such as that involving co-operative, task-based, experiential, and
project-based learning. These approach also makes use of both, authentic and
adapted oral and written subject matter materials (textbooks, and visual materials,
and other learning materials) that are appropriate to the cognitive and language
proficiency level of the learners or that can be made accessible through bridging
activities. The National Curriculum Framework, 2005 advocates the unified
approach to curriculum as more relevant to a multilingual and multicultural nation
such as India.
The specialized approach to curriculum design on the other hand advocates
specification of learning outputs in sync with the need and aspirations of the learners
and to use these learning outcomes as the basis for developing instructional
processes and input in the teaching learning process. The NCF-2005 emphasizes on
the need for a curriculum that focuses on the development of literacy skills such as
Reading and Writing to meet the requirements of Indian population at large. The
position paper also mentions that ‘English for Specific Purposes’ may also be
offered at school level. It mentions:
‘Simultaneously, an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach can be
adopted where necessary and feasible. (Formulaic uses of language, such as in
tourists’ phrase books, do not presuppose any systematic or spontaneous
knowledge of the language, and are excluded from our purview.) These
approaches will serve as precursors of specialisations to follow in the study of
language at the undergraduate level.’ (p11)

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The process of syllabus design based on this curriculum approach consists of:
Step 1: Diagnosis of needs
Step 2: Formulation of objectives
Step 3: Selection of content
Step 4: Organization of content
Step 5: Selection of learning experiences
Step 6: Organization of learning experiences
Step 7: Determination of what to evaluate and of the ways of doing it
(Taba, 1962: 12).
The Competency Based Instruction and Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT)
follow the steps of this curriculum approach. For instance, in some versions of TBLT
students do not first acquire linguistic knowledge about language before
implementing it in natural language use in real life contexts. Instead, in a task-based
approach, the students are exposed to simulations of the kind of real tasks they
would be expected to perform outside the classroom. During their performance and
participation in these approximated communicative tasks students learn about
relevant forms of language.
In another instance, the Common European Framework of Reference
(CEFR) makes use of standards in curriculum planning to meet the specialized
requirements of the learners. These standards are specified along with key
competencies which would help ensure the teacher that desired behaviour has been
achieved by the learner.
For example the standards described for ‘conversation’ in CEFR at levels B1 to C1
are described as follows:
Characteristics of Conversation in the Common European Framework

C2 Can converse comfortably and appropriately, unhampered by any linguistic

limitations in conducting a full social and personal life.
C1 Can use language flexibly and effectively for social purposes, including emotional,
allusive and joking usage.
B2 Can engage in extended conversation on most general topics in a clearly
participatory fashion, even in a noisy environment.
Can sustain relationships with native speakers without unintentionally amusing or
irritating them or requiring them to behave other than they would with a native
speaker.

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Can convey degrees of emotion and highlight the personal significance of events
and experiences.
B1 Can enter unprepared into conversations on familiar topics.
Can follow clearly articulated speech directed at him/her in everyday
conversations, though will sometimes have to ask for repetition of particular words
and phrases.
Can maintain a conversation or discussion but may sometimes be difficult to
follow when trying to say exactly what he/she would like to.
Can express and respond to feelings such as surprise, happiness, sadness, interest
and indifference.
Source: Richards. 2013. Curriculum Approaches in Language Teaching: Forward, Central, and
Backward Design.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. State some objectives of teaching English at elementary level.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. State the process of syllabus designing on the basis of Curriculum

Approach.
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................................................................................................................

2.5 COGNITIVE MAPS OF CONCEPTS IN ENGLISH

Joseph Novak introduced ‘Concept Maps’ as tools to organize and represent

knowledge in teaching of science. As shown in the figure given below, concepts are
represented in boxes and the relationship with other related concepts is linked by
labeled relationships. Thus, two related concepts (including their link) form a
composite meaningful unit. Each concept in a concept map is hierarchically linked
such that more general concepts are located higher up on the map and specific
concepts such as examples are located at a lower level. It is to be remembered that
when a single concept stands alone, it lacks meaning, but when two related concepts

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are connected using linking words or phrases, they form a proposition which is
meaningful.
Concept maps serve as just one mode of cognitive visualization for facilitating
the teaching – learning process. It can also be used as a form of scaffolding as well
as for initiating reflection by making explicit representation of their conceptual
understanding, visible at different stages of the learning process.

Fig. 2.1 Stages of Learning

Source: Google Images

Significant research evidence is available showing the strong link between

concept mapping by students and higher cognitive functions (Novak & Gowin,
1984). Concept maps (CMs) have been generally used in reading activities to
facilitate students’ comprehension of a given text. For instance, concept maps may
be used to present semantic summaries of texts that students need to comprehend
or they may be asked to construct their own CMs to address specific questions
related to characters / theme or style of the text.
O’Malley, Chamot, Stewner Manzanares, Kupper, and Russo (1985) emphasized
on the learning strategies of language learners as crucial direction or ability to monitor
their progress, accomplishments, and future learning directions. They have
categorized all learning theories into three categories:
• Metacognitive strategies: (e.g. planning for learning, thinking about the
learning process as it is taking place, monitoring of one’s production or
comprehension, and evaluating learning after an activity is completed)
• Cognitive strategies: (e.g. repeating, translation, grouping, note taking,
deducting, imagery, auditory representation, key word, contextualization,
elaboration, transfer); and
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• Socioaffective strategies: (e.g. social-mediating activity and transacting

with others).
Among these strategies, metacognitive strategies are considered as the most
essential in developing learners’ skills. Concept maps have been described as one of
the ‘metacognitive strategies’ that encourage students to think reflectively about what
they know through the visual representation of concept meanings and relationships.
The process of creating and modifying a concept map involves making decisions
about the different ways the concepts are related to one another, leading the
individual to reflect on prior knowledge as it relates to new information, at the same
time engaging in control processes of planning, monitoring progress, and evaluating
goal attainment as the map is constructed (Brown, 1987). There are some research
evidences that concept mapping is a useful strategy for ESL (English as a second
language) learners (Block, 1986; Carrell, Pharis, & Liberto, 1989; Kamhi-Stein,
1993; Koumy & Salam, 1999). Using concept mapping facilitates meaningful
learning because concepts are seen not as isolated entities, but as existing in a
network of relationships (Heinze-Fry & Novak, 1990).
Other studies indicate that concept mapping is an effective learning strategy in a
variety of domains, such as reading. It can enhance learners’ reading comprehension
to a great extent (Cassata-Widera, 2008; Chimielewski & Dansereaw, 1998;
Griffin, Malone, & Kameenui, 1995; Liou, 2006; Robinson, Katayama, & Fan,
1996; Zittle, 2005). Moreover, Cubukcu (2009) , Ryan and Deci (2006),
Talebinezhad and Mousapour Negari (2009) in their studies show that the benefits
of concept mapping may also include positive effects on achievement-related
variables such as academic self-regulation and self-efficacy.

How to use concept maps for teaching of English

• Learners may be asked to show relationships between words, characters in
a story, science concepts, or events in history, processes in geography or
other disciplines.
• Learners may work with partners or in small groups. After reading a text
they can be asked to present their maps to the class and explain how and
why they selected each word and establish the relationships between them.
• Teacher may use a concept map at the beginning of a new unit to assess
students’ prior knowledge. Give students a list of vocabulary items or
concepts from the unit and ask them to place them on the concept map. At

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the end of the unit, the same activity may be repeated and then comparison
between the two may be established.
• Teachers may teach the learners how to use a concept map as a graphic
organizer for improving writing skills. Once the concept map is complete,
students may be asked to box off related concepts and have turn each box
into a meaningful and cohesive paragraph.
• Concept maps may be used to show ideas and relationships about a
character in a novel. Students can draw a picture of the character in the
middle and then complete the concept map.
• Learners can compare and contrast their concept maps with other students
and discuss their different ideas about the same character.
• Make use of concept map throughout a unit and have learners place each
vocabulary word or concept as they go. For example, when working on a
history / geography unit, as they come across a new vocabulary item,
learners may be asked to take out their concept maps and place the word
in the appropriate spot. Later, the teacher may engage them in a discussion
as to why they have selected that particular place.
• Given below is concept map of how concept mapping may be used in
‘Teaching of Poetry’ for your reference. While planning your teaching you
may engage in concept mapping for better clarity and planning.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. How can we use concept maps for developing writing skills?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. How are the learning theories categorized by O’ Mallay, Chamot,

Stewner, Kupper, and Russo (1985)?
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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2.6 TEACHING APPROACHES AND METHODS IN ENGLISH

As a language teacher you will come across three terms quite often: approach,
method, and technique. It is very important that you acquire clarity on these
concepts. If you have a sound understanding of these concepts, you will be in a
better position to make the right decision while selecting any approach / method /
technique while planning for the specific group of learners.
Also, as practitioners in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT) it is
expected that the teachers are connected with the theoretical foundation of ELT. The
content presented below intends to give you a general orientation in this area.
• Approach: Within the teaching method framework, the approach is
constituted by those theoretical principles on which the curricular design is
based (Richards and Rodgers, 1986). Thus, an approach is usually
understood as the body of linguistic, psychological and pedagogical
theories which inspire the teaching practice.
• Method: This general term includes the approach, design and procedures
in Richards and Rodgers’ model. The term ‘Method’ is very ambiguous,
and refers to the overall plan for the orderly presentations of language
material, no part of which contradicts and all of which is based on selected
approach and procedure.
• Techniques: Teaching activities. They must be referred to the broader
frame of curricular design to which they belong.

Activity 1
Which particular method has predominated in your own experience as a student?
Did it work for you?
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
An ‘approach’ is concerned with the theory of the nature of language and
language learning.
‘Design’ concerns itself with:
• The general and specific objectives of the course.
• A syllabus model.
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• Types of learning and learning tasks.

• Roles of learners and teachers, and
• Role of learning materials.
‘Procedure’ is concerned with:
• The actual happenings in the classroom.
• Classroom techniques, practices and behaviour
However, it would be wise to always remember that:
“What matters is the man (the teacher) not the method.”
Some of the methods used commonly by the teachers of English in India are
being discussed below: The Grammar-translation method, the Direct method, Audio
lingual method, Bilingual method, Dr. Michael West’s the new method, and
Suggestopedia for your reference. You may want to read more on these methods for
professional enrichment in future, please refer the book list provided at the end of
this unit.

The Grammar Translation Method

• This method, also known as the classical method, is one of the oldest or
traditional methods of teaching English. In Europe it was used in the
teaching of Latin and Greek for several centuries, and got introduced in
India with the arrival of the British. The psychological beliefs that prevailed
then were That classical languages with their intricate systems of grammar
werecapable of training human faculties including memory, and
• That learning these languages was part of a truly liberal education.
• Teaching and learning primarily aimed at the ability to read full texts rather
than to communicate orally in everyday situations.
It is based on some sound principles such as:
• Foreign phraseology is best interpreted through translation.
• Foreign phraseology is best assimilated in the process of interpretation
• The structure of foreign language can best be taught by comparing and
contrasting it with that of mother tongue; and this is best effected through
translation. (Bhatia & Bhatia)

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English Curriculum and
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H.E. Palmer catalogues the weaknesses of this method in the following words:
“It is one which treats all languages as if they were dead, as if each consisted
essentially of a collection of ancient documents to be deciphered and analysed...
It is the one which categorically ignores all considerations of phonetics,
pronunciations and acoustic image, and boldly places language on a foundation
of alphabets, spellings and writing systems... It is the one which assumes
translation to be the main or only procedure for the learning of vocabulary... It
is the one which assumes that word and sentence structure is to be attained
mainly or solely through the memorising of the so-called rules of grammar.”
This method could best be put in use by discarding the overemphasis on the
grammatical rules and by making a room for imparting training in the spoken aspects
of English. The grammar-translation method in its modified form continues to be
widely used in some parts of the world even today.

The direct method

This method was developed as a reaction to the Grammar Translation Method
It is sometimes also called as the ‘reform’ method, ‘natural’ method,
‘psychological’ method, ‘phonetic’ method, 25 and ‘anti-grammatical’ method, was
established in France and Germany around 1900, and introduced in India in the
early 20th century as a reform which was needed in the methods of teaching English.
It is also an offshoot of the Behaviorist school of psychology. It insists that the
key to all language learning lies in association. It stresses the need for direct
association between experience and expression in the foreign language. The aim is to
enable the learner to think in foreign language and to cultivate an unerring language
sense. It recognises that language sense has its roots in the spoken language and lays
stress on the oral approach.
For example, in a reading lesson to class V, a new word ‘watch’ occurs. If we
associate it with its intermediate in the vernacular, i.e. ‘Gharee’, we are teaching the
meaning indirectly; but if on the other hand, we associate the word with an actual
‘watch’ or with the picture of a watch, we are teaching the meaning directly. If such
a direct association is not possible, the teacher can explain the meaning of new
words by giving synonyms, definitions, explanations, or by inference from the
context.
According to Bhatia and Bhatia, the main aim of teaching English by this method
is to enable the learner: “to think in English and to discourage the practice of

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inwardly thinking in one’s vernacular and then overtly translating the thought into the
foreign language. He should be able to grasp what he hears or reads in English and
should be able to express his thoughts and wishes directly and fluently so that in due
course of time he obtains a real command over the language”.
The other significant assumption of this method is that Adult L2 learners can
learn a second language in essentially the same manner as a child. Therefore, if
possible, the teacher should try to create a natural learning environment within the
classroom. Instead of explicit grammar instruction, the major emphasis is on
communicating. Classes are carried out totally in the second language with absolutely
no reliance on the first language or on any form of translation. The expectation is that
through question-and-answer dialogues, the second language will gradually be
acquired.
From the aforesaid statement it becomes clear that this method:
• Discards the use of L1, even in teaching grammatical rules,
• Favours the situational use of English,
• Considers meaningful sentences at the core,
• Teaches grammatical rules inductively,
• Provides with ample opportunities to the students of using target language
• Takes care of the spoken aspects of the target language, and above all
• Seeks gradual development of all, the basic linguistic skills viz-LSRW.

The audio-lingual method

During the World War II, American soldiers had an urgent need to learn languages
like-German, French, Chinese or Japanese to communicate effectively when posted
in various countries. The Army Specialised Training Programme (ASTP) was
established in 1942 by American linguists to meet this urgent need. American
Universities were involved in the programme by the beginning of 1943. Charles Fries
of the University of Michigan led the way in applying principles from structural
linguistics in developing the method and for this reason, it has sometimes been
referred as the ‘Michigan Method’.
This technique of teaching was initially called the ‘Army Method’ and it was the
first to be based on linguistic theory and behavioral psychology.

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The objective of this programme, as stated by Richards Jack, C. and T.S. Rodgers,
was for students “to attain conversational proficiency in variety of foreign languages.”
The assumptions of this method stated by Stern are as follows:
• Foreign language learning is basically a mechanical process of habit
formation.
• Language skills are learned effectively; if items of the foreign language are
presented in the spoken form before the written form.
• Analogy provides a better foundation for foreign language learning than
analysis.
• The meaning which the words of a language have for the native speaker can
be learned only in a matrix of allusions to the culture of the people who
speak that language.
The five important characteristics of this method are:
• Language is speech, not writing.
• A Language is a set of habits.
• Teach the language, not about the language.
• A language is what its native speakers say, not what someone thinks they
ought to say; and
• Languages are different
In order to make effective use of this method, the following needs to be kept in mind:
• Importance to Learners’ perceptions, motivation, and feelings while
planning and different phases of teaching
• Emphasis on communication in a socio-cultural context
For its success, Audio-lingual method relies heavily on a qualified, trained,
inventive and resourceful teacher. It is believed that machines can never replace
teachers.

The bilingual method

This method was developed by Dr. C.J. Dodson. As the name suggests, the method
makes use of two languages- the mother tongue and the target language. ‘Selection,
‘Gradation’, ‘Presentation’, and ‘Repetition’ are the four cardinal principles of this

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language teaching method. In the opinion of Dodson, a good method should

promote thinking in the language.
According to him a new method should have the following features as:
• Simple.
• Strike a balance between the spoken and the written word, accuracy and
fluency.
• Constant revision of what is taught and learnt.
• Offer a new approach to the application of translation work.
• Promote inter communication between himself and the individual pupil.
• Be sufficiently flexible to cope with various classroom conditions and the
pupils’ specific and general abilities.
The essentials for the Bilingual method in Yardi’s opinion are:
• A printed text of the situation to be learnt–not to be exceeding thirty
sentences in length at the secondary level.
• The text has to be linguistically graded and made interesting to the learner.
• Each situation in the text should have a picture strip, not just one composite
picture as in the usual textbook, representing the development of the
content in the text- lesson. (The intention in using the picture strip is not to
help the learner acquire the sentence meaning but to retain it).
• Good teachers with excellent command of spoken and written English

Suggestopedia
This method was advocated by Dr. Georgi Loznov, a Bulgarian doctor of medicine,
psychiatrist and parapsychologist. It is also known as Desuggestopedia.
Some characteristics of this method are:
• The decoration, furniture, and arrangement of the classroom,
• The use of music and
• The authoritative behaviour of the teacher.
Laznov commenting on the utility of this method observed: “There is no sector of
public life where Suggestology would not be useful”. He employs music to relax

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learners as well as to structure pace and punctuate the presentation of linguistic

material. Suggestopedic learning is built on a particular type of music and a particular
rate of presentation. Laznov recommends a series of slow movement (sixty beats a
minute) because it is under stimulation of sixty rhythmic patterns that the body
relaxes and the mind becomes most alert and aware to receive learning.
The central assumption that underlies the suggestopedic method is that the
learner learns not only from the effect of direct instruction but also from the
environment in which the instruction takes place. The bright decor of the classroom,
the musical background, the shape of the chairs, and the personality of the teacher
are considered as important in instruction as the form of the instructional material
itself. Suggestopedic method places a high value on vocabulary recall and
memorization of vocabulary pairs.

Communicative approach
Communicative approach focuses on the significance of language functions because
the learner needs knowledge of both meaning and functions. It lays emphasis on
functional, communicative and social interactive activities. It also lays emphasis on
the semantic aspect of the language. Summarising the main characteristics of the
communicative approach Richards and Rodgers asserts:
• Language is a system for the expression of meaning.
• The primary function of language is for interaction and communication.
• The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses.
The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural
features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as
exemplified in discourse.
The communicative approach takes into account all the four basic linguistic skills
viz. listening, speaking, reading, writing, and also the conversational skill where the
social context of utterances play the significant role.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. State any four principles of direct method of teaching of English.

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2. State some characteristics of suggestopedia method.

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2.7 INNOVATIONS IN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH WITH

FUTURIST VISION

Over the years new methods of Teaching English have been explored by ELT
practitioners keeping the Futuristic Vision. As the world is shrinking, the interaction
among communities at international level is also increasing. Hence, no one can
question the significance of communicative competence in the English Language. In
our country, English is given the prestigious position of ‘associate language’. As the
NCF 2005 emphasizes ELT should now be approached in school education as a
resource to nurture bilinguals who have the competence to bring to light the rich
knowledge and wisdom of their regional language to the world.
Also, since it is evident that there exists multiple variation in terms of the learners
and learning contexts, ELT methodology should adapt to meet the requirements of
each individual learner.
The recently introduced “Multiple Intelligence’ theory of Gardner advocates
meticulous planning to meet the individual needs of the learners and it has serious
implications for the ELT practitioners.
Gardner’s (1983, 1999) conception of intelligence as pluralistic grew out of his
observation that individuals who demonstrated substantial talent in domains as
diverse as chess, music, athletics, politics, and entrepreneurship possessed
capacities in these domains that should be accounted for in conceptualizing
intelligence. Accordingly, in developing MI theory and its broader characterization of
intelligence, Gardner did not focus on the creation and interpretation of psychometric
instruments. Rather, he drew upon research findings from evolutionary biology,
neuroscience, anthropology, psychometrics and psychological studies of prodigies
and savants. The list of eight intelligences along with their descriptors as given by
Gardner is given here is Table 2.2:

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Table 2.2 Gardner’s Eight Intelligences

Intelligences Description
An ability to analyze information and create products involving oral
Linguistic and written language such as speeches, books, and memos.
Logical- An ability to develop equations and proofs, make calculations, and
Mathematical solve abstract problems.
An ability to recognize and manipulate large-scale and fine-grained
Spatial spatial images.
An ability to produce, remember, and make meaning of different
Musical patterns of sound.
An ability to identify and distinguish among different types of
plants, animals, and weather formations that are found in the natural
Naturalist world.
An ability to use one’s own body to create products or solve
Bodily-Kinesthetic problems.
An ability to recognize and understand other people’s moods,
Interpersonal desires, motivations, and intentions.
An ability to recognize and understand his or her own moods,
Intrapersonal desires.

Here is a table of learner types based on the Multiple Intelligence given by

Gardner, along with some suggested activities for each type. It is adapted from
Jeremy Harmer’s book The Practice of English Language Teaching but was
originally taken from ‘How to use Gardner’s intelligences in a class program’ by M.
Loon for the University of Canberra.

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Table 2.3 Learner Types based on Multiple Intelligence

Learner type Is good at Learns best by Activities

Memory games,
Reading, writing, and Saying, hearing, and
Linguistic Trivia quizzes,
stories seeing words
Stories.
Solving puzzles, Asking questions,
Logical / Puzzles,
exploring patterns, categorising, and working
mathematical Problem solving.
reasoning, and logic with patterns
Flashcards,
Colours,
Drawing, building, arts, Visualising, using the
Visual / Spatial Pictures,
and crafts mind's eye
Drawing,
Project work.
Singing, listening to Using songs,
Using rhythm, with music
Musical music, and playing Chants,
on
instruments Drilling.
TPR activities,
Moving around, touching Action songs,
Bodily / Moving, touching, and
things, and body Running dictations,
Kinaesthetic doing things
language Miming,
Realia.
Mixing with others, Mingle activities,
leading groups, Co-operating, working in Group work,
Interpersonal
understanding others, and groups, and sharing Debates,
mediating Discussions.
Working individually
Working alone, and
Intrapersonal Working alone on personalised
pursuing own interests
projects
Working outside, and
Naturalistic Nature Environmental projects.
observing nature

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Differentiate between interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences.

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2. Define linguistic intelligence.

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2.8 SUMMARY

• English Language was first introduced by the British in India with the sole
purpose of making their administration of this country easier and efficient by
harnessing the human resource available in the natives.
• Language policy planning in India presents both collaborative/additive and
competitive bi-multilingualism. While the policy statements and
implementation strategies inform us that the collaborative bilingualism or
multilingualism is advocated, the choice of people and demands indicate
there is competitive bilingualism or multilingualism, i.e. individuals using the
language of their choice.
• The multilingual perspective of our education policies supports additive
bilingualism, wherein another language is introduced with the aim of opening
wider opportunities to the learner. It was never intended to bring down the
significance of one’s mother tongue / regional language.
• The unified approach to curriculum seeks to develop language proficiency
along with the mastery of subject matter, critical thinking, and other
cognitive skills through the use of a unified / integrated syllabus (both
language and subject matter e.g. science, geography, history, environmental
studies).
• The specialized approach to curriculum design on the other hand advocates
specification of learning outputs in sync with the need and aspirations of the
learners and to use these learning outcomes as the basis for developing
instructional processes and input in the teaching learning process.
• Concept maps serve as just one mode of cognitive visualization for
facilitating the teaching – learning process. It can also be used as a form of
scaffolding as well as for initiating reflection by making explicit
representation of their conceptual understanding, visible at different stages
of the learning process.

2.9 KEY WORDS

• Approach: An approach is usually understood as the body of linguistic,

psychological and pedagogical theories which inspire the teaching practice.
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• Method: The term ‘Method’ is very ambiguous, and refers to the overall
plan for the orderly presentations of language material, no part of which
contradicts and all of which is based on selected approach and procedure.
• Concept map: A cognitive visualization tool used for representing
knowledge and organizing the same in hierarchical form for better clarity is
known as concept map.

2.10 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. It is important to study English because it has acquired a crucial status in the
world and is the most accepted language globally. Moreover, in India as
well it is seen as the language of multiple opportunities.
2. One major difference between the first and second language is that the first
language or L1 is that language which is spoken by our parents, in the
neighborhood, and which is generally the first one to be introduced to us in
our childhood. Whereas, the second language or L2 is the one which is
learnt deliberately and consciously for a specific purpose, i.e., to gather
information, acquire new knowledge about the new culture, beliefs, values
of the people who are native to that language.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Unified approach to curriculum visualizes language teaching as everybody’s
responsibilities. The content of different subject is screened to isolate
themes around which activity maybe developed for teaching language skills,
concepts, as well as cognitive processing skills.
2. The National Curriculum Framework level (NCF 2005) mentions that the
goals for second language curriculum as twofold.
• Attainment of a basic proficiency such as is required in natural
language learning.
• The development of language in to an instrument for abstract thought.

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Check Your Progress - 3

1. Some objectives of teaching English at Elementary level are:
• To listen English with proper understanding
• To speak English correctly, i.e. producing sounds with proper stress
and intonation.
• To transform the silent written / printed language in to living speech.
• To enrich vocabulary through telling, re-telling, reading aloud.
2. The process of syllabus design based on the curriculum approach consists
of the following steps:
Step 1: Diagnosis of needs
Step 2: Formulation of objectives
Step 3: Selection of content
Step 4: Organization of content
Step 5: Selection of learning experiences
Step 6: Organization of learning experiences
Step 7: Determination of what to evaluate and of the ways of doing it

Check Your Progress - 4

1. Concept maps can be used for developing skills of writing. At the pre-
writing phase, the learner may be asked to brainstorm and represent all
ideas in a concept map. While reading, the learners may be asked to use
available concept maps to develop paragraphs.
2. All learning theories as categorised suggested by O’ Mallay, Chamot,
Stewner, Kupper, and Russo are:
• Metacognitive strategies
• Cognitive strategies
• Socioaffective strategies

Check Your Progress - 5

1. Four principles of direct method of teaching English are:
• Discards the use of L1, even in teaching grammatical rules
• Favours the situational use of English

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• Considers meaningful sentences at the core

• Teaches grammatical rules inductively
• Provides with ample opportunities to the students of using target
language
• Takes care of the spoken aspects of the target language, and above
all
• Seeks gradual development of all the basic linguistic skills
viz-LSRW
2. Some characteristics of suggestopedia method are:
• The decoration, furniture, and arrangement of the classroom
• The use of music
• The authoritative behaviour of the teacher.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Interpersonal intelligence is an ability to recognize and understand each
other’s need, desires, motivation, intentions, and mood. Whereas,
intrapersonal intelligence refers to the ability of recognizing and
understanding of one’s own moods and desires.
2. Linguistic intelligence is the ability to analyze information and create
products involving oral and written language such as speeches, books, and
memos.

2.11 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the reports of various commissions on school curriculum.

2. Elaborate the use of concept maps for Teaching of English.
3. Define the terms, ‘approach’, ‘method’, and ‘techniques’ with reference to
teaching in English.
4. How is the futurist vision important in innovations in teaching English
language?
5. Analyse the Grammar-translation method.
6. Write a short note on the audio-lingual method of teaching approaches.
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2.12 FURTHER READINGS

Ambedkar, B. R. 1989. Thoughts on Linguistic States, Writings & Speeches.

Maharashtra Govt., India, vol. 1.
Bhatia Kamala and B.D. Bhatia. 1972. The Principles and Methods of Teaching.
Delhi: Doaba House Publishers.
Bhatia, T.K. and Ritchie, W.C. 2006. Bilingualism in South Asia. In T.K. Bhatia
and Ritchie (eds.) the Handbook of Bilingualism. Malden. MA; Oxford:
Blackwell.
Council of Europe. 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

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UNIT–3 TEACHING OF ENGLISH

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Analyse the sound system of English language
• Describe the organs of speech diagrammatically
• Analyse a repertoire of activities to be used for teaching of pronunciation
• Discuss the vocabulary items as active and passive
• Discuss the techniques to be employed for teaching specific vocabulary
• Describe the techniques used for teaching of structures and grammar of
English language
• Design suitable activities for reading comprehension
• Identify aspects of poetry to be focused on while teaching poetry

Structure
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Teaching English Pronunciation
3.3 Teaching of Vocabulary in English
3.4 Teaching of Structures and Grammar in English
3.5 Teaching Reading Comprehension
3.6 Teaching of Writing in English
3.7 Teaching of Poetry in English
3.8 Summary
3.9 Key Words
3.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
3.11 Self-Assessment Questions
3.12 Further Readings

3.1 INTRODUCTION

It is said that a bad carpenter blames his tools, similarly an ineffective teacher blames
the other factors as responsible for non-performance of students and their lack of
proficiency in English language.
To be a good and effective English Language Teacher it is not sufficient to know
about the language, the teacher must know how to teach. S/he must be aware of the

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different techniques of teaching different skills and aspects of English language such
as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, and poetry.

3.2 TEACHING ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

The aspiration of English as a second language (ESL) learner is to gain competence

in the spoken skills, they are intrinsically motivated to produce the sounds with
requisite stress and speak meaningful sentences in real life contexts with appropriate
rhythm and intonation.
However, due to many reasons they are not successful in this endeavor. These
factors may be categorized as:
• Direct
• Indirect
Direct factors are those factors which are directly related to the teacher as well
as the student, such as professional commitment, and competence of the teacher,
while the Indirect factor refers to those factors which have an indirect impact on the
teaching and learning process, such as resources available in the school, size of
classrooms and others.

Activity - 1
Can you identify some of these direct and indirect factors in your teaching – learning
situation?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
You must have recalled direct factors as the competence and proficiency of the
language teacher, for indirect factor we may have time and duration of the session,
availability of infrastructural resources and so on.
There are two approaches to teaching of Pronunciation:
• Context free situation
• Context embedded situation

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1. Context free situation

There have been a variety of techniques suggested to help the students master the
correct pronunciation of the target language.
• Imitation (some may call it modeling) is believed to play a significant role
in learning the English sound system.
• Explanation of the distinction between sounds
• Use of simple face diagram in which the various “organs of speech” are
shown. Using pictures, drawings, objects, etc., the teacher attempts to
teach the place and manner of articulation of difficult sounds.
• Contrastive analysis of phonological elements of the students’ native
language (L1) and English (L2).
• Mimicry- memorization techniques, the student repeats a word, a
phrase, and/or a short sentence several times in order that the sound
segment(s) of the word, phrase, or sentence become memorized and
established in his/her mind.

2. Context embedded situation

This method focuses on the use of different situations related to real life or to the
students’ experience. One is to tell the students a brief story in which the teacher can
insert difficult sounds in the form of minimal pairs.
However some criterions need to be observed for contextualization of minimal pairs.
They are as follows (as suggested by Bowen, 1972, p.92):
• Meaningful
• Pictureable
• Balanced
• If possible, relevant to the experience and/or interest of the students
For instance a short passage conveying a certain situation in which words such
as WISE-RISE, MIND-KIND, HATE-FATE, and so on are used.

Organs of Speech
An awareness of the organs of speech, the mechanism and points of articulation is
mandatory for mastering the sound system of English Language. The articulators are
movable and points of articulation are stationary. The articulators are namely, lower
lip, tip of the tongue, and blade of the tongue, front of the tongue and back of the

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tongue, while the points of articulation are upper lip, teeth, teeth ridge, hard palate,
and soft palate. Given below is a figure showing the organs of speech.
• Lips: Both the upper and the lower lips play crucial role in articulation.
• Teeth: Tips and inside of the teeth are the passive articulators, important
for the sound formation.
• Roof of the mouth: The roof of the mouth is divided into teeth ridge, hard
palate and soft palate.
• Teeth ridge: It is a convex part of the roof of the mouth. It is immediately
behind the teeth.
• Hard palate: It is a concave part of the roof of the mouth. It is in the
central part of the roof of the mouth.
• Soft palate: This is situated in the back part of the roof of the mouth. It can
be lowered or raised. When it is lowered, the air stream from the lungs has
access to the nasal cavity. When it is raised, the passage to the nasal cavity
is closed.

Fig. 3.1 Organs of Speech

Source: Google image

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• Uvula: It is the ending part of the soft palate.

• Pharynx: It is situated in the throat. The surface of the tongue is divided
into three parts namely the blade of the tongue, the front of the tongue, and
the back of the tongue.
• Blade of the tongue: it lies opposite to the teeth ridge. It includes the tip
of the tongue.
• Front of the tongue: It lies opposite to the hard palate.
• Back of the tongue: It lies opposite to the palate.
• Epiglottis: This is drawn over the windpipe when swallowing.
• Vocal cords: The larynx contains two lip-like elastic membranes that are
physiologically called vocal cords. When these two are brought close
together during the sound production, they vibrate and produce a buzzing
noise. This is called voice and the particular sound produced at this time is
termed voiced sound or soft sound. A sound produced without such
vibrations in the vocal cords is a voiceless sound or simply hard sound.
• Larynx: It is the upper part of the windpipe. It protects the vocal cords.

Role of Teachers
The teacher plays a significant role in teaching pronunciation. Listed below are some
efforts teacher must make if she aspires her learners to be able to speak
appropriately.

Facilitate students’ hearing

The first step in teaching pronunciation is to helping learners hear and register the
sounds and its features. Learners need sufficient exposure in order to perceive the
sounds and their features. Learners need training in discrimination of sounds so that
they are able to produce the same. Just as we help a child to acquire the schema of
an apple by showing a picture and asking him to hold an apple in hand to register its
shape, colour, and taste, similarly, language learners need training in listening the
English sound and registering its features, how it sounds, what is its symbol, what is
the place of its articulation, what distinguishes it from other similar sounds. For
instance /p/ and /b/ both are plosive sounds, articulated by closing the lips, yet they
are different as one of them is voiced and other one is voiceless.

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Given below are the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols for English
sounds. They are usually represented in parentheses. Teachers need to ensure that
learners are able to perceive the difference in each sound.
British English Phonemic Chart American English Phonemic Chart

Fig. 3.2 British and American English IPA Symbols

Source: Google image

Generate situations for production of sounds

Once students are given sufficient exposure to the sounds and conversation in
English, they are supposedly ready to use/ utter it themselves. The teachers’
presence is desirable at this stage as the learner looks up to the teacher after each
production / performance for reinforcement and feedback and suggestion on what
and how of the sounds. They help the learner in identifying the distinctive features of
the sounds, word stress and intonation pattern.

Feedback on Performance
Time bound feedback is required for reinforcing correct production and improvising
wrong production. This exercise works best in a language laboratory. Often it
happens that they end up with miscommunication due to misplaced stress and
intonation. The English Teacher’s role is to tell the learner what is required, what they
are doing and how is it getting ‘wrong’. The caution the learner needs to exercise in
the production of certain sounds (accent- if it is not leading to intelligent
communication), the rhythm, intonation, and word stress can be highlighted by the
teacher during her feedback to the learners during practice sessions.

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Setting up of priorities
Learners are curious and in a hurry to use the target language fluently, they however
do not have the expertise knowledge, understanding and competence to priorities
what to learn? What order should they follow? The teacher acts as a guide to show
them the way to gain fluency and accuracy in the target language.

Planning relevant activities

English Teacher are in the best position to decide which activities need to be planned
to suit the level and context of the learner. Age appropriate activities need to be
selected, prepared and organized for the learner to provide them an adequate and
appropriate exposure to the target language.

Monitoring learner progress through continuous scheduled assessment

Another very significant role of a teacher is to keep an eye on the progress of the
learner. They should keep assessing the success of the learner after a specified
number of sessions. It gives an idea to the learner where he stands, how much more
he has to work hard and in which direction, besides motivating them and kindling
their interest in the process. For the language teacher, assessment helps them know
the success of the method, material and techniques used by her to meet the
objectives of her session.

Role of students
The success of learning pronunciation depends immensely on the learner’s attitude,
diligence and ownership. Unless and until the learner is motivated to learn, nothing
can be assured. The learner must enjoy the process of learning the pronunciation
through active participation in various tasks during the practice session. The learner
must be observant enough to pick up the features of sound highlighted by the
teacher. The learner should be all attention when stress and intonation is being
discussed, for observation and concentration is mandatory for appropriate imitation.

Factors Affecting Teaching-learning of Pronunciation

The mother tongue / L1

There are research findings indicating that the distinctive features of the sound system
of the mother tongue has considerable impact on the acquisition of English
pronunciation. This is the reason behind the distinct accent of individuals hailing from
different parts of the world. However, there are cases where the individual is able to

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overcome this ‘accent’. Hence, whether this factor impacts the acquisition of the
pronunciation is debatable and differs with individual cases.

Age of the learner

On surface, it appears that the young child is a better language learner as compared
to an adult. There are sufficient studies to prove this fact, however, contradictory
findings have been revealed by researches stating that the adults have exquisite
abilities of analyzing distinctive features of sounds unlike young children.
There are studies on ‘sensitive window‘ hypothesis highlighting the initial years of
child development as being the most productive and fertile phase for language
acquisition. If this was the case, all learners should be able to master the second
language given similar conditions of learning, but it seldom happens. Thus, we cannot
rely on this fact blindly.

Degree of exposure/ input rich environment

In variably, the quality of exposure to the target language should result in better
acquisition of pronunciation. But, then why is it that people living in the target
language country sometimes fail to acquire the native like proficiency in the target
language? This conveys the significance of input rich environment in the immediate
environment of the individual. If the individual lives in a country with native speakers
of the language, but the family environment uses the mother tongue of the individual,
it results in an acquisition poor environment.

Phonetic sense
There are studies supporting the significance of this factor in the process of second
language acquisition. Language learners differ on account of their phonetic sense.
Those who have an advanced phonetic sense, acquisition process will be relatively
smooth for them. However, this is not a key determinant factor, as there are cases
pointing towards learners with high phonetic sense but poor language proficiency.

Attitude towards the target language and target language community and
Identity with the culture of target language community
It is said that one man can force a horse to move to the source of water but hundred
men cannot force it to drink water. Similarly a language learner who carries a
negative attitude towards the target language, believes that that learning the target
language is a belittling experience, he will never be successful. Similarly, if a learner
understands the culture, values and traditions of the target language community, he
will be in a better position to acquire the new language. Thus, it is important for the
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language teacher to orient the learners to the target language community, its culture,
values, and traditions.

Motivation and conscience for good pronunciation

Learning a second language is not an easy process, it is a challenging process,
motivated learners are able to achieve the goals, whereas the not so motivated often
give up in between. It is the task of a teacher to ensure that the learners stay
motivated throughout.
Also, unless and until, the learner gets involved in the process, the teacher will
find it difficult to manage the teaching-learning process. It is the responsibility of the
teacher to conscious of the use of the target language by the learners, aim for
accuracy and encourage learners to develop this conscience within themselves, so
that they keep asking others and themselves if their pronunciation is good/ bad.
Thus, we may conclude that of all the factors mentioned above the last one is
the most important one and in control of the teacher.

Goals of pronunciation
English as a Second Language Learners in India look up to achieving a proficiency
level which will help them in performing their job / higher education with fair
communication with others (native and non-native speakers of the language). They
generally aspire for an ‘intelligible’ English pronunciation.
However, there are learners who aspire to acquire native like pronunciation as
they have to live with the native speakers / for their own self esteem.
Thus, the teacher needs to ascertain beforehand what level of proficiency is the
individual learner aspiring? Accordingly the objectives, method and material must be
prepared by the teacher.

Aspects of pronunciation
While teaching pronunciation, the language teacher needs to give practice in the
following aspects of pronunciation.

Sound system
The English language has 44 sounds comprising of consonant sounds and vowel
sounds. Consonant sounds are the sounds in the articulation of which there is a
stricture of complete or partial closure: lips, teeth, velar, nasal.
All other sounds are vowel sounds (Please refer to the figure on organs of
speech and list of sounds given earlier in this unit).
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The first task of the language teacher is to familiarize the learners with these
sounds and engage in drills for practicing proper articulation of these sounds.

Occurrence of consonant cluster

It is often confusing for learners to pronounce words which end with two or more
consonant sounds. As it affects their fluency and efficiency in the use of target
language. There are definite rules for pronouncing such words, the teacher must
discuss these rules with the learners.
Look at some of the consonant clusters given below:

BEGINNING CONSONANT BLENDS

bl br ch cl cr dr fl
blue brunch child cluster crate drive flag
blame brass challenge clean crab drum float
fr gl gr pl pr sc sh
freeze glue great plural prize scar shine
fragile glad grade place prime scan shake
sk sl sm sn sp st sw
skate sloth smell snail space sting swim
skirt slow smart snake special step swift
th tr tw wh wr sch scr
thorn try tweet whale write school scrap
this trick twin while wrap schedule scrub
shr sph spl spr squ str thr
shrub sphinx splash spray squat straw throw
shrunk sphere split spruce square stress throne

Fig. 3.3 Consonant Clusters (beginning)

Source: Google image

Example of a rule:
In the consonant cluster ‘sts’, the /t/ can be dropped safely: Example: pests will be
pronounced as/ pes:s/.
In the cluster ‘sks’ the ‘k’ sound may be dropped.

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Word stress
Learners keen to speak in the target language with fair degree of ‘intelligibility’ need
to know about the syllable, monosyllabic and polysyllabic words and word stress in
poly syllabic words.
A syllable is defined as a unit of pronunciation having a single vowel sound,
surrounded with or without more than one consonant sound. A word may have one,
two or more than two syllables. In a word with more than one syllable, only one
syllable gets prominence. This prominence is manifested in terms of the duration,
pitch and clarity. A stressed syllabus is pronounced for a longer duration, in a high
tone and with clarity.
A disyllabic word i.e., a word having two syllables (separated by the hyphen (-):
• Pre-’sent’, here the second syllable is stressed.
Let’s look at another example, a tri - syllabic word i.e. a word having
three syllables.
• Con-ver-’sation
You must have noticed that here, the stress is on the last syllable.
Now, look at this - another example, a poly - syllabic word i.e. a word
having more than three syllables.
• Mo-bi-li-’za-tion
Here, you will find that the stress is on the fourth syllable.
A knowledge of word stress and its rules is required for acquiring the
English rhythm.
Table 3.1 Rules for Word Stress

Rules for word stress Stress on Example 1 Example 2

Words with weak prefix Root a'bove com'pose
Di - syllabic Nouns/Adjectives First 'holy 'window
Di -Syllabic Verb Second ob'ject pre'sent
Words ending
last/final/ultimate
in -esce,-ese,-ique,-ete,-ette,-ee,-ade,-e question'naire ga'zette
syllable
er,-aire,-ain'
Words ending
in -ic,-ial,-ian,-ion,-ious,-ental,-ential Penultimate syllable 'dental mu'sician
'
Words ending
Ante penultimate
in -ate,-ise/-ize,-fy,-ty,-crat,-cy,-phy,-g 'bureaucrat 'phtograph
syllable
y,-graph,-meter'

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Rhythm
It refers to a regular repeated pattern of sounds.
The two most common rhythm noticed in the languages spoken around the world
are:
• Syllable – timed rhythm
• Stress - timed rhythm
• Stress – timed rhythm - In languages with this type of rhythm, there is
a regular occurrence of stressed syllables. Consequently the unstressed
syllables are uttered quickly or eaten up. This regular occurrence of
stressed syllables gives English its characteristic lucid rhythm.
• The length of the sentences doesn’t affect its rhythm, i.e. a simple sentence
such as:
Look at these sentences:
• I am going to Delhi.
And a fairly long one, such as:
• You are not going to that place, are you?
Will take the same time when spoken with stress timed rhythm. All the bold
words are the ones which are stressed, whereas the rest are uttered quickly
to fill up the gap. Thus, the time duration between ‘going’ and ‘Delhi/place’
(sentence 1 and 2) will remain same regardless of the fact that there is one
word in between (sentence 1) or two words (sentence 2).

Syllable – timed rhythm

By now you must have guessed that in syllable-timed rhythm there is a regular time
interval between each syllable, Languages such as Hindi, are syllable - timed. That
means that an equal time interval is observed between two syllables. Now, you
know why Indians speak English in a different way? They unknowingly make use of
syllable timed rhythm while speaking English, uttering all syllables whether stressed
or unstressed at equal interval of time.

Weak form
Now we have before us another interesting and crucial aspect of English rhythm. So
far you have studied that the Content words are stressed and uttered more clearly
than the functional words which have to be uttered quickly so as to maintain the

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characteristic rhythm of English. While speaking, these unstressed words can be

realized in two forms: weak form or strong form. A knowledge and ability to make
use of the weak forms of unstressed syllables is very essential if you want to catch
the English rhythm.
Given below is a table containing the weak forms of some of the most commonly
used functional words with examples, Read them aloud and practice.
Strong and Weak forms of Prepositions, Articles, Conjunctions, and Auxiliary
words
Table 3.2 Prepositions

Table 3.3 Conjunctions and Pronouns

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Teaching of English

Table 3.4 Articles

Table 3.5 Auxiliary Words

Sentence stress
Besides, word stress there is an interesting phenomenon called sentence stress which
is very essential to be acquired by those learning the English language. The meaning
of a sentence gets changed altogether by the shift in the word being stressed in a
particular sentence. For instance:
This book is mine.
Try saying it differently by stressing the word in bold and see the difference in the
meaning conveyed.
1. This book is mine. (not any other)
2. This book is mine. not anything else)
3. This book is mine. (not yours)

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Intonation
The melody of speech is intonation. While speaking there are times when we speak
in high tone and sometime in low tone. This pitch variation in English also needs
sufficient practice by the learners to acquire the tune of the target language. In
English Language you have two prominent tunes being used. You should note the
usage of each tone carefully, for misplaced usage creates gross break down of
communication. For instance:

Look at this sentence:

Go and open the window
When this statement is spoken with a rising tune
- it becomes a request,
Whereas when the falling tune is used for it,
- it becomes an order .
The same case happens with the usage of polite words such as, please and thank
you.
Your usage of the tune will either make your listener pleased / angry.

The falling tune:

This tune consists of a fall in the pitch from a high level to low level.
It is normally used in:
• Ordinary statements made without any implications
• Questions beginning with a question - word such as what, how, where,
why, etc. when used in a neutral way
• Commands
• Exclamations
• Question tags: when the speaker expects the listener to agree with her.
• Rhetorical questions

The rising tone:

This tune consists of a rise in the pitch of the voice from a low level to a high
level.

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It is normally used in:

• Incomplete sentences
• Polarity type Questions which demand a yes/no answer
• Non-polarity (wh-type) questions when said in a warm / friendly way
• Polite requests
• Question tags: when the speaker gives his/her listener the option to disagree
with him/her
• Repetition Questions
• Expected Responses
• Alternative Questions
• Enumeration
• Afterthought, doubt, hesitation
• Greetings, partings apologies, encouragement

Activity 2
Given below is a famous nursery rhyme usually used for practicing English
rhythm. Read it aloud. As you read along, tap on your desk or table to get the
characteristic English rhythm. Make a note of stressed syllables (‘) they need to be
uttered carefully.
As ‘I was ‘going to St ‘Ives,
I ‘met a ‘man with ‘seven ‘wives,
‘Every ‘wife had ‘seven ‘sacks,
‘Every ‘sack had ‘seven ‘cats,
‘Every ‘cat had ‘seven ‘kits,
‘Kits , ‘Cats ,’Sacks and ‘Wives ,
‘How many were ‘going to St . ‘Ives?
Check Your Progress - 1

1. What are consonant clusters? Explain with examples.

................................................................................................................
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2. What is a falling tune?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3.3 TEACHING OF VOCABULARY IN ENGLISH

“Without grammar very little can be conveyed….but without vocabulary

nothing can be conveyed”
– Wilkins (p.111, quotes in Lewis, 2000).

In order to express our thoughts and feeling in any form and mode we need to
study vocabulary particularly while learning a new language. English being a second
language or foreign language, one needs to learn vocabulary in the systematic way.
Vocabulary is intricately linked with all the language skills be it listening,
speaking, reading or writing. Hence adequate store of vocabulary is essential for
developing these language skills.
Vocabulary instructions have traditionally been concerned with:
• Having students look words up in the dictionary
• Write definitions
• Use words in sentences
• Prepare word lists
• Discussion
• Memorization
• Use of vocabulary books, and
• Vocabulary quizzes
However, latest studies and theories have revealed that these strategies do not
empower the learner to use the new vocabulary appropriately in new contexts.

What does vocabulary instruction involve?

Richards (1976) lists the following aspects the teacher must get familiar with before
introducing it to the learner:
• The meaning(s) of the word
• Its spoken and written forms
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• What “word parts” it has (e.g., any prefix, suffix, and “root” form)
• Its grammatical behavior (e.g., its word class, typical grammatical patterns
it occurs in)
• Its collocations
• Its register
• What associations it has (e.g., words that are similar or opposite in
meaning)
• What connotations it has
• Its frequency

How to teach vocabulary?

This section will present before you a plethora of activities compiled from various
sources to increase your activity bank for vocabulary instructions:
• Combining vocabulary with reading and writing activities, providing the
students with different lexical information about the words under study
• By showing actual objects and showing models this is a very useful
technique to teach vocabulary to the beginners, as it gives real experience
and sense to the learners. The words like pen, chalk, table, chair, football,
flowers, tomato, etc. can be taught in the classroom.
• Real objects or models of real objects: These are very effective and
meaningful in showing meanings but in handling of real objects, a teacher
must be practical and should not be superfluous. It is neither possible nor
necessary to bring all the things in the classroom. Therefore, some words
are to be taught by showing models. They are easily available in the
market. They are inexpensive too. Hence, teacher should make frequent
use of such models to teach vocabulary. For example, the words like tiger,
brain, elephant, airplane, etc. can be shown to the learner.
• Using demonstrations and showing pictures: Teacher can perform
some words. It can be fun and frolic. It makes the class student-centered.
Teacher can act and learners try to imitate it. For example, the words like
jump, smile, cry, nap, sleep, and dance can be demonstrated.
• Miming works well with younger students: You can mime out emotions
and everyday activities to teach new words. This method can be practiced
at ease. It can win the favour of the students as learners like dramatizations

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and can easily learn through them. Many situations can be dramatized or
demonstrated. This works well with young students or students studying a
foreign language to help introduce them to new concepts. After explaining
new vocabulary, you can then ask the students to perform the actions.
• Charts, pictures and maps: These can be used to develop students’
understanding of a particular concept or word. There are some good
picture dictionaries available in the market. Teacher should make use of
such dictionaries. For instance, using a picture of a ‘fish’, words related to
the fish, such as gills, eyes, backbone, cold-blooded, water, big, small etc.
can be taught. Zebrowska (1975:452) rightly says, ‘Learners remember
better the material that has been presented by means of visual aids’. Some
words work well with pictures, particularly nouns. This can also be a good
way to introduce blocks of related words, which is often utilized in foreign
language classes, such as nouns and verbs related to the classroom or the
house.
• Pictures: Pictures can also be used in printable worksheets and flashcards,
where pictures are matched to the word they represent.
• Teaching vocabulary in context: Words taught in isolation are generally
not retained. In addition, in order to grasp the full meaning of a word or
phrase, students must be aware of the linguistic environment in which the
word or phrase appears. Setting a good context which is interesting,
plausible, vivid and has relevance to the lives of the learners, is an essential
prerequisite for vocabulary teaching as it helps in both engaging the
attention of the learners and naturally generating the target vocabulary.
Maintaining the context and making sure the language surrounding the
context is easy to comprehend, the teacher should start eliciting the target
vocabulary. Therefore, in selection of vocabulary, the teacher must be sure
that the words or phrases chosen can be immediately incorporated into the
students’ linguistic range. Stahl (2005) stated, “Vocabulary knowledge is
knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only implies a definition, but also
implies how that word fits into the world.”
• Etymology: Every word has its origin and its story of how it gets its
current meanings. Because of its physical and meaningful origin, the
etymology of a word is often found much easier to be comprehended than
the bare linguistic symbol and its present semantic meanings. So, whenever

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we teach an English word that is completely strange, we can ask students

to look it up in a dictionary or other reference books, and or surf on the
internet to find its origin. The interesting stories behind a word’s birth can
be a very good reminder for students to remember the particular word.
Thus, learning the etymology of a word will certainly promote students’
comprehension of new words.
• By drawing pictures: It is an easy and quick technique of introducing
vocabulary to the learners. For students, drawing can be a fun medium to
explain vocabulary. It is not necessary that teacher must be an expert in
drawing pictures accurately. He can draw rough sketches to make an idea
clear. Basic sketches will often work well. You can even have students do
their own drawings, which further reinforces their understanding of the
vocabulary.
• Comparative words and prepositions can be made clear by simple
sketches. Pictures of many types and colours can be used successfully to
show the meaning of words and sentence.
• Drawings can be used to explain the meaning of things, actions, qualities,
and relations.
• Associated vocabulary: If one topic consists of number of words, it is
easy to teach these entire words altogether. For example, it is easier to
teach words like orange, banana, grapes, lemon, pineapple, mango, and
watermelon together in the context of ‘fruits’ than to teach anyone of these
words in isolation. Examples of lexical fields: Parts of the Face as: (a) parts
of the face- forehead, brow, temples, nose, nostrils, bridge/tip of the nose,
septum, mouth, lips, eyes, eyebrows, eyelids, eyelashes, chin, cheeks, jaw,
and jowls.
• Using morphological analysis of words Morphology is the study of words
in different terms, showing how words are broken down into smaller units,
and how such units are recognized. That is to say, by using the analysis of
morphemes of words, we can find out the meaning of words, even some of
unfamiliar English words. It is estimated that there are over 600,000 English
words concerned with the roots and affixes. But the roots and affixes are
limited in numbers and simple in meaning. And the most commonly used
roots and affixes are only 600-800 in number. By using the analysis of
roots, affixes, and word structure, we can teach thousands of English

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words. For example: “hand/handle/handful/handicap/handsome/

beforehand...”.
• Dictionary: It is an important tool in the teaching and learning of
vocabulary. Teacher should encourage students to search words in
dictionaries. Therefore, the habit of its use should be inculcated right from
the beginning. Gonzalez (1999) found that dictionary work was laborious
but necessary, and that ESL college students need to be taught practical
use of the dictionary. Exploring dictionary entries can be one important and
effective component of understanding a word deeply. The entries can also
help students determine the precise meaning of a word Allen (1983:82)
perceives, ‘Dictionaries are passport to independence and see them as one
of the student - centered learning activities’. The following are some current
recommended English - English dictionaries:
o Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary,
o Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English,
o Cambridge International Dictionary of English,
o Oxford Picture Dictionary.
• Collocation: It’s a widely accepted idea that collocations are very
important part of knowledge and they are essential to non-native speakers
of English in order to speak or write fluently. Nattinger (1980) in Carter
and Mac McCarthy (1988), “It teaches students expectations about which
sorts of words go with which ones. Students will not go about
reconstructing the language each time they want to say something” The
term collocation generally refers to the way in which two or more words
are typically used together. For example, we talk about heavy rain but not
heavy sun, or we say that we make or come to a decision, but we don’t do
a decision. So, heavy rain and make a decision are often referred to as
collocations and we say that heavy collocates with rain. Collocations
include: [1]Verb + Noun (e.g. break a code, lift a blockade) [2]Verb +
Adverb (e.g. affect deeply, appreciate sincerely) [3]Noun + Verb (e.g.
water freezes, clock ticks) [4]Adjective + Noun (e.g. strong tea, best
wishes) [5] Adverb + Adjective (e.g. deeply absorbed, closely related)
• Synonyms: A synonym may be used to help the student to understand the
different shades of meaning, if the synonym is better known than the word

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being taught. Synonyms help to enrich a student’s vocabulary bank and

provide alternative words instantly. These can be effective since they build
on words and phrases that students already recognize. Use caution that
you do imply that all the words have exactly the same meaning, since
different words often are used for different connotations or to imply
different meanings. The same procedure can be used to elicit synonyms.
The teacher needs to highlight the fact that “true” synonyms are relatively
rare and the answers will often be “near” synonyms. The students could
make crosswords, word snakes or other puzzles for each other using these
synonyms.
• Play way: method students were asked to bring daily five new words
which were not familiar to them from the text-book. At the end of each
session they were asked to tell the word, its spelling and its meaning in
English. They were banned to see the notebook where these words were
written. If they were not able to give the correct word its spelling and
meaning, they were asked to bring new ten words next day. Such an
exercise was fruitful for the learner.
• Antonyms: The students were asked to make lists of opposite words. Two
groups were made; one group gave one word while the other group asked
to give an opposite word to it. For example, sharp/blunt, rude/polite,
flexible/rigid, generous/mean etc. One group gave word ‘sharp’ and the
other group gave opposite word for it as ‘blunt’. Marks were written on
the board. They found it very interesting and memorized more words in
order to win the contest. Thus, by play way method they can learn new
words.
• Words often confused: The long list of often-confused words was made
in the class and students were asked to use them in sentences from the
brackets. Teacher should provide the meaning of such words, if necessary.
For examples: adopt: adapt, beside: besides, principal: principle etc.
• Homonyms / Homophones: These are words of the same language that
are pronounced alike even if they differ in spelling, meaning, or origin, such
as “pair” and “pear”. Homophones may also be spelled alike, as in “bear”
(the animal) and “bear” (to carry). But this list consists only of homophones
that are not spelled alike. ant/aunt eye/I ate/eight fare/fair bear/bare sea/see
son/sun stationary/stationery steal/steel threw/through throne/thrown be/bee

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blew/blue by/bye/buy beach/beech cell/sell cent/scent/sent census/senses

cereal/serial die/dye
• Word Map: Students work in small groups to learn connections among
words by brainstorming and organizing words according to a map that they
design or a blank one that is provided by the teacher. An example might be
a key-concept word in the center of the page with rays connecting related
words. For example, when asked to give words they thought of when they
heard the word “faithfulness”, low-intermediate ESL students generated
sixteen words or phrases: cat, friend, family, reliance, trust, dishonest,
unfaithfulness, believe in friendships, bonds, obey, dog, friendly, sexual
unfaithful, gossiping, marriage, love.
• Thesaurus: A kind of dictionary where the words of similar meanings, or
synonyms / antonyms are arranged in similar groups. The main purpose of
such reference works is to help the user “to find the word, or words, by
which [an] idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed” – to quote Peter
Mark Roget, architect of the best known thesaurus in the English language.
Unlike a dictionary, thesaurus does not provide meanings or definitions of
the words searched.
• Teaching idioms: An idiom is a phrase or expression in which the entire
meaning is different from the usual meanings of the individual words within
it. Idioms are fun to work with because they are part of everyday
vocabulary. Students enjoy working with figurative meanings. They also
enjoy finding out about the origins of idiomatic expressions, some of which
are very old. Point out to students that idioms are often used in writing or
speech to make expression more colorful and that some of the most
colorful English idioms make use of animals or animal comparisons.
• Phrasal verbs: Teachers should include phrasal verbs in their classroom
language as much as possible – and draw attention to these from time to
time. There are many phrasal verbs in the English language and they are
used in normal, everybody speech and writing. Phrasal verbs mean words
consisting of a verb and a particle (preposition or adverb). The meaning of
a phrasal verb is different from the meaning of each word if it was
considered separately. Common classroom expressions incorporating
phrasal verbs are: sit down, put your hand up, turn your papers over, write
this down, cover the page up, look it up, hurry up and calm down!

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• Crossword puzzle: Crossword puzzles offer an entertaining way of

reviewing vocabulary. Students can do the puzzles in class in pairs, as a
race with other students, or at home as homework.
• The teacher can also design a “Word Puzzle,” which is also called a
“Word Cross”, asking the students to cooperate in groups to find and circle
the words that the puzzle contains. The teacher might also place several
versions of the word in the puzzle, with only one of them being the correct
spelling. The students must circle only the word with the correct spelling.
• Word formation: Teacher should encourage students to enrich and
expand their vocabulary. There are different ways to expand the
vocabulary of the students. By studying the morphology, we know that it
not only concerns with the morphemes of words, but also the word-
formation. In English classes, teachers should help students to get to know
the processes of word-formation.
• Morphological rules: These reveal the relations between words and
provide the means in formation of new words. That is to say, these rules
determine how morphemes are combined to form words. Nowadays,
teachers in colleges have paid much more attention to the teaching of the
morphological rules of English word formation in their classes. But still we
have a lot of work to do. The expansion of vocabulary in modern English
depends chiefly on word-formation. According to Pyles and Algeo (1982),
words produced through affixation constitute 30% to 40% of the total
number of new words; compounding yields 28% to 30% of all the new
words; words that come from shortening including clipping and acronym,
amounting to 8% to 10%, together with 1% to 5% of words born out of
blending and other means. So by analyzing the processes of English word
formation, we can infer word-meanings and learn more new English words.
• Reading the word: Reading words aloud is also very beneficial. It makes
a learner familiar with the word and also improves pronunciations of the
learners. Sound can be an easy way to illustrate words that describe
sounds, such as whistle, scratching, and tinkling. You can make the sounds
yourself, or bring in tapes or CDs for students to listen to and write down
the words that they hear. The situation can be made easy and interesting, if
the teacher of English selects the vocabulary, grades the vocabulary and

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uses different techniques in the classroom. Teachers should focus on

vocabulary, as it is the most essential aspect in any language and means of
communication. We cannot express our feelings without words. Wallace
(1982) states, ‘Not being able to find the word you need to express
yourself is the most frustrating experience in speaking another language’
(p.9). Series, scales, systems. The meaning of words such as the months of
the year, the days of the week, the parts of the day, seasons of the year,
ordinal numbers, cardinal numbers, etc. that form part of well-known series
can be made clear by placing them in their natural order in the series. If you
have several gradable words to introduce at the same, you can introduce
them together on a scale. For instance, you can use frequency, such as
always-often-occasionally or emotions in this way, with cheerful-happy-
joyous-ecstatic.
• Role play: Role-play is to create the presence of a real life situation in the
classroom. It is important in the classroom communication because it gives
students an opportunity to practice communicatively in different social
contexts and in different social roles. The language applied in this activity is
varied according to the student’s status, attitudes, mood, and different
situations. Blachowicz, et al., (2006) speaks, “Teachers can introduce
some of the words which provide both definitional and contextual
information about the words to be learned by making up a dialogue for
students so that students can understand a further meaning and usage of the
words.”
• Use video to produce target vocabulary: Select a video segment that
contains a series of actions or visual detail. Provide the learners with a list
of target vocabulary words and ask them to construct a paragraph that
incorporates as many of the words as possible. This activity is best done
after the learners have seen the video. As they learn how to use more
vocabulary properly, you will see an improvement in their writing and
speaking. Teacher can also show a short film without sound and asking
pupils to discuss what dialogue they would expect to hear. Showing a
scene from a film without sound and asking pupils to use the facial
expression to determine emotion.

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Corder (1973:223) rightly observes, ‘The more words one knows, the easier it
is to ‘learn’ new words, because one has more associative link available’. There is
no sure fire remedy or method to enhance vocabulary in a day or two.
A student’s vocabulary bank can be enriched on a gradual basis and one should
always show keen interest and enthusiasm in finding, learning and understanding new
words. Teaching vocabulary through incidental, intentional, and independent
approaches requires teachers to plan a wide variety of activities and exercises.
Richards said, “When vocabulary items are being taught to pupils, teachers need
to consider how to teach these words to pupils based on the levels of ages,
educational background and field of interest. The teacher also ought to recognize
such sociolinguistic variables in which the words will be used” (p. 73).”

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Differentiate between a dictionary and thesaurus.

................................................................................................................
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................................................................................................................

2. What are morphological rules?

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3.4 TEACHING OF STRUCTURES AND GRAMMAR IN

ENGLISH

“Grammar is the business of taking a language to pieces, to see how it works.”

(David Crystal)
What does the word ‘Grammar’ convey to you? It refers to:
• Language user’s subconscious internal system
• Linguists’ attempt to organize, codify or describe that system
• Sounds of language: Phonology
• Structure and form of words: Morphology
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• Arrangement of words into larger units: Syntax

• Meanings of language: Semantics
• Functions of language and its use in context: Pragmatics
• Grammar is the system of a language. The “Grammar” is simply a reflection
of a language at a particular time.
• Grammar acts as a prism which conveys the different shades inherent in the
text
The kinds of meanings realized by Grammar are said to be principally:
• Representational - that is, Grammar enables us to use language to
describe the world in terms of how, when and where things happen. For
instance: The sun rises in the east. The milkman is at the door.
• Interpersonal - that is, Grammar facilitates the way we interact with other
people when, for example, we need to get things done using language. For
instance there is a difference between:
o Open the door!
o Can you open the door?
o Why don’t you open the door?
o Do you mind opening the door?
o You have to open the door.
o Door open.
Do you see the difference in each of the abovementioned statements?

Should we teach Grammar?

Practitioners and linguists over a period of time have put forth numerous reasons for
making teaching of Grammar an essential school activity in the process of second
language acquisition. Some of them are presented hereunder as it is:

1. The sentence-machine argument

The process of language learning can be seen as a dual process: Item-learning —
that is the memorization of individual items such as sounds, words, phrases, and
basic structures. However, there is a limit to the number of items a person can both
retain and retrieve. So there is a need to acquire the skill of making sentences which
can happen only through grammar, grammar is a kind of ‘sentence-making machine’.

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It follows that the teaching of grammar offers the learner the means for potentially
limitless linguistic creativity. The number of possible new sentences is constrained
only by the vocabulary at the learner’s command and his or her creativity.

2. The fine-tuning argument

The purpose of grammar seems to be to allow for accuracy of meaning in language
use, which is otherwise not possible through lexical items. While it is possible to get
a lot of communicative mileage out of simply stringing words and phrases together,
there comes a point where ‘baby on chair’ type of primitive language output fails to
deliver, both in terms of intelligibility and in terms of appropriateness. The teaching of
grammar, it is argued, serves as a corrective against the kind of ambiguity
represented in this example.

3. The fossilisation argument

Highly motivated learners with a special aptitude for languages may be capable of
achieving high levels of proficiency without any formal study. But those learner who
pick up language during class session, it is difficult as their linguistic competence
fossilizes over a period of time. Research suggests that learners who receive no
instruction seem to be at risk of fossilising sooner than those who do receive
instruction.

4. The advance-organiser argument

Grammar instruction might also have a delayed effect. As evident in the work of
researcher Richard Schmidt who kept a diary of his experience learning Portuguese
in Brazil. He concluded that formal instruction in grammar made him more observant
and conscious of language use. It had acted as a kind of advance organiser for his
later acquisition of the language.

5. The discrete item argument

The practice of teaching grammar enables the learner to organize facts related to
language use in definite categories, thus helping him to systematizing the abstract and
limitless nature of the target language.
(A discrete item is any unit of the grammar system that is sufficiently narrowly
defined to form the focus of a lesson or an exercise: e.g. the present continuous, the
definite article, possessive pronouns).

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6. The rule-of-law argument

It follows from the discrete-item argument that, since grammar is a system of
learnable rules, it lends itself to the effective transmission of knowledge of the target
language. It is believed that grammar offers the teacher a structured system that can
be taught and tested in methodical steps.

7. The learner expectations argument

Language learners are often not able to pick up the target language despite input rich
environment. They feel frustrated and are on the verge of getting demotivated and
giving up. Such learners when they join a language class, they expect that will be
taught the language in a systematic manner, somebody will analyze the structure of
the target language and make it more comprehensible and systematic for them which
is generally not possible in classes where experience in the use of the target language
is given.

Presenting Grammar: Approaches

The different approaches to teaching of grammar are discussed in the sections given
below:

1. The deductive approach – rule followed by examples

A deductive approach starts with the presentation of a rule and is followed by
examples in which the rule is applied. The grammar rule is presented and the learner
engages with it through the study and manipulation of examples.
Advantages of a deductive approach
• It gets straight to the point, hence it is time-saving.
• Rules of form are better explained than elicited from examples. Thus giving
more time for practice and application.
• It respects the intelligence and maturity of learners especially adult learners
• It acknowledges the role of cognitive processes (learner strategies) in
language acquisition.
• It caters to learning styles of learners such as those with analytical learning
style.
• It allows the teacher to deal with language points as they come, rather than
demanding advance preparation.

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Disadvantages of a deductive approach

• Young learners may get put off with the teaching of rules at the start
• They may not have sufficient metalanguage (i.e. language used to talk about
language such as grammar terminology).
• They may not be able to understand the related concepts involved.
• It encourages a teacher-fronted, transmission-style classroom;
• Student involvement and interaction is reduced to a significant level
• Explanation is not always as involving as other methods such as
demonstration, exploration, and inquiry.
• It encourages the belief that learning a language is simply a case of knowing
the rules.

What is a rule?
It appears that learning a language involves a fair understanding of the rules of that
language. In the Longman Activity Dictionary “rule” is defined as:
• A principle or order which guides behaviour, says how things are to
be done (Prescriptive rule)
Examples of prescriptive rules:
(i) Never end a sentence with a preposition.
• The usual way that something happens (Descriptive rule).
Descriptive rules are more practical and primarily concerned with
generalizations about what speakers of the language actually do and say
than what they should do.
Examples of descriptive rules:
(i) Auxiliary verbs come before the subject in questions.
• Provide learners with the means and confidence to generate
language with a reasonable chance of success. (Pedagogic rules)
Pedagogic rules can be categorized as- rules of form and rules of use.
For example:
Rule of Use
‘The’ definite article is used in a definite and particular sense e.g.
• The earth moves around the sun. (i.e. ‘obvious earth and obvious sun’)
• The cats that Maya keeps are not for sale.
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Rule of Form
To form the past simple of regular verbs, add –ed to the infinitive.
The criteria for a good rule is that it is easy to understand, remember and
apply.

Pedagogic Grammar
Pedagogic Grammars is characterized by:
• Assumptions about how learners learn
• Follow certain linguistic theories in their descriptions
• Are written for a specific target audience
• Is generally prescriptive
• Often includes or is accompanied by a set of complementary exercises.

What qualifies a rule a good rule?

Michael Swan, offers the following criteria:
• Truth: Rules should be true. The rule must bear some resemblance to the
reality it is describing.
• Limitation: Rules should show clearly what the limits are on the use of a
given form. For example, to say simply that we use ‘will’ to talk about the
future is of little help to the learner since it doesn’t show how ‘will’ is
different from other ways of talking about the future (e.g. going to).
• Clarity: Rules should be clear otherwise it will result in ambiguity or
obscure terminology.
• Simplicity: Rules should be simple. There is a limit to the amount of
exceptions a learner can remember.
• Familiarity: An explanation should try to make use of concepts already
familiar to the learner.
• Relevance: A rule should answer only those questions that the student
needs answered. These questions may vary according to the mother tongue
of the learner.

How to present a rule?

An effective rule presentation will include the following steps:
• It will be illustrated by an example
• It will be short and precisely stated
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• Students’ understanding will be checked

• Students will have an opportunity to internalize and personalize the rule.

2. The inductive approach – the rule-discovery path

In this approach to teaching, language starts with examples and asks learners to find
rules.

Advantages
• Discover for rules on their own, this way it is likely to fit their existing
mental structures .This will make the rules more meaningful, and usable.
• Cognitive processing of the examples in the process of identifying the rules
aids greater memorability and development of cognitive learner strategies
• Plays an active role hence it guarantees attention and concentration
• Engages in problem solving and critical thinking
• Is involved in collaborative interaction with the peers teacher thus availing
the benefit of extra language practice
• Gains greater self-reliance and this fits with communicative approach and
learner autonomy and self-directed learning.

Disadvantages
• The form might take precedence rather than the practical application of
these rules in real life situation.
• Too much time is lost in unravelling the underlying rule which may well be
devoted to practice.
• Wrong rule / hypothesis might be created by the learner which may lead to
serious problem if not tested and checked by the teacher.
• The task of teachers is increased as she has to compile data which is
intelligible and appropriate in order to allow students generalize the rule.
• Many language areas such as aspect and modality resist easy rule
formulation.
• frustrates students owing to their personal learning style

3. Functional-notional approach (teaching of structure and functions)

This method of language teaching stresses a means of organizing a language
syllabus by breaking down the global concept of language into units of analysis in
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terms of communicative situations in which they are used .This approach comes
under the communicative approach to language teaching. This approach was an
offshoot of Wilkins publication in 1972. In 1976, he concretized his idea in the
form of Notional Syllabuses .Here, he categorized language under categories/
notions such as quantity, location and time, and functions such as placing order,
booking tickets making requests, making offers, and apologizing, requesting and
so on.
The council of Europe also prepared course book on the basis of these syllabus.
Such course books generally begin with the function of ‘introducing oneself’,
perhaps followed by the function of ‘making requests ’, with typical exponents
being:
‘Can I ….?’, ‘Could you ….?’, ‘Is it alright if I ….?’ and so on.
These structures and functions were further practiced in the form of
communicative exercises involving pair work, group work and role plays. In
contrast to typical grammatical syllabus, where, structures using the word
‘would’ tend to appear in later stages of the syllabus, owing to their relative
complexity. In a functional syllabus ‘would’ is introduced at a very early stage
due to its communicative significance in exponents such as ‘Would you like
….?’, which is extremely common and of great communicative value even to
beginners.
Explanation of specific terms:
A notion is a concept, or idea, which may be quite specific, or may be very general
– such as time, size, emotion, movement. It may be time past , may include past
tenses, phrases like a month ago, in 1990, last week, and utterances using temporal
clauses beginning with when….., before…., after….and so on.
A function is some kind of communicative act. It is the use of language to
achieve a purpose, usually involving interaction at least between two people.
Examples would be suggesting, promising, apologizing, greeting, inviting.
“Inviting” may include phrases like “Would you mind….? I prefer…., What
about…? Excuse…”

Activity 3
Look at the items listed below. Can you categorize them into separate lists of notions
and functions?

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appeal Proposition Request

remorse Promise Time relations
Advise the future Drinks
appeal Crime supervision
apology the body remind
Another significant aspect of this kind of syllabus is situation. The place where a
dialogue takes place brings variations of language such as use of dialects, formal/
informal nature of the language and the mode of expression. Situation includes the
following elements:
• Who is taking part in the speech act?
• Where does the conversation occurs?
• What time does the speech act takes place?
• What is being discussed?
Exponents are the language utterances or statements that stem from the
function, the situation and the topic.

Functional categories of language

The functional categories mentioned by Mary Finocchiaro under five headings are
listed below: personal, interpersonal, directive, referential, and imaginative.

Personal
Clarifying or arranging one’s ideas: expressing one’s thoughts or feelings: love,
joy, pleasure, happiness, surprise, likes, satisfaction, dislikes, disappointment,
distress, moral, intellectual and social concerns; and the everyday feelings of hunger,
thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, cold, or warmth.

Interpersonal
Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships,
greetings and leave takings, introducing people to others, identifying oneself to
others, expressing joy at another’s success, expressing concern for other people’s
welfare extending and accepting invitations, and so on…

Directive
Attempting to influence the actions of others; accepting or refusing direction,
making suggestions in which the speaker is included: making requests; making

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suggestions, refusing to accept a suggestion or a request but offering an

alternative; persuading someone to change his point of view, requesting and
granting permission, asking for help, and responding to a plea for help forbidding
someone to do something; issuing a command, giving and responding to
instructions, and others.

Referential
Talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the
past or in the future, talking about language (what is termed the metalinguistic
function: = talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the
environment in the past or in the future, identifying items or people in the classroom,
the school the home, the community asking for a description of someone or
something, defining something or a language item or asking for a definition,
paraphrasing, summarizing, or translating (L1 to L2 or vice versa) explaining or
asking for explanations of how something works, comparing or contrasting things
and others.

Imaginative
Discussions involving elements of creativity and artistic expression, discussing a
poem, a story, a piece of music, a play, a painting, a film, a TV program, etc.
expanding ideas suggested by other, or by a piece of literature, or reading material,
creating rhymes, poetry, stories, or plays, recombining familiar dialogs, or passages,
creatively suggesting original beginnings or endings to dialogs or stories solving
problems or mysteries.

4. Teaching grammar through stories

Stories can be an interesting means for both eliciting and illustrating grammar points.
If used appropriately, the story telling technique can prove to be a versatile one due
to the following benefits:
• Holds students’ attention
• They enjoy it most
• Good for context based teaching of points

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Sample 1: Teaching Grammar through Stories

Source: http://www.really-learn-english.com/english-grammar-tenses.html

The above mentioned story can be used for teaching past tenses. Look at the
one given on the next page, it is suitable for teaching present tense.

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Sample 2: Teaching Grammar through Stories

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Source: http://www.e4thai.com/e4e/images/pdf/English-Grammar-through-Stories-English-
Team-Blog.pdf

5. Teaching grammar through songs

It is a great idea to teach English Grammar through songs as:
• Songs are enchanting and culturally rich resources
• Offer a change from routine classroom activities

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• Help develop students’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

• Lend themselves to varied use of language items such as sentence patterns,
vocabulary, pronunciation, rhythm, adjectives, and adverbs.
• Are catchy and re-usable
• Provides a non-threatening atmosphere for students
• Give new insights into the target culture
• Prove to be excellent memory aids
• Take care of different learning styles of learners
• Provides for learners with different intelligences
• Excellent means to present cultural themes effectively.
• The authentic nature of songs motivates the learners
• The use of prosodic features such as stress, rhythm, intonation makes it
easier to analyze language into a series of structural points which becomes
a whole again.
• Songs are highly memorable and motivating.
• Through the use of traditional folk songs, the foundation of learners’
knowledge of the target culture can be strengthened.
• Songs inspire creativity and use of imagination in the learners
• Involving learners in the selection of the songs is also motivating, and will
make learners self-reliant, feel involved and share ownership of the learning
process.
• Scope for integrated teaching learning process
• Fostering skill of critical thinking through reflections
• Help in confidence building

The key elements in using a song for teaching Grammar

• Age of learners
• Proficiency level
• Interest
• Grammar points to be studied
• Song
• Teacher motivation
• Creativity of teachers
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The song may be used for developing the following activities:

• Focus questions
• Information Gap
• Sequencing
• Discuss and describe
• Opinion based tasks
For instance for present tense ‘Let It Be’ by the Beatles can be considered.

Sample 1: Teaching Grammar through Songs

Let It Be
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the broken-hearted people

Living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Yeah, there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Let it be, let it be

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Ah, let it be, yeah, let it be

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the night is cloudy

There is still a light that shines on me
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music,
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, yeah, let it be
Oh, there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it

Source: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/letitbe.html

For past tense ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles can be considered.

Sample 2: Teaching Grammar through Songs

-
Yesterday

Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away.

Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be.

There’s a shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday love was such an easy game to play.

Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

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Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.

I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday love was such an easy game to play.

Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm
Source: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/yesterday.html
Sample 3: Teaching Grammar through Songs

Source: http://songsforteaching.com/brainchildren/grammar_s/02henrykingofprepositions.pdf

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6. Teaching of grammar through poems

In a similar way poems can also be used for teaching grammar concepts.

For instance:
Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
– William Wordsworth
The above mentioned poem can be used for teaching framing questions using
Wh questions, passive form of verbs and so on.

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7. Essentials of teaching Grammar

• It should be contextualized
• It should be useful / applicable
Teach grammar to provide opportunities for learners to improve
communication skills.
• It should be economical
Too much time need not be devoted to teaching of grammar points, instead
more time should be used for practicing in context.
• It should have relevance
It is a good idea to know the problem areas of the learners, concepts they
are not comfortable with, in which they have application difficulty. Only
those concepts should be picked up by the teacher for teaching grammar.
• It should be in a learning - friendly environment
Besides the role of teacher, instructional methods and materials, the learning
environment also plays a significant role in the teaching of grammar. The
teacher should make efforts to provide a more supportive environment.
• It should be learner friendly
It may sound a little difficult to cater to the diversity in learners in terms of
their level, needs, interests, expectations and learning styles, it’s very much
desirable for your success as a language teacher, material developer and
task setter. Hence, teaching should aim to cater these individual learner
needs.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What are the characteristics of pedagogic grammar?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. Write the names of the functional categories of language.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
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3.5 TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
— Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

“When I say to a parent, “read to a child”, I don’t want it to sound like medicine.
I want it to sound like chocolate.”
— Mem Fox
This section will focus on the significant skill of reading. As they say reading
makes a man perfect, developing reading skills among learners is the primary goal of
language education in our country.
It is believed that if the reading skills are developed the learner will acquire other
related language sills, will become a self-directed, autonomous learner who will be
competent to chart his own success story.
The teaching of reading skills lesson is generally executed in three small steps:
Pre reading: The learner is exposed to some thoughts, ideas, case studies, reports
or perspective on the theme of the reading text. This creates a frame of reference for
the learner. The teacher may even engage the learners in small discussion /
brainstorming session to prepare them for reading the text.
While reading : While reading the learner has to stay focused to gauge meaning of
the text and comprehend fully what the text is about , some task sheet on vocabulary
– word attack, etc. may be used, they might be asked to underline the theme
statement, its supporting details, etc.
Post reading: After the reading is over, the interpretation of the learner may be
shared in the class. So that there is an exchange of thoughts and perspective.
Learners may be asked to write a letter to the characters of the text, they may tell
the story giving it a different ending.

Subskills of reading
In our real life we often engage in reading one text or the other, we encounter a wide
variety of texts, which we generally read for two purposes:
• For information, or
• For pleasure
These reading texts differ on account of their:
• Content
• Style
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• Purpose
• Density
While reading these varied texts we use different types of sub skills of reading. They
include:
• Skimming
• Scanning
• Intensive Reading
• Extensive Reading

1. Skimming
When we read a text quickly to get an overall idea of the contents, in order to get a
gist, we engage in the process of skimming. For instance, when we go through the
blurb of a book, we read quickly so that we may make a decision whether or not to
pick it up for reading, if it is relevant to your coursework / whether it is of your
interest area or not.

Activity 4
List the different types of things you read.
1. ___________________
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
4. ___________________
5. ___________________
6. ___________________
7. ___________________
8. ___________________
9. ___________________
Now, that your list is ready, can you specify a reason / purpose for which you read
them ?
1. ___________________
2. ___________________
3. ___________________

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4. ___________________
5. ___________________
6. ___________________
7. ___________________
8. ___________________
9. ___________________

Good, does your response look something like this?

Things We read Purpose
Novels, short stories, fiction For pleasure
Non-fiction, textbooks, travel books, For specific information
encyclopedias
Forms, applications, questionnaires To find details
Labels, posters, displays at airports, stations, etc. To have an overall idea
Letters, reports, proposals For having a general idea

Does your reading speed depend on the type of the text you are reading?
————————————————————————————————
————————————————————————————————

Reading speed
Our reading speed varies for different types of texts, for instance, while reading a
novel, we do not read each and every word slowly, rather our reading speed is fast.
This speed comes due to the process of ‘chunking’.
‘Chunking’ refers to the technique of taking words in ‘chunks’- that is instead of
taking single word at a time, the reader picks up a ‘chunk’- words that make a
sensible unit, such as phrases, clauses, or complete sentence.

Process of skimming
Reading for gist or overall idea involves:
• Reading the text quickly for general information (skimming),
• Mentally summarizing the information for later use, and
• Remembering only keywords and not details

Activities for practicing skimming

• Read the title, subtitles and subheading to find out what the text is about.
• Look at the illustrations to give you further information about the topic.
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• Read the first and last sentence of each paragraph.

• Don’t read every word or every sentence. Let your eyes skim over the
text, taking in key words.
• Continue to think about the meaning of the text.

When to use skimming?

• To know the overall sense or the main ideas of a text.
• Large amounts of reading and limited time to review it in detail.
• For seeking specific information rather than reading for comprehension or
pleasure.
• To make decision, such as - should the book be read at all, or in more
detail.
• To know if a text may be of interest in one’s research.

2. Scanning
This subskill requires learners to read through the given text quickly for a specific
piece of information or a given word. For instance looking for a telephone number
in the telephone directory, consulting dictionary for a specific word and so on. We
specifically look for key words by moving our eyes a bit quickly.
Scanning is a distinct reading strategy involving rapid but focused reading of text, in
order to locate specific information, e.g. looking for particular details such as dates,
names, or certain types of words. It is processing print at a high speed while looking
for answers to specific questions. When you scan, you must begin with a specific
question which has a specific answer. Scanning for information in this way should be
both fast and accurate. We usually scan the following material in our daily life:
• Simple: lists, dictionaries, thesaurus, railway-timetable, tables, signs,
classified ads
• Less simple: yellow pages, reference works, tables of contents, indices
(indexes), web pages
• Complex: continuous prose - documents, articles, books, long description

Process of scanning
• Start at the beginning of the passage.
• Move your eyes quickly over the lines, looking for key words related to the
information you want to find.
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• Stop scanning and begin reading as soon as you find any of the key words
you’re looking for.
• Use clues on the page, such as headings and titles, to help you. Such as: In
a dictionary or phone book, use the ‘header’ words to help you scan.

When to use it
• To find a particular or specific piece of information.
• To extract specific details from a text.
• To save time in while reading a book or article and knowing what it
contains
• For example:
o The Editorial section of your newspaper.
o A train / airplane schedule
o A seminar brochure

Activities for practicing scanning

1. Locate the name and address of dentist in the yellow pages
2. Look up a favourite recipe in the index of a cookbook
3. Search for the contact number of physiotherapist clinic in your area from
the telephone directory
4. Scan web pages on the Internet to find specific information.

3. Intensive and extensive reading

While reading a text silently the reader two subskills:
• Intensive Reading, and
• Extensive Reading
The following sections will discuss the what, when, and how of these subskills of
reading.

Intensive reading
Brown (1989) draws the analogy of ‘zoom lens’ for intensive reading. In his words:
this type of reading’calls attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers, and
other surface structure details for the purpose of understanding literal meaning,
implications, rhetorical relationships, and the like.’

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It is sometimes referred to as ‘narrow reading’.

Aspects of intensive reading

• Generally confined to a classroom
• Reader is intensely involved in looking  inside the text
• Reader focuses on linguistic or semantic details of a reading
• Reader focusses on surface structure details such as grammar and
discourse markers
• Reader identifies key vocabulary
• Readers may engage in concept mapping strategy to help them analyzing
the text (such as in problem solving)
• Texts are read carefully and thoroughly, repeatedly
• The purpose is to gain language knowledge rather than simply practice the
skill of reading
• It is more commonly used than extensive reading in classrooms

Materials appropriate for intensive reading

• Very short texts - not more than 500 words in length
• According learner’s level of difficulty text is selected by the teacher/
content developer
• Focus on types of reading and skills that the teacher wants to cover in the
course for that specific group of learners

What does it involve?

• Practice in reading the text rapidly
• Interpreting text by using:
o Word attack skills: guessing the meaning of a word from context
           o Text attack skills – understanding the sentence syntax, for instance –
‘I am happy is a statement’, and ‘Am I happy?’ is a question.
           o Non-text information: utilizing non text information such as
punctuation, for comprehension.
o Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices such as- moreover,
however, but, and so on: She was ill yet she went to school/ She was
ill but she attended school.
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o Interpreting discourse markers

o Tracing and interpreting rhetorical organizations: Politicians are liars.
They keep fooling the common man (exemplification).
o Recognizing pre supposition underlying a statement: I can’t believe the
teacher has not considered your case. (Presupposition – teacher is
empathetic)
o Recognizing implications and making inferences: All that glitters is not
gold. (inference-one should not be beguiled by appearances)
o Prediction ‘Tatas dump Cyrus Mistry as chairman, recall Ratan’ – we
expect the news to shed light on the whole episode – what, why ,
how.

Activities for developing intensive reading skills

Intensive reading exercises may include:
• Looking at main ideas versus details
• Understanding what is implied versus stated
• Making inferences
• Looking at the order of information and how it effects the message
• Identifying words that connect one idea to another
• Identifying words that indicate change from one section to another
Munby (1979) suggests four categories of questions that may be used in
intensive reading. These include:
• Plain Sense - to understand the factual, exact surface meanings in the text
• Implications - to make inferences and become sensitive to emotional tone
and figurative language
• Relationships of thought - between sentences or paragraphs
• Projective - requiring the integration of information from the text to one’s
own background information

Assessment of intensive reading

It generally takes the form of reading tests and quizzes. Multiple-choice and free-
response questions generally used. The focus is more on knowing whether they have
understood the text or not.

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Purpose of extensive reading

Practice in extensive reading is done in order to understand the

• Logical argument in the text
           Rhetorical pattern of text
Emotional, symbolic or social attitudes conveyed in the text
• Purposes of the author
Linguistic means to an end
• Complex nature of texts in academic reading

Role of the teacher

• The teacher selects a suitable text.
• The teacher designs tasks and activities to develop skills.
• The teacher sets the stage, gives direction before, during and after reading.
• The teacher prepares students technically and mentally to work on their
own.
• The teacher “gets out of the way”.
• The teacher motivates students to read and perform the tasks through
prompts, without giving answers.

Advantages
• It provides a base to study structure, vocabulary, idioms and other aspects
of language.
• It provides the teacher an opportunity to focus on specific aspects of
language and train learners in word attack, text attack strategies.
• It provides opportunities for students to develop a greater control of
language
• It provides teachers and learners themselves an opportunity to ascertain the
degree of comprehension of the text.

The success of intensive reading depends on:

• The Teacher: her competence , repertoire of ideas for activities
• The Text: its level, interesting aspect , complexity
• The learner: motivation, competence to read and comprehend

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4. Extensive reading
“The best way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language is to go and
live among the speakers. The next best way is to read extensively.”

Nuttall (1982)
In the words of Long and Richards (1971) extensive reading occurs
“when students read large amounts of high interest material, usually out of
class, concentrating on meaning, “reading for gist” and skipping unknown
words.”

Purpose of extensive reading

• Build reader confidence and enjoyment
• For the comprehension of main ideas, not for specific details.

Historical perspective
Harold Palmer (1917) in Britain and Michael West (1926) in India were pioneer in
the application of extensive reading in foreign language teaching, particularly for
developing reading skills. Palmer chose the term “extensive reading” to distinguish it
from “intensive reading”. It involved:
• Learners reading in second language without any conscious effort to
translate.
• developing independent silent reading and                                       
• increasing reading speed of individual students
• preparation of graded readers based on frequency word counts

Theoretical basis for extensive reading programmes

Extensive reading has a strong theoretical base:
Krashen’s Input Hypothesis (1982) stated that the dominant mode of language
learning is in acquisition, the largely subconscious “picking up of the language” in
informal settings and which is similar, if not identical, to the way children develop
ability in their first language. He suggested that the learner must be exposed to large
amounts of second language input. This input must be:
• Meaningful
• Interesting
• Relevant

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• Not grammatically sequenced and

• In a low anxiety setting
It is felt that extensive reading programs provide such an environment.
Rumelhart (1980) also proposed an “interactive model” of the reading
process According to him reading is a complex task of simultaneously combining
“bottom-up” processes (in which the reader analyzes text in small pieces and builds
meaning from these) and “top-down” processes (in which the reader makes
“guesses” about the content of a passage). It is believed that extensive reading
programs provide the quantities of reading practice necessary for the automaticity of
the “bottom-up” (word recognition) process.

Extensive reading programme in ESL class

Extensive reading may appear as any of the following:
• A complement to an intensive reading program
• An extra-curricular activity where students read out of class
• The main focus of a reading course (termed an Extensive Reading Program)
- where students work with a class set of books:
o Individual reading of material, of their own choice
o With follow-up activities such as reading logs, reading journals, book
reports or projects.

Characteristics of a successful extensive reading program

• Lots of opportunities for learners to read as much as possible
• Availability of a variety of materials on a range of topics
• Learners exercise their choice on what they want to read
• The purposes of reading is generally related to pleasure, information and
general understanding
• Reading is its own reward
• Reading materials are well within the linguistic competence of the students
in terms of vocabulary and grammar
• Individual and silent reading is practices
• A relatively fast reading speed is emphasized  
• Learners are briefed about the objectives of the program in advance
• The teacher acts as a role model of a reader for the students
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Some ideas for selection of texts for extensive reading

• Select graded readers  available with major publishers ( CUP, OUP,
Penguin and others)
• Texts on the same subject topic                       
• Provide varied exposure- it is believed that reading more than one text on
the same topic allows students to bring more background knowledge to
each new text read.
• Make use of Authentic materials such as newspapers, magazines, reports
that are related to the second language culture
• The style should include repetition, interest
• New vocabulary and structures should not occur at the same place
• Long texts should be divided into section
• Texts with less complex structure and less extensive vocabulary range
should be selected
• The subject matter should be of real interest to the students and suitable for
their age level
Rivers (1981) suggests the subject matter should be as close as possible to the
type of material the students would read in their first language.
Materials should be chosen that are at or below the reading ability of the student.
They are usually at a lower level of difficulty than those chosen for intensive reading.
This is for several reasons:
• It builds automatic recognition of words
• It allows the reader to see words in “chunks” of language, allowing for
faster reading.
Activities for extensive reading:
• Reading followed by speaking: after reading learners may interview each
other about their reading/ initiate a group discussion
• Reading followed by writing: after reading the newspaper, students may be
asked to write a report or an essay on the topic
• Learners may be engaged in book reviews
After reading learners may be asked to do any of the following:

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Maintain a reading log – it is a reading journal (reflections on the text read). It may
take the following format:
• Date, title of book and author
• The type of the book if known by the student
• A brief paragraph on what is the theme of the book
• A summary of each part as it is read
• Student’s reactions to each part  followed by response of the teacher
Extensive reading programs ought to be more ‘pleasurable’ than ‘tedious’.
Exercises are meant to be an aid in comprehension and not test the reading ability of
the learners.

Assessment of extensive reading

• No examination / test based on the extensive reading is required
• Progress may be made on the basis of reading reports, reading journals,
book reports and projects submitted by the learners
• Feedback on progress should be given timely and completely

Role of teacher
• Makes recommendations on selection of reading materials, based on
learner’s interests.
• Selects appropriate levels of material, beginning with easy books.
• Guides in choosing a variety of materials of their interest.
• Guides students in setting specific goals for amounts read.
• Provides modeling, the teacher also reads at the same time.
• Intervenes less in the learner’s process of reading.
• Leads pre-reading activities to motivate and arouse interest in the learner
through activities related to the characters, places, themes, and actions.

Role of student
• Takes ownership for developing reading ability.
• Reads independently without the use of a dictionary.
• Selects reading material as per their interest and moves along at their own
pace.

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Advantages
The advantages of an extensive reading program are manifold the learners may:
• Develop a ‘reading habit’
o Gain more confidence in reading
o Improve their attitude towards reading
• Become more motivated to read  
o Feel more autonomous over their own learning
• More likely to take more initiative
• Become more ‘ independent readers’
• Acquire requisite skills to read for different purposes
• Gain awareness of different reading strategies such as word attack skills /
text attack skills available for comprehending different kinds of texts  
o Expand sight vocabulary
o Acquire “incidental” grammatical competence - that is, it may be
acquired even though it was not directly taught  
o Build background knowledge / schemas related to diverse fields,
interests, style and taste
o Increase reading comprehension
o Improve overall language competence
o Gained in academic reading and writing skills due to extensive and
varied exposure.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. State the three steps executed in the teaching of reading skills.

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................................................................................................................

2. State the process of skimming.

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3.6 TEACHING OF WRITING IN ENGLISH

‘It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.’

– C. J. Cherryh
The skill of writing is a productive language skill which is essential for success in
academic as well as personal life. In the words of Murray, instead of teaching
learners to write perfectly, we should engage them in the process of writing, write the
draft and improvise it step by step till the finished product. This is the process
approach to writing, where means is important than the ends. Product approach to
writing on the other hand focusses on the finished product – the end.
Writing skills play an essential role in present society, but extremely challenging
process where the writer has to make considerable number of choice at different
levels of cognitive processing which requires more than linguistic competence. It is a
non- linear exploratory process.
Since 1945 newer methods have emerged for teaching of writing .These
methods revolved around different focus points: product, person, process, context,
audience, and many others.
The Product and Process approach to writing gained considerable popularity
amongst practitioners.
The product approach to writing is evident in the controlled and guided
composition writing. This approach is based on the assumption that language
involves mastering of speech and the process of learning nothing more than habit
formation, herein much of the input is already given to the reader he has to apply
structures he has already learnt and editing is done by the language teacher.
However, process approach to teaching writing skills has received more credibility
amongst language teacher across the world. The main aim of process writing
according to Hedge (2000) is to acquire mastery over the use of cognitive strategies
for composing. The key features of this approach include:
• An environment offering low anxiety
• Writers engaged in the process of writing with little or no constraint of time
• Reader/teacher focus is on the content, idea and negotiation of meaning
• Lots of scope is given to the writer to improvise before submitting the final
draft

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In the following sections we will read more about ‘writing as a process’.

Process of writing
The process of writing follows three stages: pre writing, while writing and post
writing:

Fig. 3.4 The Writing Process

As is evident from the above figure the post writing phase is the longest,
challenging and crucial for teaching writing skills. It involves editing the draft, revising
it, re-writing it before publishing it / saving as the final copy.

Pre-writing
Prewriting is everything you do before you begin to draft the paper. To initiate
thinking and generate possible writing topics, it is important for students to explore
ideas for writing. A variety of pre-writing strategies, such as the following can be
discussed with learners for creating an idea bank to prepare them for the next stage
of writing:
• Brainstorming
• Constructing thought webs and graphic organizers
• Interviewing a person knowledgeable about the topic
• Engaging in peer or teacher-student discussions and conferences
• Listening to music
• Reading about and researching the topic
• Free writing or timed free writing about the topic
• Viewing media such as pictures, movies, and television

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• Listing and categorizing information

• Reflecting upon personal experience
• Examining writing models
• Responding to literature
• Role playing and other drama techniques
• Asking the 5 Ws—who, what, where, when and why.
Given below is brief description of how to go about with these strategies for creating
a personal idea bank. You can ask your learners to maintain an old diary/ register/
notebook as their idea bank. When they are given a topic to write on, they can refer
to this bank and create a unique piece of writing to impress considerably, their
readers.
• Brainstorming about people, places, and feelings. Write down or tell a
partner the names of people you could describe, then quickly and briefly
describe each one. Name several places you have visited and list
descriptive words for each place. List and describe some memorable
feelings you have had, and explain the situation in which they occurred.
• Talking and listening in pairs or groups. Take turns telling about an
interesting person, thing, incident, or object. Encourage the listeners to ask
questions and add ideas. Record possible writing topics or ideas as they
arise during the discussion.
• Looking at art. Study paintings, photographs, drawings, or sculpture in
magazines or art books. It may even be useful to take a trip to a local
museum or art gallery. Jot down notes and questions about the artwork, the
artist and the subject, and any topic ideas that come to mind during the
observation. It may help to talk over your information and ideas with a
partner or small group. Explain to a partner the stories in the art works.
• Listening to music. Listen to music you like best or a variety of new and
unfamiliar music. Listen to tape recordings or to the radio, closing your
eyes and letting the music paint pictures in your mind. Record these images
as you listen, or turn off the music and quickly record your ideas. It may be
helpful to tell the story you have imagined to a partner or group.
• Role playing. Pretend to be any character, ask peers to act as other
characters, and dramatize an event or incident, and what happened as a
result of that incident or event. Record your experience in your bank.
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• Observing, with all senses alert and engaged. Be aware of all that is
happening around you, in the classroom, at home, in restaurants, in malls,
and wherever you go. Listen closely to conversations of the people you
observe, and try to capture the details of their manners and dress. Observe
for issues, problems, or achievements in your community. Jot down ideas
and notes as you observe them or as soon as possible after your
observations.
• Listing ideas and information. List such things as the activities that interest
you, the sports you play, the clubs that you belong to, and the community
and world issues that you know about from the media.
• Reading such things as nonfiction books, novels, magazines, stories,
newspapers, and poems. Jot down ideas that occur to you as you read
and list questions you might investigate further. Keep track of interesting
vocabulary, story plots, and characters.
• Newspaper searches. Read the stories and captions that catch your
interest. Jot down ideas for writing a newspaper article or ideas that can be
developed into other kinds of writing.
• Make an outline keeping the audience in mind before beginning to write:
For whom: their age, gender, culture, socioeconomic background, values,
politics and for what purpose: notice, formal/informal letter, article, speech,
are you writing.

While writing (draft)

While writing is the stage of drafting when you begin to put your ideas in a paragraph
form.
Given below are a few writing strategies:
1. Clarity of purpose: At the end of your introduction, write a one-sentence
statement that is the basis for your entire written work.
2. Sequence: The paragraphs that follow should support this statement, and
each paragraph should focus on one of the possible aspect of the main
theme.
3. Topic sentences: Each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that
states the main idea of that paragraph. Just like the thesis statement, the
topic sentence lets you know what the paragraph contains.

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4. Sufficient support: In order to make your written work credible sufficient

support needs to be provided in the text. Support comes in many different
forms:
• Newspaper reports
• Researched information
• Observations
• Descriptions
• Case studies
• Interviews
• Personal experience
• Hypothetical situations
• Definitions from dictionaries
• Newspaper reports
• Real life experiences, etc.
The rule is that the more specific the information, the more interesting the paragraph
and in turn better would be the written piece of work.
• Coherence of expression: It gives beauty and strength to the written.
• Transitional words and phrases: These help to create bridges between
sentences, words such as: moreover, however, for example, in other
words, in contrast, nevertheless, in fact, as soon as, while and so on.
• Unity of idea: Stay on the path. Make sure all sentences relate to the topic
sentence and all paragraphs relate to the theme.
• Accuracy of expression: It is mandatory that appropriate words and
expressions are used to make the work interesting and meaningful.
• Brevity of expression: A good writer strives to use the minimum words to
express the thoughts and emotions appropriately.
• Fluency of expression: The hallmark of a good written work is the
fluency of ideas evident in the work.
• Format: Appropriate format must be followed.

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Post writing (revise – edit- publish)

This phase is majorly editorial work wherein the learner is asked to edit the first draft
and rewrite it. The learner individually or in pair learns-
• To revise the text for: spelling, accuracy, clarity, brevity, comprehensiveness,
appropriateness, format etc.
• To engage in conferencing with the language teacher for her inputs
• To rewrite a second draft
• Proof reading – spellings, grammar, punctuation, format, presentation
• Marking - Teachers
The process of writing is often perceived as a ‘wheel’ where the writers are free
to move around the circumference of the wheel and across the spokes.._________
Activity: Look at the list of activities given below, state which stage of writing
process does it happen-
1. Check language use (Grammar, vocabulary, linkers)
2. Check punctuation (layout)
3. Check your spelling
4. Check your writing for unnecessary repetition of words and / or information
5. Decide on the information for each paragraph and the order the paragraphs
should go
6. Note down various ideas
7. Select the best ideas for inclusion
8. Write a clean copy of the corrected version
9. Write out a rough version

Creative writing
English Language teachers are using the creative writing tasks for developing writing
skills of their learners. Gaffield-Vile (1998) defines creative writing as ‘a journey of
self-discovery, and self-discovery promotes effective learning’.
Creative writing refers to imaginative work such as poem, short story, one act
play, and others. Such pieces of work are held in high esteem by the writers and
others as well. The writer takes pride in his creation. Due to personal touch of such
kind of tasks, the learners are more intrinsically motivated to work hard on coming

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up with a good piece of work. Such creative work by learners need to be

acknowledged:
• Devote a special corner on the soft board for creative works
• Contribute such work in the school magazine / newspaper
• Read aloud such works in the class
• Encourage learners to prepare anthology and give it to someone special as
a gift

Developing writing habit

As a teacher you may initiate some of the activities listed below to develop the habit
of writing in the learners:
• make writing tasks more interesting
• Encourage creative writing in class
• Encourage them to maintain a diary / reflective journal
• Motivate learners to read a lot and write freely on any topic
• Expose learners to different genres, discourses to orient them to different
writing styles.
• Provide good models to scan
• Use instant writing: give an incomplete statement ask them to complete it
• Build a story asking each member to contribute one sentence in writing
• Cooperative writing practice may be done: learners are given a theme, they
have to write a piece in group.
• Make use of writing games, story circles etc. to make the task easier and
less cumbersome
• Provide constructive feedback at the opportune time.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. State the three stages of writing process.

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2. What is creative writing?

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3.7 TEACHING OF POETRY IN ENGLISH

One of the objectives of teaching English Language to learners is to enable them to

acquire a sense of literary texts and the skill of appreciating literary texts of different
genres. The use of language in essays, stories, drama, speech, poems differ
considerably, the learner needs to be aware of this difference. Hence, poetry is very
much essential to develop learner’s aesthetic appreciation of the ‘unusual’ way the
language is used in all of these cases.
The beauty of poetry lies in the features discussed below:

1. Versatile
There are different types and forms of poetry that eventually, each learner is bound
to get spell bound. Thus we have sonnets, dramatic monologue, ballads, odes, and
many more.

Fig. 3.5 Types of Poem

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Source: Google image

Aspect and element of language

Poems can be a wonderful means to introduce or practice new vocabulary, language
structures, and rhyming devices and elements of poetry.

Fig. 3.6 Elements of Poetry

Target Language Culture

Poetry opens an interesting historical and cultural window, and students may already
be quite knowledgeable about the poets and poems that are an important part of
their heritage.

Strategies for teaching poetry

• Draw on students’ background knowledge
• Talk about the differences between stories and poems.
• Give students a chance to illustrate poems.
• Read a variety of poems out loud. It will help learners notice different
rhythms, rhymes, and feelings represented, as well as understand how the
language creates an image or mood.
• Selection of poems should be wise: age specific, interesting, simple and
beautiful.
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• Discuss the vocabulary used in different poems.

• Encourage oral recitation of the poems in class by learners
• Integrated poetry teaching with some other skill / subject
• Use graphic organizers. (Especially for language structure, rhyme scheme
etc.)
• Encourage students to share their personal interpretations – arrive at their
interpretation of meaning
• Make the class learner centered for the appreciation of text to occur

Steps in teaching poetry

Step 1- Give a very brief introduction to the poet. Do not waste time on giving
detailed factual information about the poem. Make it interesting so that students want
to read the poem.
Step 2- Read the poem aloud and help learners to enjoy the experience- through
visual, auditory, tactile, intellectual, or emotional mode (a picture/ recording, natural
setting etc. may be used to stimulate the learners imagination). Learners just listen
and not read the poem. Teachers must practice and gain competence in reciting the
poem appropriately with correct pronunciation, articulation, enunciation and
expression. She may even use an audio/video recording of the poem
Step3- Learners’ perception of poem is discussed by the teacher to highlight the
theme, tone, style, and rhythm of the poem. The teacher builds on the initial
perception of the learners and their responses, adding to them or helping them to re-
visualize it.
Step 4- Learners read the poem accompanied by the loud recital of the poem. At
this stage, the teacher discusses with the learners the meaning , theme , new language
structures in the poem if any, logical structure of the poem, use of poetic devices such
as imagery, metaphors, simile.
The teacher may now ask the learners to go back to the poem again and answer
questions such as:
1. Which words in the poem convey that the poet is conveying...?
2. In which line the metaphor of ——— is used?
The focus in asking such questions should not be only on what the poet is saying
but also attention has to be drawn on ‘how’ is the poet conveying a message.

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Step 5- Summing up: Once the teacher is satisfied that the learners have enjoyed the
poem, its style, beauty of expression, and its meaning, the teacher should summarize
all the elements focused in the session.
As a teacher you must enjoy the poem yourself in order to pass on that
excitement, interest to your learners.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Why is the teaching of poetry essential?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. State a few strategies of teaching poetry.

................................................................................................................
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................................................................................................................

3.8 SUMMARY

• To be a good and effective English Language Teacher it is not sufficient to

know about the language, the teacher must know how to teach. S/he must
be aware of the different techniques of teaching different skills and aspects
of English language.
• An ESL teacher should make sure that the learners should be able to
produce the sounds with requisite stress and speak meaningful sentences in
real life contexts with appropriate rhythm and intonation. Therefore,
teaching of pronunciation (phonetics) is an important aspect of the English
language teaching.
• An English teacher should make sure that the vocabulary of the learners are
enriched through the various possible methods and exercises possible. As
vocabulary is intricately linked with all the language skills be it listening,
speaking, reading or writing. Hence adequate store of vocabulary is
essential for developing these language skills.

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• Grammar is very essential in learning the second language because it does

not only help in understanding the language better, but also, helps in the
word formation. Grammar helps in the better understanding of the
language. It teaches the basic rules and norms in the language for sentence
formation.
• Various aspects and approaches of teaching Grammar should be followed
properly as Grammar helps in laying the foundation for the learning of any
language.
• Developing reading skills among learners is the primary goal of language
education in our country. If the reading skills are properly developed, the
learners acquires rest of the skills by themselves. Reading makes a man
perfect, therefore, there are a few steps undertaken in the process of
teaching reading comprehension. They are: pre-reading, while reading, and
post-reading.
• There are a few methods involved in reading various kinds of texts which
should also be taught in order to learn how to differentiate between the
different types of texts and how to read them accordingly.
• The teaching of writing in English is as important as any other aspect of
English teaching. Writing skills play an essential role in present society, but
extremely challenging process where the writer has to make considerable
number of choice at different levels of cognitive processing which requires
more than linguistic competence. It is a non-linear exploratory process.
• Two of the approaches of teaching writing in English gained popularity
recently, they are: Product approach, and Process approach.
• Just like teaching reading, teaching writing in English also involves a few
steps, namely, pre-writing, while writing, and post-writing.
• One of the objectives of teaching poetry in English is that the learner should
be able to acquire a sense of literary texts and the skill of appreciating the
different genres of it.
• There are various types and styles of poems which enhance the learners’
understanding of the language and enrich their vocabulary.
• While teaching English all of the aspects should be taught carefully, giving
various exercises and brainstorming sessions to check the knowledge of the
learners.

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3.9 KEY WORDS

• Skimming: Reading a text for getting the overall gist

• Scanning: Reading a text for getting specific information
• Intensive reading: Reading a text for analyzing the text
• Extensive reading: Reading a text for pleasure

3.10 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. A consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound is a
group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. For e.g. /spl/ in
special, /ct/ in affect, etc.
2. The falling tune consists of a fall in the pitch from a high level to low level.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. The major difference between dictionary and thesaurus is that a
dictionary is a book that contains the spelling, meaning and pronunciation of
individual words in a language, whereas thesaurus is a book that provides
synonyms/antonyms for words.
2. Morphological rules reveal the relations between words and provide the
means in formation of new words. That is to say, these rules determine how
morphemes are combined to form words. The expansion of vocabulary in
modern English depends chiefly on word-formation.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Pedagogic grammar can be characterized by:
• Assumptions about how learners learn
• Follow certain linguistic theories in their descriptions
• Are written for a specific target audience
• Is generally prescriptive
• Often includes or is accompanied by a set of complementary
exercises.

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2. Functional categories of the language can be named as:

• Personal
• Interpersonal
• Directive
• Referential
• Imaginative

Check Your Progress - 4

1. The three steps executed in the teaching of learning skills are:
• Pre reading
• While reading
• Post reading
2. Skimming is the process of reading a text quickly to get an overall idea of
the contents, in order to get a gist, we engage in the process of skimming.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. The stages of the process of writing are: pre writing, while writing, and post
writing.
2. Creative writing refers to the imaginative work such as poem, short story,
one act play, and others written by the person.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Teaching of poetry is essential for the learner to develop learner’s aesthetic
appreciation of the ‘unusual’ way the language is used in poetry by various
poets of different genres.
2. Strategies of teaching poetry are:
• Talk about the differences between stories and poems
• Give students a chance to illustrate poems
• Discuss the vocabulary used in different poems
• Encourage oral recitation of the poems in class by learners
• Integrated poetry teaching with some other skill / subject

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3.11 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What are the factors that affect-teaching learning of pronunciation?

2. Explain the organs of speech with the help of relevant examples.
3. Explain the process of teaching vocabulary with the help of different
activities involved.
4. Analyse the ‘deductive approach’ in the texting of grammar.
5. Elaborate teaching Grammar with songs.
6. What are the sub-skills of reading? Explain thoroughly the process and
uses of skimming.
7. Describe pre-writing along with the strategies involved in its teaching.
8. State the steps involved in teaching poetry.

3.12 FURTHER READINGS

Batstone, R. 1994. Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Bygate, M. et al (eds.) 1994. Grammar and the Language Teacher Hemel
Hempstead: Prentice Hall
Carter, R. 1987. Vocabulary. Rutledge, London.
Finocchiaro, M. & Brumfit, C.1983. The Functional-Notional Approach. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.
French, F.G. 1972. Teaching of English as an international language. Oxford
University Press, London.
Gokak, V.K. 1964. English in India-Its present and future. Asia Publishing
House, New York.
Harmer, J 1991. The practice of English language teaching. Longman, New
York.
Kenworthy, J.1988. Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers: Teaching of
English Pronunciation. Longman: London/New York
Krishanswamy, N. and Krishanaswamy, L. 2006. Methods of Teaching English
Macmillan, Delhi.
Lewis, M. 1993. The Lexical Approach. Language Teaching Publication, England.
McCarthy, M. 1988. Vocabulary Oxford University Press, Oxford.

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 Planning in English Teaching
and Use of Teaching Aids

BLOCK-III
PLANNING AND USE OF ENGLISH IN TEACHING

This block highlights the use of planning in teaching a language. One of the most important
reasons to plan is that the teacher needs to identify his or her aims for the lesson. Teachers
need to know what it is that they want their students to be able to do at the end of the lesson
that they couldn't do before.
The fourth unit gives insight about the systematic planning involved in the teaching of English
language. Yearly planning, unit wise planning and daily planning play crucial role in the
teaching. The aids of planning and its advantages and disadvantages are also discussed here.
The fifth unit is about the selection and preparation, and evaluation and development of the
instructional material which is used in teaching English language. The process of preparing
and evaluating textbooks is also discussed in detail.
The sixth unit explains the importance of the assessments of students. Various methods of
tests and examinations that can be prepared and used for evaluating and monitoring the
growth of students is discussed in this unit.

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and Use of Teaching Aids

UNIT–4 PLANNING IN ENGLISH TEACHING AND USE OF

TEACHING AIDS

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the advantages of planning in English teaching
• Analyse the concept of yearly planning of English teaching
• Discuss unit wise planning of English teaching
• Describe the planning of English teaching on daily basis

Structure
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Planning in English Teaching: An Introduction
4.3 Yearly Plan
4.4 Unit Plan
4.5 Daily Lesson Planning
4.6 Summary
4.7 Key Words
4.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
4.9 Self-Assessment Questions
4.10 Further Readings

4.1 INTRODUCTION

Now that you have understood about the nature of language, language learning
theories, methods of teaching English language, it’s time for you to enter the school
and plan for your classroom. As a teacher, there are numerous decisions made by
the teacher in order to achieve the objectives of the course. Planning is done before
entering the class and it involves the answering of questions such as:
• What is to be taught?
• Why do we plan to teach it? What is its purpose?
• Who are the learners? (Learner profile)
• How will it be carried out in the class? What will be the order of flow?
• When will the teaching take place – time?

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• Where will the teaching take place – classroom / in the garden / language
laboratory etc.?
• How will the learner’s progress be assessed?
All the above mentioned questions involve a lot of thought on the part of the
teacher. However there are conflicting views available amongst the teaching
fraternity – is planning useful and worthwhile activity?
This unit will discuss the different aspects of planning, importance of planning,
and different types of planning.

4.2 PLANNING IN ENGLISH TEACHING: AN

INTRODUCTION

Planning is a detailed scheme of steps and tasks set over a period of time. It would
refer to long term as well as short term planning.
• Encourages creativity
• Addresses learner differences
• Brings more flexibility
• Streamlines teachers’ thoughts
• Available resources are scrutinized for their utility for the target group of
learners
• Facilitates learner – centered classroom
• Special needs of different learners are addressed
• Systematic use of available time and resources
• Gives teacher a true picture of her preparedness for the teaching
• Builds confidence of the teacher
• Prepares teacher to carry out the designed learning activity with greater
success
While planning for long term the following points of consideration are crucial for
decision making:
• Hours available per week/ Creditage of the course – how many units to be
covered in a particular period of time
• Needs and aspirations of the learners
• Course objectives
• Programme objectives
• Expected student learning outcome
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Based on these factors, teachers are often engaged with the following types of
planning:
• Yearly plan
• Unit plan and
• Lesson plan
The next sections will discuss each of these in detail.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Enlist any five advantages of planning.

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2. What are the crucial points to be considered while planning for long term?
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4.3 YEARLY PLAN

An yearly plan as the name suggests is a plan/or an academic year. Look at the
figure given below.

Year/Semester Plan
or
Course Outline/Syllabus

Unit Plan Unit Plan Unit Plan

Lesson Plan Lesson Plan Lesson Plan Lesson Plan Lesson Plan

Assessment

Fig. 4.2 Yearly Plan

It involves making decision on a unit plan, lesson plan and finally the assessment
procedure.
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The teacher prepares a yearly plan on the basis of the prescribed texts and
curriculum guides. It helps to create a course outline for a year or semester. It also serves
as a framework for later planning efforts such as unit planning and lesson planning. Yearly
plan also provides opportunities to the teacher to focus on the structure and content at the
same time developing a practical schedule for the course delivery.
A yearly plan is intended to give an overview of the curriculum at a glance. It is
important as it can help you to stay on track each month in meeting the curriculum
goals that have been set for the year by the teacher.
A year plan can begin with listing the months in the first column. In the rows at
the top of the table, list all the content areas from the syllabus given (for example,
vocabulary, comprehension, writing, poetry, etc.). Yearly plan templates should be
self-created because it is through this that teachers can keep a track on the syllabi.
Take your school’s curriculum and look at what makes sense to teach in each
month. Once the whole curriculum has been broken down into months in this way, it
will be easier to make sure that everything is covered. Check the yearly plans
frequently to see if it is being followed as planned. If not, modify the plan so that it
is recorded for the next school year. The better you plan in advance, the more time
will be saved in the future.

Check Your Progress – 2

1. Why is it important to have yearly plans?

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2. What does a yearly plan involve?

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4.4 UNIT PLAN

A unit refers to a chunk of interlinked competencies / concepts/content with some

common basis such as the needs of the learners, content of the course, objectives of
the course curriculum, requirements of the discipline, and so on.
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It involves organizing the content in a graded manner and dividing the content into
meaningful, inter related robust units for ease of transaction as per learner needs.
It also involves taking decision on the amount of content, method and technique
for teaching in class, instructional materials and finally assessment procedures.

Need and importance of unit planning

The advantages of a unit plan are listed below:
• Accounts for individual differences
• Provides teachers with clarity on the sequence of delivery
• Gives insight to develop teaching activities in the best possible manner
• Aids effective time management
• Aids effective resource management
• Helps in giving a balanced emphasis to various aspects of course content
• Helps teachers to have a holistic view of teaching-learning
• Gives opportunities to teacher to implement innovative practices in the
class
• Provides a good base for planning remedial instructions due to the
availability of unit-wise student assessment

Steps involved in unit planning

The process of unit planning involves two major processes, namely, selection, and
sequencing
Step 1: Examine the course objectives, course contents and student learning
outcomes
Step 2: Estimate the course credit and availability of time for course completion
Step 3: Identify the common / interrelated course content and form units
Step 4: Arrange these units in a meaningful teaching-learning sequence based on
the principles of learning difficulty (easy to difficult), theme (familiar to
unfamiliar), existing knowledge (general to specific)
Step 5: Select method and material for unit instruction – demonstration / field visit/
competition and so on
Step 6: Decide the nature of activities and exposure for each specified unit.
Step 7: Decide the assessment procedures for evaluating learner’s progress

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Features of a unit
The success of unit planning depends on the formation of a unit. Keep the following
in mind while forming a unit:
• Length: the unit should not be too small or too lengthy.
• Unity of theme: unit should have some element of commonness within its
components.
• Duration: should not spread over more than a month to complete in the
class
• Motivation: its completion must guarantee success among learners and
develop a sense of accomplishment for both the teacher and the students.
• Density: For each listed unit, further breaking up of content into daily
lessons should be possible
• Completeness: For each unit, guidelines about the appropriate teaching
methods, instructional material, students activities and the evaluation
procedure must be provided
• User friendly: Presentation of the organization and sequencing and related
information must be given in a tabular for ready reference by the teachers
and learners

Limitations of unit planning

While unit planning is of much value to teachers it may suffer from limitations, some
of them are listed below:
• Difficult to clearly anticipate the teaching-learning approach in advance
• Division of content/competencies is artificial
• Gives a piecemeal view of the competencies developed during a year
• Requires a conscious effort on the part of a teacher
• Requires experience and insight
• Puts a check on the flexibility of the teacher if followed rigidly

Check Your Progress – 3

1. What is a unit? State in your own words.

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2. What are the limitations of unit planning?

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4.5 DAILY LESSON PLANNING

A proper planning of the lesson is the key to effective teaching. It is a ‘Plan of

Action’ implemented by the teacher in her classroom.

Importance of lesson planning

Lesson planning helps the teacher in the following ways:
• Makes teaching systematic and well organized
• Helps teacher in selection and sequencing of teaching points
• Prepares teachers to foresee and tackle learning difficulties of children
• Improves maximum and appropriate utilization of the available time and
resources
• Gives confidence to teachers during teaching

Steps of lesson planning

The teacher engages in the following decision making while planning a language
lesson plan:

A. Setting objectives
1. What will be the learning outcomes? Although general objectives are
defined in the syllabus, yet the teacher has to specify the objectives for her
specific learner group. So the syllabus may have an orientation for
• Language structure
• Language function
• Language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing)
• Other aspects of language such as vocabulary, spellings, etc.
• Discourse features

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The language teacher has to take a decision on the specific objectives of

her lesson plan by focussing on what she wants to deliver in the class.
2. What will be the focus of your teaching: reception or production of
language?
3. Do you want to give learners practice in fluency or accuracy or
appropriateness?
In the light of above mentioned questions , you will be in apposition to ascertain
in specific terms what exactly you want your learners to be able to do after the
completion of the session.

B. Selecting of method/approach
The teacher has the course syllabus and unit plan for her support. She now has to
decide whether the nature, organization and selection of content and activities in the
syllabus / textbook is as per the specific requirement of her learners?
You need to exercise your flexibility in bringing variety in your lesson plan
making your classroom teaching more learner- centered. You are free to add , delete
to the textbook material provided to you , in order to meet specific learner need.

C. Selection of technique
A typical language lesson follows three P stages:
• Presentation: the new language item is introduced by the means of a
textbook / audio visual aid
• Practice: Ample opportunities are provided to the learner in a controlled
manner as there is scope for support and feedback by the teacher/ peer
• Production: learners are provided opportunities to use the language in
relatively free and uncontrolled situations, however the focus is on
communication, fluency, meaning making instead of accuracy.
At this stage of planning the teacher has to make decisions on what technique to
be used at various stages of a lesson.

D. Evaluation
All the stages of lesson planning are geared towards to the learner’s learning
outcomes, hence it is imperative for the teacher to decide what to test, how to test
and when to test the achievement of the learners. This stage of evaluation provides

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valuable feedback to both the teacher and the learner as it gives them direction on
how to improve for better achievement.

Format of lesson plans

There are different formats of lesson plan practiced by language teacher around the
world. In this section some sample lesson plan format are provided for you to
observe and explore.
SAMPLE 1

Group:CM2

Date: 15/10/2016

Lesson: 4
Topic
My Favourite Food
Objectives
1. By the end of the lesson learners will be able to say what their favourite food is.
2. Learners will be introduced to nouns; ‘lettuce, cucumber, …
3. Learners will review verbs ‘eat’, ‘like’…
Materials

1. A3 paper (1 per table)

2. Flashcards

3. Three tennis balls

4. Plastic food

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Procedures Time

Place a piece of plastic food on each table before the lesson.

Introduction Brainstorm names of food from each table. Get other tables to
help if need be. Introduce new words using plastic food.

Stage 1
I like Activity 1 5-10 mins
I don’t like

Activity 2

Stage 2
Activity 1
Asking Questions

Activity2

Stage 3
My favourite food Activity 1
is.....

Activity 2
Extra activities
Follow –up/hom
ework
Lesson
evaluation

Source: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/lesson-plans

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SAMPLE 2

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Source: http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/planning/examplelesson.pdf

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SAMPLE 3

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SAMPLE 4

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SAMPLE 5

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SAMPLE 6

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SAMPLE 7

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SAMPLE 8

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Source: Selected entries from the Trinity English Language Lesson Plan Competition 2013
available online
https://www.britishcouncil.in/sites/default/files/selected_ lesson_plans_from_trinity_ english_
language_lesson_plan_competition_at_tec13.pdf

Features of a good lesson plan

Given below are some features of a good lesson plan. However, this list is not
exhaustive, it is suggestive.
• The objectives must be: (a) attainable during a span of specified time. (b) in
sequence, ( c) in logical order, (d) from simple to complex, € from
concrete to abstract
• Adequate coverage of subject matter
• Activities to be carried out by the learners are well planned
• Requisite material is well in place
• Objectives, teacher and student activities, the method, the teaching aid and
the evaluation mode and items must be synchronized
• The plan should neither be too short nor too long
• Learners age, aspirations and interest should be kept in mind
• Focus is more on fluency rather than accuracy, use is stressed more that
form, meaning making is practiced and encouraged

Variety in lesson planning

The following guidelines have been mentioned by Ur (2005, p218) for the
combination of different components have proved to be relevant to bring variety in
lesson planning.

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Table 4.3
Tempo Activities may be brisk and fast moving such as quiz / games or
They may be slow and reflective such as, reading literature, and responding to
writing
Organization Individualized /pair work / group tasks or full class interaction

Mode and Activities may vary on the mode such as written / spoken form of language and
Skill within that which specific subskill is being focused
Difficulty Activities may be easy and simple or difficult and demanding
Topic Variety may be introduced on the basis of the language aspect being focused-
linguistic / non-linguistic aspect
Mood activities may vary according to the mood : happy vs sad , tensevs relaxed etc
Sti– - settle Activities such as dictation have a calming down effect , whereas other such as
debate/ discussion makes learners excited
Active- Activities may be such that makes the learner responsible for participating in it
passive or they can be passive where learners are expected to do as they are told

Assessment of Lesson Plan

A good language teacher is a reflective practitioner who after action, sits back and
reflects on what happened, how it happened, what went right, and what needs
improvement,and so on..
It would be a worthwhile activity for the teacher to ask herself the following
questions after delivering the lesson plan:
1. What parts of the lesson plan went according to the plan you had made
before the lesson?
2. What parts of the lesson did not go according to your plan? What could be
the possible reasons for this?
3. What were the main strengths of the lesson? What factors contributed to
the success of the lesson plan?
To what extent did the lesson-
(i) Help you to achieve your teaching aims?(ii) Help you to meet learners’
needs?
4. What were the weaknesses of the lesson? What could be the possible
reasons for these? How could you improve on the lesson if you had a
chance to teach it again?
As a teacher you might ask to yourself:
• Did I prepare well for the class?
• Were the activities appropriate?

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• Did the activities meet the learner’s needs, existing competencies and
aspiration?
• What was the focus of my activities – fluency, accuracy, form / function?
• Was the sequence of activities justified or an alternative sequencing would
have been better?
• What would be a suitable follow up to the lesson?
• You will fail to get the complete picture if you do not ask questions to
yourself related to learners’ needs, what did they take away from the
lesson?
• Did my lesson address learner’s needs? What evidence do I have for this
from the lesson?
• Was the lesson pitched at an appropriate level of difficulty? Did it hold the
attention of the learners?
• Were all the learners involved in the activities? Were there learners who
found them boring/ too difficult / too easy? How can I handle this in future?
• Did the lesson arouse the interest of the learners in the subject matter?
• What did the students get out of it?
(Content for this section drawn heavily from PGCTE course material, 1996, CIEFL, Hyderabad)

Check Your Progress - 4

1. What does ‘plan of action’ refer to?

................................................................................................................
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................................................................................................................

2. What are the qualities of a good objective?

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3. How can a language teacher be a good reflective practitioner?

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4. Give examples of a few questions a teacher can ask her/himself in order

to make future improvisations.
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................................................................................................................

4.6 SUMMARY

• The teacher prepares a yearly plan on the basis of the prescribed texts and
curriculum guides. It helps to create a course outline for a year or semester.
It also serves as a framework for later planning efforts such as unit planning
and lesson planning.
• A yearly plan is intended to give an overview of the curriculum at a glance.
It is important as it can help you to stay on track each month in meeting the
curriculum goals that have been set for the year by the teacher.
• A unit refers to a chunk of interlinked competencies / concepts/content with
some common basis such as the needs of the learners, content of the
course, objectives of the course curriculum, requirements of the discipline,
and so on.
• A proper planning of the lesson is the key to effective teaching. It is a ‘Plan
of Action’ implemented by the teacher in her classroom.
• A good language teacher is a reflective practitioner who after action, sits
back and reflects on what happened, how it happened, what went right,
and what needs improvement, and so on.

4.7 KEY WORDS

• Unit: A unit refers to a chunk of interlinked competencies / concepts/

content with some common basis such as the needs of the learners, content
of the course, objectives of the course curriculum, requirements of the
discipline, and so on.
• Plan of Action (POA): It is an organized programme of measures to be
taken in order to achieve a goal.

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4.8 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Planning is a detailed scheme of steps and tasks set over a period of time.
Its advantages are:
• Encourages creativity
• Addresses learner differences
• Brings more flexibility
• Gives teacher a true picture of her preparedness for the teaching
• Builds confidence of the teacher
2. While planning for long term the following points of consideration are
crucial for decision making:
• Hours available per week/ Creditage of the course – how many units
to be covered in a particular period of time
• Needs and aspirations of the learners
• Course objectives
• Programme objectives
• Expected student learning outcome

Check Your Progress - 2

1. It is important to have yearly plans because:
• It involves making decision on a unit plan, lesson plan and finally the
assessment procedure.
• It helps to create a course outline for a year or semester.
• It also serves as a framework for later planning efforts such as unit
planning and lesson planning.
• Yearly plan also provides opportunities to the teacher to focus on the
structure and content at the same time developing a practical schedule
for the course delivery.
2. Yearly planning involves making decision on a unit plan, lesson plan and
finally the assessment procedure.

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Check Your Progress - 3

1. A unit refers to a chunk of interlinked competencies / concepts/content with
some common basis such as the needs of the learners, content of the
course, objectives of the course curriculum, requirements of the discipline,
and so on.
2. While unit planning is of much value to teachers it may suffer from
limitations, some of them are listed below:
• Difficult to clearly anticipate the teaching-learning approach in
advance.
• Division of content / competencies is artificial.
• Gives a piecemeal view of the competencies developed during a year.
• Requires a conscious effort on the part of a teacher.
• Requires experience and insight.
• Puts a check the flexibility of the teacher if followed rigidly.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. A ‘Plan of Action’ refers to the proper planning of the lesson which is the
key to effective teaching. It is implemented by the teacher in her classroom.
2. A good objective is:
• Smart
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Teachable
3. A good language teacher can be a reflective practitioner if after action, s/he
sits back and reflects on what happened, how it happened, what went
right, and what needs improvement, etc.
4. For future improvisations, a teacher may ask themselves the following
questions:
• Did I prepare well for the class?
• Were the activities appropriate?
• What would be a suitable follow up to the lesson?

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• Did the lesson arouse the interest of the learners in the subject matter?
• What did the students get out of it?

4.9 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. State some of the advantages and limitations of planning.

2. Elaborate the importance of a yearly plan.
3. Analyse the steps involved in unit planning.
4. What are the steps of lesson planning?
5. How will you introduce variety in a lesson plan? Explain.
6. Elaborate the assessment of a lesson plan with the help of relevant
samples/layout.

4.10 FURTHER READINGS

Gower, R. and S. Walters. 1983. Teaching Practice. London: Heinemann.

Harmer, J. 1981. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London:
Longman.

Websites:
PGCTE Course Material, 1996, CIEFL, Hyderabad. www.britishcouncil.in
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/lesson-plans
https://www.britishcouncil.in/sites/default/files/selected_ lesson_plans_from_trinity_
english_ language_lesson_plan_competition_at_tec13.pdf

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UNIT–5 CONTEXT SPECIFIC TEACHING AIDS IN ENGLISH

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Explain the nature of instructional materials in the specific context of English
Language Teaching
• Evaluate and adapt an instructional material for English language teaching
• Discuss the importance of instructional material in English Language
Teaching
• Discuss the characteristics of instructional material in English Language
Teaching
• Understand the preparation of instructional materials
• Discuss the stages of textbook preparation
• Evaluate textbooks for English Language Teaching

Structure
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Their Preparation and Evaluation, Development of Instructional
Material in English
5.3 Textbook: Its Preparation and Evaluation
5.4 Summary
5.5 Key Words
5.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
5.7 Self-Assessment Questions
5.8 Further Readings

5.1 INTRODUCTION

In the previous unit you have seen how essential planning is for the success of English
Language Teaching. In this unit, we will look at the nature, importance, preparation,
and evaluation of instructional material available to the English Language Teacher.
The unit will also shed light on the nature, importance and criteria for evaluating and
adapting a textbook for the language learners in the classroom.

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5.2 THEIR PREPARATION AND EVALUATION,

DEVELOPMENT OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL
IN ENGLISH

Instructional materials are said to be crucial in the English Language Teaching

classroom. Selecting and developing an instructional material is a daunting task which
requires creativity. In the following section we will look into the steps of preparing an
instructional material. Instructional material can be anything from readily available
posters, advertisements, bills, restaurant menu card, pamphlet, and so on.
Instructional material may be authentic material or teacher-made. In simple terms,
instructional materials refer to all ‘material’ that facilitates the teaching learning
material, it is in tune with the needs of learners, objectives of lesson, teachers’
expectations, and course requirement. In the process of planning for teaching,
instructional materials help the teacher ascertain what she may use in the class and
how it can be used for optimum realization of course objectives.
In material development it is essential that the teacher has expertise over the
subject and she knows what she wants to do with the material. According to
Tomlinson (1998) materials development would mean anything which is done by
writers, teachers or learners to provide varied sources of language input in different
forms, thereby, maximizing the likelihood of more language intake. In doing so, one
may bring pictures or advertisements in the classroom, compose a storybook /
textbook, design a student worksheet, student magazine, prepare an anthology of a
poem or collect articles.

Factors influencing selection and preparation of instructional materials

The selection and preparation of instructional material may be impacted by the
following factors
• Theory of Language
• Learner needs
• Learning Objectives
• Theory of Learning
Thus, selection and preparation of instructional material is determined by the
theory of language – structuralist, functionalist or nativist. For instance the railway
time table may be used by the teacher for practicing tenses, it can also be used for
engaging the learners in a communicative task such as role play or information gap
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activity. Similarly weather forecast can be used for practicing prediction, conditionals
and so on. So depending on the view of the nature of language the instructional
materials are selected, and put to use by the teacher.
The needs of the learners also determine the choice of instructional material. A
secondary school learner will be more interested in going through the notices issued
by the local authority in the newspaper, in responding to the editor of a newspaper,
participating in mock parliament / mock interview.
The learning objectives also significantly influence the choice of instructional
material. If we expect that after completion of the session learners will be able to use
conditionals appropriately. So the teacher will look for those things which lend
themselves to use at various stages of the lesson plan.
Theory of learning is also influencing the instructional materials. If the orientation
is behaviourist the learner will be engaged in more of pattern practice through the
instructional material, if the orientation is cognitivist then, stimulating tasks will be set
for the learner wherein he will have to apply cognitive strategies for accomplishing
the task such as paraphrasing / summarizing the speech of a known scientist /
philanthropist / academician and so on. However, the preparation and adaptation of
instructional material for teaching purpose must be done cautiously keeping the
‘hidden curriculum’ in mind.

Hidden curriculum and instructional materials

Littlejohn and Windeatt (1989), state that materials havea hidden curriculum that
includes
• Attitudes toward knowledge
• Attitudes toward teaching and learning
• Attitudes toward the role and relationship of the teacher and student
• Values
• Attitudes related to gender, society, etc.
• Materials have an underlying instructional philosophy, approach, method,
and content, including both linguistic and cultural information.
So, a teacher should be aware of this hidden curriculum being communicated
through her material.

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Principles in developing materials

While engaging in materials development the teacher / student / any other must
adhere to some principles to ensure that their effort doesn’t go waste. Tomlinson
(Richards, 2001) suggested some basic principles in conducting materials
development for the teaching of language:
• Material should achieve impacts, help learners to feel at ease & to develop
confidence
• Material being taught should be perceived by learners as relevant and
useful
• Materials provide ample opportunities to the learners to engage in
communicative tasks demanding use of target language
• Materials should provide scope for differentiated learning due to variance in
learners’interest, ability, competence, learning style, and so on.
• Materials should provide for a silent period at the beginning of instruction,
should not focus on only controlled practice. The material should provide
inbuilt opportunities for outcome feedback.
In addition, Crawford (Richards-Renandya 2002) have suggested the following:
• Language used in the instructional material should be content as well as
context specific:
o Functional
o Contextualized
o Should be realistic and authentic
o Promote learners’ engagement in purposeful use of language.
• Classroom materials need to include an audio visual component
• Second Language learners need sufficient practice to develop the ability to
deal with written/spoken genres
• Materials need to be flexible enough to cater to individual and contextual
differences

Characteristics of Instructional Materials

The term instructional materials is not limited to course books, the term can be used
to refer to anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of
the language, with this understanding materials can be classified into the following
categories:
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• Printed materials: Textbook, student’s worksheet, pictures, photographs,

newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, and magazines
• Audio materials: Cassette, compact disc
• Audio visual: Video compact disc, film, DVD
• Interactive teaching materials: Web based learning materials, computer
assisted language learning
• Authentic materials: Refer to the use of all those materials such as
photographs, video selections and other teaching resources used in
teaching of texts that are not specifically prepared for pedagogical
purposes.
• Created materials: Refer to textbooks and other specially developed
instructional resources.
In addition, Edge (1993) uses the term “teacher-produced materials”
and “student materials” to refer to how the materials are produced or
used during the process of teaching/learning in the classroom.
• Teacher-produced materials: Play an important role to bridge the gap
between the classroom and the world outside, teachers might produce their
own worksheets keeping their learner’s profile in mind.
Student-produced materials: Teachers may ask learners to prepare presentations,
reports based on their local context, socio cultural milieu, she may later use these
student produced material for teaching learning in the classroom.

Evaluating and adapting instructional material

The following parameters may be used to evaluate the instructional material:
• Authenticity: A material is authentic if it contains excerpts of natural
language, as used in real life. Such instructional material can be used for
teaching specific structures or functions or vocabulary.
• Relevance: Materials must be directly relevant to students’ and
institutional needs and it must reflect local culture, beliefs, content, issues,
and concerns.
• Develop expertise: Developing materials help develop expertise of
teachers, giving the teachers a greater understanding of the characteristics
of effective materials, their learners and their own beliefs. It is, however,
desirable that expert opinion be taken while preparing instructional material.

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• Reputation: The quality of the material must be such that it earns and
maintains the reputation of the organization.
• Language potential: The aim of using material is to develop effective
language skills of learners. Hence, the material should be selected bearing
in mind the language input it will provide to the learners.
• Flexibility: Materials should have inherent flexibility for it to be revised or
adapted as needed.
• Level of difficulty: Material should pose a challenge to the learners which
is just one level higher to their existing one. This difficulty can be manifested
in three ways: linguistic, cultural factors, and cognitive strategy required to
perform on the task.
It has been observed that not all language teachers are material developers.
Instead they prefer to use an available material and adapt it to match the needs and
aspirations of her target group of learner. Materials adaptation involves changing
existing materials so that they become more suitable for specific learners, teachers or
situations.
Tomlinson and Masuhara (2004), suggest the following measures for effective
material adaptation:
• Have a large bank of categorized materials that you can readily retrieve for
adaptation.
• Have colleagues with whom you can share resources and who are willing to
go through the adaptation process together; have colleagues who are happy
to give you feedback on your adapted materials.
• Be in an environment in which materials evaluation, adaptation &
development are encouraged & teacher’s time and efforts are
acknowledged.
• Revisit adapted materials and improve them.

Designing a worksheet
A worksheet is designed to focus learners’ engagement on selected aspects of
language at a specific point of time. The teacher material developer usually has to
undergo the following stages:
• Identification of needs for materials
• Exploration of needs

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• Contextual realization of materials

• Pedagogical realization of materials
• Production of materials
• Student use of materials
• Evaluation of materials against agreed objectives
Source: Littlejohn, A in Tomlinson (2011:183)

The following principles need to be observed while designing a worksheet. The

worksheet may be used at any stage of language teaching.
• Interesting
• Promote students autonomy
• Educational
• Motivating and engaging, both for learners and teacher
• Easy to adapt or supplement
• Practical
• Learner centered
• Context specific
• Presentable
• Culturally and politically sensitive
• Easy to work with

Challenges in preparing instructional materials

• Cost: For quality instructional material, quality input in terms of human
resources, expertise, materials needs to be provided. This may be costly at
times. Hence, thought must be given on making such material robust enough
to be put to multiple use. Its durability also needs to be ensured so that its
multiple use do not destroy it.
• Quality: Teacher-made materials may not present the image as vividly as
the commercial materials, however, its personal touch will motivate the
learners and excited to learn.
• Training: Materials preparation is a specialized skill and not all teachers
are capable of writing good materials. Hence, teachers need training in this
skill. This training may be challenging – allocation of funds, inviting experts,
arranging for workshop and so on.
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While using available instructional material online and in manuals, the teacher
must adapt them to suit their learner’s profile, existing competency level, aspirations
and local contexts.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Which factors influence the selection and preparation of instructional

materials?
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. How is a worksheet designed?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

5.3 TEXTBOOK: ITS PREPARATION AND EVALUATION

In many parts of the world language teaching relies heavily on the prescribed text
book. For students it may, at times, be the only source for the target language input,
for in-experienced teachers, it serves as training module, for the experienced teacher
it is a resource bank. Text book has both advantages as well as some limitations.
Given below are the advantages and limitations of using a textbook:

Advantages of using a text book

• It provides and structure and content for the program
• It lends scope for standardized teaching and testing procedures in English
Language teaching classroom
• If developed appropriately, it assures quality of input to the learners – age
appropriate, context specific, motivating, learner friendly
• It provides scope for multiple exposure to the teachers as well as learners–
with the use of CD, DVD, Teachers’ resource book and other
supplementary material.

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• It increases efficiency of a teacher, saving her time for teaching purpose

instead of material production.
• It provides teachers with excellent input which helps increase their
repertoire of knowledge and skills.
• Through its pictures, colorful, audio visual input, and excellent layout, it
motivates learners, excites their imagination and arouses their interest in
using the language.

Limitations of a text book

• It may contain inauthentic language
• It may distort the content
• It may not be appealing to the learners
• It may deskill teachers – if they do not engage in adaptation of the textbook
and use it as it i , becoming totally dependent on it
• It may be costly – in case of colorful books, with CD, DVD, audio visual
input and workbook

Evaluating and adapting textbook

Textbooks are excellent medium for transacting language curriculum in the classroom
in standardized manner. However, the same book may have limited use in a specific
context, its success depends on
• How good is the fit between content of textbook and the local contexts?
• How prepared is the teacher for improvisation in her teaching style,
available content and activities?
It is essential for the English language teacher to evaluate the textbook with
specific reference to the local context, learner profile, expected student learning
outcomes, and proceed to adapting the textbook to suit her group of learners and
her course objective.
The following criterion may be useful to understand the suitability of a textbook:
• Factors related to the program – course objectives, student learning
outcomes, evaluation
• Factors related to the teachers- teaching style, competency, training
• Factors related to the learner – learning styles, learner differences, age,
interest, aspiration, social and cultural background
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• Factors related to pedagogy – teach ability of the content – accessibility of

resources mentioned in the book – types of activities
• Factors related to examination / evaluation of learners progress : objective,
subjective, formative or summative
• Factors related to the socio-cultural context – sentiments towards the
target language and culture
Where ever the teacher perceives any lacunae she will have to work to adapt it to
meet the course objectives. Given below are some ways in which improvisation may
be carried out in the class.
• For addressing examination requirement
• For providing additional practice
• Localizing
• For addressing differential learner need: age, gender, social background,
occupation, religion or cultural background.
• Logical organization of the content as per the competencies of the learners
• For making tasks more specific – focus on various subskills of LSRW may
require modification in the text and activities
It is desirable that the teacher works on the textbook and adapts it according to
her learner profile and the local context.
The position paper on teaching of English (National Curriculum Framework,
2005, pp 22-23) emphasizes on exercising ‘curriculum freedom by teachers and
learners’ while using textbooks.
The following observations have been made in this regard
• Earlier practices of choosing from a range of available texts can be revived
• Use of innovative textbooks with short units that can be “covered” within a
single class
• Encourage use of reading cards
• Learner chosen text for its interest value and scope for exposure to
authentic material
• Information structure of textbooks need to be scrutinized
Text books need to be relooked in the light of the success of ‘ guides’
which ‘bridge the gap betweenlocal competencies (teacher/learner) and
centralized systemic expectations (examinations/ prescribed texts)
• Creative textbooks need to be encouraged
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Check Your Progress - 2

1. What are the limitations of a textbook?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. Which factors help in understanding the suitability of a textbook?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

5.4 SUMMARY

• While engaging in materials development the teacher / student / any other

must adhere to some principles to ensure that their effort doesn’t go waste.
• The term instructional materials is not limited to course books, the term can
be used to refer to anything which is used by teachers or learners to
facilitate the learning of the language.
• It has been observed that not all language teachers are material developers.
Instead they prefer to use an available material and adapt it to match the
needs and aspirations of her target group of learner.
• In many parts of the world language teaching relies heavily on the
prescribed text book. For students it may, at times, be the only source for
the target language input, for in-experienced teachers, it serves as training
module, for the experienced teacher it is a resource bank.
• Textbooks are excellent medium for transacting language curriculum in the
classroom in standardized manner.

5.5 KEY WORDS

• Instructional material: Instructional materials refer to any tool, such as

poster, menu card, prescription, etc., used by the teacher in her classroom
for teaching in the class. It may be commercial or teacher made. It can be

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used for introducing a concept, teaching it or practicing it with the learners.

These materials have the scope for assessment as well.
• Textbook: A book about a particular subject that is used in the study of
that subject especially in a school.

5.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. The selection and preparation of instructional material may be impacted by
the following factors
• Theory of Language
• Learner needs
• Learning objectives
• Theory of learning
2. The teacher material developer usually has to undergo the following stages
to design a worksheet:
• Identification of needs for materials
• Exploration of needs
• Contextual realization of materials
• Pedagogical realization of materials
• Production of materials
• Student use of materials
• Evaluation of materials against agreed objectives

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Following are the limitations of a textbook:
• It may contain inauthentic language
• It may distort the content
• It may not be appealing to the learners
• It may deskill teachers – if they do not engage in adaptation of the
textbook and use it as it, becoming totally dependent on it

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• It may be costly – in case of colorful books, with CD, DVD, audio visual
input and workbook
2. The following criterion may be useful to understand the suitability of a
textbook:
• Factors related to the program – course objectives, student learning
outcomes, evaluation
• Factors related to the teachers- teaching style, competency, training
• Factors related to the learner – learning styles, learner differences,
age, interest, aspiration, social and cultural background
• Factors related to pedagogy – teach ability of the content –
accessibility of resources mentioned in the book – types of activities
• Factors related to examination / evaluation of learners progress :
objective, subjective, formative or summative
• Factors related to the socio-cultural context – sentiments towards the
target language and culture

5.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. How can we evaluate the quality of an instructional material?

2. Analyse the evaluation and adaptation of the textbook.
3. Explain the major principles of developing the instructional material.
4. What challenges can occur while preparing the instructional material?
Explain.

5.8 FURTHER READINGS

Edge, J. 1993. Essential of English Language Teaching. London: Longman,

pp.43-48.
Littlejohn, A., Windeatt, S. 1989. Beyond Language Learning: Perspective on
Materials Design. In R. K. Johnson (Ed.). The Second Language
Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Sarswathi, V. 2004. English Language Teaching: Principles and Practice. Orient

Longman, Hyderabad.
Tomlinson, B. Masuhara, H. 2004..Developing language course material.
RELC, 1-2
Ur, P. A 1996. Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge
University Press. Great Britain.

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UNIT–6 STUDENT ASSESSMENT

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Define the term ‘test’ and ‘examination’
• State the importance of tests and examinations
• Discuss the different types of tests in English Language Teaching
• Analyse the essential qualities of a good test item
• Discuss the techniques of preparing for test items for testing language skills
and aspects of language

Structure
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Nature of ‘Testing’, ‘Examination’ and Related Terminology
6.3 Types of Tests in English Language Teaching
6.4 Principles of Testing
6.5 Summary
6.6 Key Words
6.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
6.8 Self-Assessment Questions
6.9 Further Readings

6.1 INTRODUCTION

Now, that you are aware of the methods and techniques, you also know about the
nuances of lesson planning. You must be curious to know about the means and ways
of ascertaining if the plan has been successful in realizing the learning objectives and
what are the student learning outcome.
The present unit will introduce you to the concept of test, examination,
assessment and evaluation.

6.2 NATURE OF ‘TESTING’, ‘EXAMINATION’ AND RELATED

TERMINOLOGY

Merriam webster dictionary defines ‘examination’ as an exercise designed

to examine progress or test qualification or knowledge.
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Measurement refers to the process by which the attributes or dimensions of

some physical object are determined. It is quantitative in nature.
Evaluation, in literal terms means assigning “value” to something, so that we
may make a judgement about a given situation as how good or how bad it is in a
given context.
Assessment is a process by which information is obtained relative to some
known objective or goal. It is a broad term that includes testing but the key
difference while testing we evaluate our performance, in assessment a third party
comments on our performance.
‘Testing’ refers to ‘a formal test of a person’s knowledge or proficiency in
a subject or skill’. It is usually said to be classroom bound, administered by a
teacher / student, it may be formal as well as informal, it plays a pedagogic
role as the teacher gets immediate feedback on the methods, materials, and
other aspects of lesson planning.
Examination refers to an external party led assessment, conducted in a formal
setting, under standardized conditions

Purpose of Testing
Testing serves several useful purposes in the process of teaching–learning in the
classroom. Some of the purposes are listed below. Tests:
• Provide feedback on the effectiveness of different aspects of teaching:
objectives, methods, materials, tasks
• Provide students a measure of the progress they are making in learning
• Informs students about their relative success in acquiring different
concepts/skills
• Clarify the expectations of the teachers from her students in a given area
• Help teachers in examining the appropriateness of general instructional
goals and objectives associated with an individual lesson or unit plans;
• Help teachers to ascertain the gaps in learning and give them directions for
planning remedial instruction
• Provide teacher data to engage in an action research for solving problems
faced by her in the successful implementation of the plan.

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Check Your Progress - 1

1. State the purpose of testing.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What is examination?
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

6.3 TYPES OF TESTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Now that you know the purpose of a test can you think of the different types of test
used by the teacher of English Language in her classroom? Let us read further to
know more about the different types of tests available to an English Language
teacher.

Objective Tests
These type of tests are set up in order to eliminate any differences in results due to
variations in the judgment of one marker at different times and places.
• It derives its name from the objective nature of its scoring
• There is only one correct answer to such a test
• The possible answer is given along with the test in form of options
• The learner is simply required to indicate the correct answer with a tick
• The scoring is in no way influenced by the subjective judgement of the
evaluator
• These tests are highly reliable
Some of the popular types of objective type tests are:
• Rearrangement type
• Multiple-choice type
• Matching type

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• True-False type
• Yes/No answer type
• Completion type (Fill-in the blank type) and many more

Subjective Tests
A subjective test is open ended. It invites the evaluator to rate the examinee on the
basis of her impressions of the test item and the response given by the examinee.
The expectations of two examiners from a single test will vary considerably owing to
their perception and understanding. This variance is ‘subjectivity’. For instance when
the examinee is asked to write an article on an issue, different examinee will visualize
it differently. Similarly, different examiners will score it differently based on their
expectations from the learners on such a question: content, style, choice of
vocabulary, etc.
Some common types of subjective type tests are:
• Simple question type
• Short answer type
• Long answer type
• Problem solving
• Completion and others

Direct Tests
A test item is direct when the learner’s response involves actually performing the
communicative task using the desired language skill. It is commonly associated with
the productive skill as in assessing the productive skills there’s an observable output
(speech/writing by the student) that can be heard/seen. Hence, in a direct test of
writing, the learner would actually write (letter to editor) in the L2 with a
communicative purpose.

(a) Objectivity in direct testing

• Create level playing field – do not presuppose background knowledge of
the learners
• Avoid excessive demands on student general or specialist knowledge
• Replicate real-life interaction - More modern test writers now include tasks
which attempt to replicate features of real life (discussions, simulations,
role-plays, etc.). Reading & listening tests should also reflect real life, as
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much as possible (texts should be authentic or realistic, and so should be

reading / listening tasks).

(b) Test items for direct testing

There are several types of items which can be used for direct testing, some of them
are listed below:
• ‘Information - gap activities where one has to seek information either from
an interlocutor or from another learners
• Comparison of pictures, learners given two sets of pictures, they have to
find out the similarities and differences without looking at each other’s
material
• Role-plays where learners perform tasks such as introducing self / partner,
booking movie ticket , shopping, and so on
• MCQs to test comprehension of a text.
• An interview questioning candidates for a specified job
• Matching written descriptions with pictures
• Transferring written info to charts, graphs, maps , and other figures
• Decision-making’ activities, such as showing paired candidates photos of
people and asking them to order them from best to worst dressed.
• Choosing the best summary / paraphrase of a paragraph
• Matching jumbled headings with paragraphs.
• Inserting sentences provided by the examiner in the correct place in the
text.
• Writing compositions and stories based on guidelines provided
• ‘Transactional letters’ where candidates reply to a job ad, or write a
complaint to a hotel based on information given in the test
• Reading information given in a brochure / leaflets about a place or
educational institution in their own words
• Giving directions for reaching a particular destination / preparing a recipe
• Completing charts with facts & figures from a text.
• Writing an article in response to newspaper item
• Identifying which (out of 2 or 3 speakers) says what in a conversation

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• Identifying whether speakers are enthusiastic, encouraging, in disagreement,

or amused
• Following directions on a map & identifying the correct house, place, etc.
• Performing role play based on the cue sheet provided in the test
• Marking stress on words in accordance to the examiners accent in a
speaking skill based test

Indirect Tests
Indirect test items try to measure student’s knowledge & ability by getting at what
lies beneath their receptive & productive skills. For instance, grammatical
knowledge contributes to writing ability, hence a grammar test may be used as an
indirect test of writing.
Likewise, pronunciation is thought to be a component of speaking, so phonemic
distinction tasks can be interpreted as indirect tests of speaking.

(a) Problems with indirect testing

• How valid is indirect testing for assessing language skills?
• Can we say that good performance on indirect tests assure good writing
skills as well?
• Is it possible to assess all skills and subskills through indirect testing?
• Negative washback. E.g.: if learners spend time studying bits of
decontextualized grammar in preparation for an indirect test of writing, they
may spend less time actually writing in the L2.
In short, while direct test items are based on real-language use in real life
contexts, indirect items try to assess student language knowledge through more
knowledge controlled items, such as multiple choice questions, or Grammar
transformation items. These tend to be quicker to design & easier to grade,
providing greater scorer reliability, however they need to be used judiciously and
cautiously.

(b) Types of indirect tests

There are different types of items used for indirect testing, some of these are
discussed below: MCQ, Cloze, C Test.
• Multiple choice questions (MCQs)
Example: For testing writing skills learners are asked to complete
headless/ tailless sentences by selecting an option from the choices given.
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Look at the features of multiple choice question given below:

Features of MCQs
1. Number of alternatives - the ideal number of alternatives is 5 but teachers
also make use of 4
2. Content / Skill Areas to be measured & number of items to be included for
each area - It is essential for the test developer to chalk out the areas in
which testing has to be undertaken, further number of item needs to be
specified as per the weightage of marks allotted to each content/ skill area
in the course.
3. Length- The test must be of adequate length, neither too lengthy nor too
short. It should be a tedious experience for the learner nor so short that it
goes unnoticed.
4. Context - Both linguistic & situational contexts are essential in test
construction.
5. Each MC item should have only 1 answer.
6. This answer must be ABSOLUTELY CORRECT unless the instruction
says “choose the best option”.
7. Avoid “all of the above” or “none of the above”
8. Avoid repeating the same words in all of the options by moving the words
to the stem
9. Arrange options in logical order if possible
10. Avoid using specific language like “all,” “never,” or “always”
11. Keep options plausible for students who do not know the correct option
12. Options selected by very few students should be altered if the item is
reused.
13. Only 1 feature at a time should be tested, since it’s less confusing. Also, it
will reinforce only one teaching point. Normally, nobody tests grammar &
vocabulary at the same time, but sometimes word order and sequence of
tenses are tested simultaneously in a test, which creates ambiguity and such
types of tests are called impure items.
14. All items should be at a level appropriate to the appropriate learner’s
proficiency level.

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15. The context should be at a lower level than the actual problem which the
item is testing. E.g.: A vocabulary item should not contain more difficult
semantic features in the stem than the area being tested.
16. MCQ should be very brief and clear (it is advisable to provide short
contexts for grammar items).
17. Put items in rough order of increasing difficulty.

Advantages of MCQs
• High diagnostic power if distractors are constructed to address common
mistakes or misconceptions
• Student responses can be scored objectively
• Scope for statistical analysis ensuring impartial, reliable and valid diagnostic
information about student learning

Challenges with Multiple Choice Questions

• Difficult and time-consuming to construct
• difficult to phrase so that all learners interpret them in the same way
• Learners they focus on recognition, not recall
• Might encourage learners to engage in guess work
• These tests don’t lend themselves to the testing of language as
communication, as in real life we have to respond to different stimuli rather
than selecting the response from limited options available in a multiple
choice question.

Steps in constructing a MCQ test

The following steps are usually followed in preparing a multiple choice question
based test:
• Write the stem first, followed by the correct answer and the distractors to
match the correct answer in terms of length, complexity, phrasing, and
style.
• Each item should be based on a learning outcome for the course
• Involve a peer to review items if possible
• Spend suitable time for editing and revising
• Write short stems so as to minimize the amount of reading required for each
item
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• Be sensitive to learner differences on account of socio cultural background,

language, ethnicity, religion, gender
• Language structure and vocabulary must be consistent with student level of
understanding
• Avoid longwinded stems and options
• Avoid language in the options and stems that gives lead for the correct
answer

Writing effective multiple choice item stems

Keep the following points in mind while writing a stem:
• Clearly worded and concisely phrased
• Include most information in the stem so that the options can be short
• While writing incomplete statement as stem, ensure the options follow the
stem in a grammatically correct manner
• Avoid using negatives in stems when possible
Multiple choice questions have multiple benefits for a language teacher if used
with due care in its construction, administration and evaluation.

Cloze tests
In a cloze test every nth word is deleted in a text. It is a test of Grammar, sentence
connection, vocabulary, reading, etc., within a context, and therefore it tests the
overall proficiency level of the learner. Look at the sample of a cloze test item taken
from sample papers of CBSE given below:
My brother and I used to fight a great deal as children. We did
__________ of things together, not always in complete_______. In fact,
on one occasion, he actually________ my arm. I suppose he really did me
a ________, as I missed the school exams______ that year.

Process of preparing a cloze test

• The text has to be chosen keeping in mind the level of learners
• The construction of the cloze is purely mechanical: - every “nth” word is
deleted;
• Deletion interval: generally every 5th & every 10th word. BUT, if every 7th
word has been deleted in the first few sentences that is the interval that
should be used for the rest of the text. - 5th, 6th, and 7th word intervals are
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the preferred, mainly as a shorter interval would make it very hard for the
student to just understand the text, since there would not be enough context
to make sense. There are 2 ways to mutilate a text:
(i) Rational deletion (or selected deletion.): test developer deletes words
on the basis of some rational decision. E.g.: to test students’
knowledge of verb tenses, delete only verbs. (Some writers say this is
not really a cloze test, but a completion test).
(ii) Fixed ratio or nth word deletion: regardless of its part of speech or the
semantic load it bears within the text, every nth word is omitted.
o For students the former is easier than the later.
o More difficult than the latter.
• Text selection: The text selection must be done keeping in mind the
following parameters
o Text length
o Amount of time allowed to complete the task
o Learner familiarity with vocab and syntax of the passage
o Length and complexity of the sentences in the passage
o Learner familiarity with topic
o Learner familiarity with the discourse genre of text (content and formal
schemata)

Scoring in a cloze test

1. Exact word method: Students get credit for a correct answer if and only
if the word they write in any given blank is the exact word deleted from the
original text. This approach is quick and, therefore, very practical, and also
highly reliable. However, the exact word scoring method may be too rigid,
as it does not reward creativity on the part of the test-taker.
2. Acceptable word method: Any response that:
• Is grammatically correct
• Makes good sense in the context is given full credit as an acceptable
answer.
This method may promote positive washback, as it could encourage learners
creativity in using their linguistic knowledge. The main problem with it is that it slows
down the scoring process, also it could affect scoring reliability if scorers don’t agree
about the acceptability of some of the words supplied by the students.
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C- Test
This is a variation on the cloze test, in which the students read a brief paragraph in
the target language. The first two sentences are left intact. Thereafter, every other
word is printed intact, but for each alternate word, only the first half of the word is
written, and the second half is indicated by a blank space representing each letter.
The students’ ability to fill in the blank space is thought to be a measure of their
language proficiency.
Studies have proved that C-tests can be excellent teaching devices (apart from
testing techniques) as they provoke creative reasoning among the students,
especially if they do it in pairs or groups: student use language and focus on the
language as content while filling up the missing portion (“that’s not sounding right” for
example, they might say, or “we need a predicate here”, etc.). Look at the example
given below:

Source: Katona and Dornyei (1993)

Advantages of C Test over Cloze

Source: Katona and Dornyei (1993)

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The C Test can be used for placement, achievement in language areas such as
grammar, assessing specialized knowledge of ESP group of learners, for reading
comprehension and many more purposes by the language teacher.
• Transformation items
In such types of tests the learner is supposed to read the given statement
and rewrite it as per the directions given.
• Reordering items
Look at the words given below and put them in order to make a correct
sentence
Weather/ because/ but/ could/ not / I /bad / come/ of
Asking the learners to put words in the right order to make appropriate
sentences lets the teacher know about the learner’s underlying knowledge
of syntax and lexico-grammatical elements and mechanisms of the target
language. The challenge is to ensure that there is only one correct order for
the words to make a meaningful sentence.
• Discrete-point tests
Such type of test focus on one element of language at a time. For example,
the following multiple choice item tests only the learner’s knowledge of the
correct past form of the verb sing:
When I was a child I _______ in a choir
a. sing b. singed c. song d. sung e. sang
These tests are practical to administer and objective to mark. These tests
are usually indirect type of tests as they focus on one element / fact rather
than demonstrating how the learner would use it in real life communication.
• Integrative tests
These types of test may be either direct or indirect. The use of the term
integrative indicates that they test more than one skill and/or item of
knowledge at a time.
For instance dictation is an integrative test, as it involves listening skills, writing
skills, knowledge of specific language items in order to distinguish whether /Yv/
should be written as have or of and so on. Dictation is still, however, an indirect test.
Many integrative tests, are often direct tests - they ask the learner to
demonstrate their ability to perform on a specific communicative task.
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They therefore demonstrate the learner’s ability to use the language in actual
communication.
While discrete items attempt to test knowledge of language one aspect / element
of language at a time, integrative tests intend to assess a learner’s capacity to use
several aspects / elements of language, all at the same time, applying their
understanding of grammatical system of the target language
Another example of an integrative test which is also direct is an oral interview, where
• The learners have to listen and understand the examiner’s questions
• Choose the relevant grammar and lexis to express their ideas
• Speak with intelligible/accurate pronunciation and intonation for performing
the task
They demand that the learner integrates a variety of skills and items of linguistic
knowledge to complete the test, and show how effectively they can use the language
in communication. However, they have the disadvantage that they do not necessarily
evidence knowledge of specific items - for instance, a learner might fail to produce
a difficult structure by expressing the same concept in a different manner – e.g. ‘I
didn’t know so I didn’t go’, rather than ‘If I had known I would have gone’.
In an integrative test it is impossible to know whether the learners avoid difficult
structure consciously or whether it was just by chance that they chose to say one
thing rather than another.
An indirect, discrete item test can, on the other hand, “push” the learner into
demonstrating their level of understanding of selected structure, lexis etc.
For this reason, many test batteries use a mixture of indirect tests and direct
tests - each can balance the deficiencies of the other.

Achievement Test
The achievement test is usually conducted at the end of a semester or course work
to assess the achievement of learning outcomes. They seek to provide information
on the progress made by learners, as well as their weak areas so that remedial
instruction may be planned.

Proficiency Test
These types of tests are high stake tests, with the aim of establishing a test taker’s
readiness for a particular communicative role in real life context. They measure a

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relatively ‘stable’ trait. They are used to make predictions about future language
performance.

Activity
While testing learners on language what should we test?
• Knowledge of vocabulary – sound , meaning and spelling
• Knowledge of Grammar – language structure and functions
• Knowledge of subskills of reading and writing – skimming, scanning,
cohesive writing, etc
• Proficiency in language skills – listening, speaking, reading, writing
• Performance in communicative tasks
Wigglesworth (2008) stated that:
“In the assessment of languages, tasks are designed to measure learners’
productive language skills through performances which allow candidates to
demonstrate the kinds of language skills that may be required in a real world
context.”
A proficiency test measures a learner’s level of language. Proficiency tests are
not common within the classroom but they are essential for many job and higher
studies in several countries such as Canada. Proficiency tests often have a significant
backwash effect on the classroom, as learners’ focus narrows to preparing the test
items which require performance. One way to make practice for exams more
meaningful is by asking learners to prepare their own practice questions for the class.
IELTS and TOEFL are examples of proficiency test in English language.

Essentials of a Good Test Item

Ingram (1974, 313) has discussed the following six essentials of a good test item.
• Discrimination: It is one of the most important requirements, which is
necessary for a test. It means that a test must be designed in such a way
that it can discriminate among the students–high proficiency level, low
proficiency level, and so on.
• Reliability: Reliability refers to the accuracy of a measuring instrument that
is if a student is tested again and again the result or score must always be
the same, regardless of who is giving and marking it.
• Validity: If a test of pronunciation tests only pronunciation and nothing
else, it is a valid test of pronunciation. This test is valid because it measures

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only that for which it is set. To ensure validity of the test the teacher / paper
setter needs to strictly adhere to the learning objectives of that particular
course. For instance if listening comprehension in English is to be tested, it
must test the learner on the subskills of listening only. For a test to be valid,
reliability has to be ensured.
• Scorability: The test must have a well- developed scoring scheme, such
that accuracy is ensured irrespective of who is scoring. The scoring of
subjective tests is a little challenging as compared to objective tests.
• Economy: The test should keep in mind the economical usage of time,
money and other resources. It should not be too lengthy that it becomes
too expensive and demands too much time for the learner to attempt.
• Administerability: If a test requires electronic equipment and the service
of highly trained technician, then such a test is not easy and viable to
administer since these facilities are not available in most of the school and
even most colleges and Universities. Hence the test setter must ensure that
proper instructions are laid out for the people who will administer the test
and too much complexity and technicality is avoided.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. What are the problems faced with indirect testing?

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2. How can we write effective multiple choice stem items?

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6.4 PRINCIPLES OF TESTING

While designing a test, it would be helpful to keep in mind the following principles:
• Anything which can be defined can be tested
• Anything which cannot be defined cannot be tested
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• What is being taught only that is to be tested

• You cannot test what you have not taught
• Testing should provide information that is credible and very useful
• Testing should be impartial and independent in its function
• It should always be against some identified standards
• It should offer reliable and valid results
• It should not be taken as a hard duty to be performed by the learner, rather
it should be a positive experience

Testing Techniques for Language Skills and Aspects of language

Given below are some ideas which may be used for testing learner proficiency in
English language skills.

Listening skill
• Complete the given worksheet based on audio script
• Chalk out a route for a particular destination after listening to radio script
for avoiding heavy traffic
• Comment on the people involved in a discussion, their mannerism,
viewpoints, and some more details about them

Speaking skill
• Extemporaneous speaking
• Picture completion
• Differentiate between two sets of pictures
• Information gap activities may be used
• Role play and group discussion
• Prediction based on given verbal and non-verbal cues

Reading Skill
• Reading comprehension
• Tell the students a story without the climax and the students may be asked
to find out climax by reading the book.
• Write book reviews
• Prepare a character log or a reading log
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Writing Skills
• Short narratives
• Transactional texts – letters, notice etc
• Composition – posters, stories, poem and so on
• Multiple choice test items to check grammatical accuracy and knowledge
of sentence structure
For evaluation of subjective tests rubrics need to be prepared specifying criteria for
each value point. For instance evaluation of Presentation may include:
1. Confidence 01 point
2. Fluency 02 points and so on

Current trends in Testing

The testing tools we use to test language skills should have validity, i.e. with how well
test relate to real life situations and contexts, as opposed to reliability. Cyril Weir
summarizes the current trends in testing as follows:
This communicative /real-life approach in testing might be said to be characterized by
the following features
• Focus on meaning
• Contextualization
• Activity that has an acceptable purpose
• Use of genuine stimulus material
• Authentic real life-tasks on texts
• Performance under real psychological condition
• Judgements made on achievement of communicative purposes
The performance of the students can be assessed keeping in view of the above
said norms. Besides this, the teacher should attempt to evaluate all criteria namely
fluency, appropriateness, grammatical correctness, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

National benchmarks for language proficiency

The position paper on teaching of English (2005) expresses the need to evolve
national benchmarks for English proficiency by first gathering reliable descriptive
data in all these respects from representative all-India samples. ‘Such benchmarking
of national norms or averages is well known as a precursor to the adoption of
support initiatives where necessary in the social sciences and education. It will also
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balance the curricular freedom that we suggest should be provided during the
learning process, with the standardization of evaluation that certification ultimately
requires.’ (NCF 2005)
Further it is envisaged that the benchmarking should lead to a set of National
English Language Tests, a bank of tests that learners and teachers can use for self-
evaluation by opting to take them. These tests should allow for a much finer measure
of proficiency than a broad overall grade or score (currently, scores on
comprehension of unseen passages are conflated with scores on the recall of
passages already studied, thus bundling even “proficiency” with “achievement”!). It
is a robust teacher intuition that not all learners are equally at home in all the four
skills; thus, good speakers may not be good writers, as there may be a trade-off
between “accuracy” and “fluency” in the learning process. Neither are all skills
equally important for all professions. Scores that reflect differential learner aptitudes
and strengths will enhance employment potential, and have a washback effect on the
curriculum.
Such an initiative will have multiple advantages, it will:
• Allow individual schools or students to get a sense of where they stand,
their strengths and weaknesses, and how to progress
• Balance freedom of learning (curriculum, time frame) with standardization
of assessment
• Delink failure in English at Class X from failure at Class X, and provide an
alternative route for English certification outside the regular school
curriculum.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What are the characteristics of a language test?

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2. Suggest a test for assessing students’ performance on speaking skills.

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6.5 SUMMARY

• A subjective test is open ended. It invites the evaluator to rate the

examinee on the basis of her impressions of the test item and the
response given by the examinee. The expectations of two examiners from
a single test will vary considerably owing to their perception and
understanding.
• A test item is direct when the learner’s response involves actually
performing the communicative task using the desired language skill. It is
commonly associated with the productive skill as in assessing the
productive skills there’s an observable output (speech/writing by the
student) that can be heard/seen.
• Indirect test items try to measure student’s knowledge & ability by getting
at what lies beneath their receptive and productive skills. For instance,
grammatical knowledge contributes to writing ability, hence a grammar test
may be used as an indirect test of writing.
• In a cloze test every nth word is deleted in a text. It is a test of Grammar,
sentence connection, vocabulary, reading, etc., within a context, and
therefore it tests the overall proficiency level of the learner.
• The achievement test is usually conducted at the end of a semester or
course work to assess the achievement of learning outcomes. They seek to
provide information on the progress made by learners, as well as their
weak areas so that remedial instruction may be planned.
• The testing tools we use to test language skills should have validity, i.e. with
how well test relate to real life situations and contexts, as opposed to
reliability.
• The performance of the students can be assessed keeping in view of the
above said norms. Besides this, the teacher should attempt to evaluate all
criteria namely fluency, appropriateness, grammatical correctness,
vocabulary, and pronunciation.

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6.6 KEY WORDS

• Measurement: It refers to the process by which the attributes or

dimensions of some physical object are determined. It is quantitative in
nature.
• Evaluation: It means assigning “value” to something, so that we may make
a judgement about a given situation as how good or how bad it is in a given
context.
• Assessment: It is a process by which information is obtained relative to
some known objective or goal. In assessment a third party comments on
our performance.

6.7 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Some of the purposes of testing are listed below. Tests-
• Provide feedback on the effectiveness of different aspects of teaching:
objectives, methods, materials, tasks
• Provide students a measure of the progress they are making in learning
• Informs students about their relative success in acquiring different
concepts / skills
• Clarify the expectations of the teachers from her students in a given
area
2. Examination refers to an external party led assessment, conducted in a
formal setting, under standardized conditions.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. The problems faced with indirect testing are:
• How valid is indirect testing for assessing language skills?
• Can we say that good performance on indirect tests assure good
writing skills as well?

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• Is it possible to assess all skills and subskills through indirect testing?

• Negative washback. E.g.: if learners spend time studying bits of
decontextualized grammar in preparation for an indirect test of writing,
they may spend less time actually writing in the L2.
2. Effective multiple choice item stems can be written as:
• Clearly worded and concisely phrased
• Include most information in the stem so that the options can be short
• While writing incomplete statement as stem, ensure the options follow
the stem in a grammatically correct manner
• Avoid using negatives in stems when possible

Check Your Progress - 3

1. The characteristics of language test are:
• Reliability
• Validity
• Discriminating power
• Variety
• Practicability
• Economical
2. Extemporaneous speaking, role play, etc. may be used for assessing
students’ performance on speaking skills.

6.8 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What are the test items which can be used for direct testing? Discuss.
2. Analyse Multiple Choice Questions type of testing.
3. Differentiate between cloze and C tests. What are the advantages of C test
over cloze one?
4. Elaborate the testing techniques for language skills and aspects of language.
5. Explain the essentials of a good test item.

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6.9 FURTHER READINGS

Edge, J. 1993. Essential of English Language Teaching. London: Longman,

pp.43-48.
Littlejohn, A., Windeatt, S. 1989. Beyond Language Learning: Perspective on
Materials Design. In R. K. Johnson (Ed.). The Second Language
Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sarswathi, V. 2004. English Language Teaching: Principles and Practice. Orient
Longman, Hyderabad.
Tomlinson, B. Masuhara, H. 2004. Developing Language Course Material.
RELC, 1-2
Ur, P. A 1996. Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge
University Press. Great Britain.

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BLOCK-IV
ENGLISH TEACHER AND INNOVATION

The English teacher is usually the role-model for the learners. Therefore, it is important that
s/he has to be smart, along with the possession of various other personal and professional
attributes. This block discusses the qualities an English teacher must possess in order to be
considered a ‘good’ one.
The seventh unit talks about the qualities of a good language teacher—her smart disposition,
behaviour, attitude, way of talking, etc. and how it affects the learners. Also, the personal
and professional attributes she must possess in order to teach better is discussed in this unit.
The eighth unit talks about the various resources which can be helpful for the teacher to
make the learners understand language in a better way. How classroom, laboratory, library,
environment, museum, community, etc. can prove to be valuable resources of teaching is
analysed in this unit.
The ninth unit discuss about the innovations and its importance in teaching English. How
things in futuristic classroom will work–why is it necessary to be innovative while teaching
English and how getting rid of the old techniques of teaching English proves helpful are
discussed here.

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UNIT–7 ENGLISH TEACHER

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Ascertain the essential qualities of a good English Teacher
• Discuss the requirement of personal and professional qualities and expertise
to be effective in classroom
• Analyse the teacher characteristics which are deemed as ‘good’
• Identify some of the problems faced by English language teachers in the
classroom
• Discuss the criteria of addressing these problems and finding a workable
solution for the same

Structure
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Qualities of a Good Teacher of English
7.3 Problems and Solutions
7.4 Summary
7.5 Key Words
7.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
7.7 Self-Assessment Questions
7.8 Further Readings

7.1 INTRODUCTION

The challenge faced by the English Language Teacher is further multiplied when
he/she has students of different language competence, coming from different social
context seeking to gain proficiency in the use of the target language with their varying
levels of anxiety and motivation in the class.
Nevertheless, a ‘good english teacher’ has the potential to overcome these
challenges.

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7.2 QUALITIES OF A GOOD TEACHER OF ENGLISH

A Good English Teacher must primarily be a ‘good teacher’, who is effective in

teaching. The teacher effectiveness, thus, is directly proportionate to how ‘good’ a
teacher is. Researchers have defined teacher effectiveness generally under two
categories – personal and professional.
Thus, we can adjudge an English Language Teacher as ‘good’ based on the
following attributes:

Personal Attributes
(i) Personality: English language is seen as a language of modernity, new
opportunities and freedom from conservative mind-sets. English language
Teachers are expected to exude the same through their personality. They
are looked up as smart, well turned out, open minded, straightforward with
pleasing personality.
(ii) Talk: The English language Teacher is expected to be soft spoken,
expressive with a good repertoire of language skills and well versed in
literature. Her talk inside and outside the classroom sets an exemplar
behaviour to the students, who are often seen imitating the pronunciation,
articulation of words, intonation pattern, choice of vocabulary, and phrases
of their language teacher.
(iii) Imaginative: The English Language Teacher is expected to be imaginative.
One of the crucial function of language is its ‘imaginative’ function.
Language is used to talk about imaginative things and events which have
not as yet happened but are likely to happen in future. In order to give
adequate exposure to the students in this function of language the English
language Teacher must demonstrate this function in class. She should spark
the imagination of students and force them to talk aloud their imagination.
For instance: What would be your classroom like in the futuristic times?
(iv) Creative: The English language Teacher in order to be effective has to be
on toes to keep her lessons interesting so that she is able to engage the
students of diverse needs hooked on to the tasks in class. She should have
the creative streak to make her lesson plan interesting, use creative ideas in
designing worksheets and other ESL activities for her students.

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(v) Humour: The challenge for an English Language Teacher in the classroom
is to keep the students stay focused and motivated to participate in the
activities planned by the teacher. For this the ‘low affective filter’ has to be
maintained. Being humorous helps in assuring this, as the students enjoy
participating in the activities.
She can practice the language skills of listening, speaking and reading using
humour. In addition, the use of humour relaxes the classroom environment
as the students ease themselves off the pressure of performing on the tasks
set for them in the class.
Harmer (1984:39) described using of jokes in the classroom as a
“...balanced activities approach”.
Medgyes (2002:5) listed some of the following reasons for its use:
• Becomes a good vehicle for authentic cultural information
• Helps building bridges of trust between cultures
• Offers opportunities for practicing language items in real life contexts
• Brings student community closer together
• Releases tension in the classroom environment
• Develops creative thinking
• Provides memorable chunks of language to the students
• Reinforces previously learned items
• Generates a happy and cheerful classroom promoting joyful learning
• Enhances motivation level of students
• Enriches textbook-based courses and makes them more interesting
• Introduces a refreshing change from routine language-learning
procedures
However, the teacher must exercise the use of humour with great caution.
• Use of humour in classroom must be properly planned, it should flow
as naturally as possible
• Try something which fits your personality and should not unnecessarily
put you in an awkward position
• Be cautious in the use of private humour, it should not leave anybody
embarrassed in class. It should be healthy

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• Be careful in the use of humour, you should not overuse it, otherwise
it will lose its value and effect
(vi) Tolerant: In the process of learning a new language the students are
bound to make many mistakes and errors. The English language teacher
needs to be tolerant with the student. She should not create unnecessary
pressure for the student to perform as the rate of each student varies. The
teacher should rather seek to identify what she can do to aid the student in
their learning process.
(vii) Patience: Teaching is not an easy profession, it is a very challenging and
tiring one, where only a teacher who exercises patience will be able to
succeed. More so, for an English language Teacher, where students and
their parents are too keen to see their child gain fluency in English
Language. But due to the lack of acquisition rich environment the process
gets delayed and it leads to demotivation, lack of interest. The teacher has
to exercise her patience, and keep the interest of the students in the
language learning process and motivate them to participate in the activity.
(viii) Disciplined: Learning a language is very challenging and teaching one is
even more challenging. Hence, Language teachers are expected to be
disciplined in their walk and talk. Their verbal behaviour is always under
observation by many who are imitating the choice of word/ phrase, its
pronunciation, style and others in their attempt to gain fluency in English
language. Also as a language teacher the choice of tasks, preparation for
the task, its execution and feedback, everything, requires a great deal of
discipline on part of the teacher so that no session is wasted and students
get to learn and practice something in each of their session.
(ix) Integrity: A good teacher is a person with high integrity, and an English
Language Teacher need to be very cautious of the content and material she
uses in the classroom. When she is taking something from a particular
source, it should be duly acknowledged and proper permission must be
sought before its use.
(x) Hardworking: The English language Teacher must be hard working,
genuinely interested in the language development of her students. She
should be prepared to work hard to plan great tasks ahead for the
students, ensure their implementation meticulously and engages in error
analysis, remediation, correction, and feedback to the individual student on
their progress.

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Professional Attributes
(i) Professionally qualified: A professionally qualified teacher (Graduation /
Post- Graduation in English Language / Literature with B Ed) is a
prerequisite for effective teaching.
(ii) Trained in ELT: The English Language Teaching is a specialized field and
additional training is essential to become effective in English language
Teaching. Courses offered by IGNOU such as Certificate course in
Teaching of English, or the Post graduate Certificate of Teaching English ,
English and Foreign Language University, Hyderabad or other similar
training offered by British Council.
(iii) Professional teaching skills: It is essential for an effective English
language Teacher to be skilled in the teaching skills such as:
• Skill of blackboard writing: handwriting must be neat, legible,
evenly spaced, the layout of the board work should be appropriate
for all students to see, judicious use of coloured chalks and marker
must be made.
• Skill of stimulus variation: the teacher must be competent in the
selection of stimuli from the environment and vary them as per the
age, interest and need of the student. There should be frequent aural-
visual switching. For practicing listening and speaking skills, audio
video clips must be used by the teacher.
• Skill of reinforcement: Learners use of ‘inter language’ and
participation in various language activities must be adequately
reinforced by praises, acknowledgement, assurance, and
encouragement so that the affective filter is low enough for motivating
maximum participation by the students in language games and
activities.
(iv) Professional communication skills: Learning a new language
necessitates a good role model. A good English Language Teacher must
have good command over the English language. Her fluency and
accuracy of expression must be flawless to set a good model before the
students.
(v) Pronunciation and articulation: Also, the pronunciation, articulation,
intonation must be of good quality of an English language Teacher. For a

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language teacher who is not possessing good understanding of phonetics

and vocabulary, she will not be able to demand desirable performance on
these aspects of language behaviour.
(vi) Knowledge of English language and literature: A poor workman
always blames its tool, similarly, a language teacher who is herself not well
versed with her subject will always find some excuse in the environment for
poor performance of the students. So, a good English language Teacher
will be well versed with the knowledge of English language and Literature.
While preparing worksheets and handouts she will make use of this
knowledge to give the right kind of input to the students.
(vii) Awareness of latest development in ELT: A lot has happened in the
field of English Language Teaching with the advancements in technology. A
good English Language Teacher is well aware of these advancements in
technology, and knows how to adapt it to their local specific needs of the
students and apply it for the maximum realization of course objectives. For
instance the application of language laboratory, computer assisted language
learning (CALL) and recently web 2.0 technology has provided ample
new opportunities to the Language Teachers.
(viii) Member of professional bodies active in the teaching learning of
English Language Teaching in the country: The English Language
Teacher must be active in the professional arena
(ix) Integrate innovative practices in ELT in classroom: A good teacher
will always be keen to find innovative methods to practice in her class for
addressing the diverse needs of her learners.
(x) Adapt curriculum and available resources to suit the needs and
requirement of the students: The Task Based Approach to language
teaching of Prabhu is a live example of how a committed teacher seeks to
adapt available curriculum resources as per the needs of the learners.
(xi) Competent in assessing language skills: One way to motivate a
learner is to keep them informed of their progress in the language learning
process. One size never fits all in the evaluation domain. Hence, the English
language teacher is expected to be aware of the various tools and
techniques available for individual assessment of the learners keeping the
theory of multiple intelligences in perspective.

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(xii) Actively engages in professional development through participation in

seminars / conferences and workshops in the field of ELT and other means
such as maintaining teaching portfolio.
Effective teaching entails active participation in professional forums,
conferences and workshops as this exposure provides the teacher with
fresh ideas and perspectives to look at things.
(xiii) Engages in Reflective Practices for improvisation of existing content,
material, processes and products.
Nobody except the teacher knows if her teaching has been successful or not. It
is the responsibility of the English Teacher to engage in reflections for improvising
her teaching. She should frequently engage in action research and make efforts to
solve classroom problems.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Name five characteristics of the personal attributes of a good teacher.

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2. Which professional teaching skills should a good teacher possess?

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7.3 PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Maintaining the students’ interest in the teaching learning process, especially

language learning is an uphill task. The teacher is responsible for keeping the
students’ motivation high so that they participate in the various activities planned for
developing their LSRW skills. However, the process is easier said than done. The
teacher faces a lot of problems, these problems generally fall into three strands listed
follows:

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• Learner
• Learning context
• Teacher
The following sections will discuss these problems and possible solution for
them.

1. Lack of sufficient motivation

Many a time it is observed that the parents push the learners to language classroom.
Hence the learner is intrinsically not motivated to learn the language. The teacher
should make use of interactive worksheets, games, role plays, dialogues,
storytelling, watching movies, etc. to increase leaner motivation.

2. Overly dependent
Many times the students keep looking at the teacher for the correct response or
reassurance. This is not a healthy sign, the English teacher should discourage this
tendency and instead provide timely positive reinforcement for every attempted
response thereby increasing the likelihood of more responses by the learner in the
target language. The language teacher should exercise patience when learners are
not ready to participate, and restrain herself from giving the correct response or
commenting on their behaviour.

3. Switching over to native language

ES Learners find it difficult to use the target language in class and hence knowingly
and unknowingly switch over to their mother tongue. This is a big deterrent in the
learning of English language. Hence, the teacher needs to be constantly on her toes
to ensure that they are using the target language for performing the task, she should
be there to support them in case of any difficulty such as selecting an appropriate
word / phrase, English equivalent of certain words/ phrases in their target language.
The teacher, may in the beginning of the class ensure that the rules for performing a
task and use of English language in the class are set. The learners may keep a log of
the number of times they switched over from English to their mother tongue during
the course of a task.

4. Acquisition poor environment at home/school

Sometimes it happens that the students are motivated to learn the language but they
are not able to get an appropriate environment at home, their environment is second
language acquisition poor environment. The teacher in such cases must arrange for
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an appropriate exposure to the target language in the school itself. There should be
print rich environment in the school, with availability of age appropriate books, CDs,
recordings, and others. Reading corner, display boards must be set up to provide
acquisition rich environment in school.

5. Prior knowledge of the linguistic system of the language

Sometimes the learners get exposed to the target language for the first time. Hence,
there is problem in planning things for them. The teacher needs to be cautious of the
present level of the learners before planning. She should select material which is age
appropriate and as per the proficiency level of the learners.

6. Selection of teaching Strategies

One of the toughest things for an ESL teacher is the selection of strategies for
teaching the target language. The teacher needs to make a choice in accordance to
the age, proficiency level and objectives of the course.

7. Lesson – Hijack
ESL teachers get frustrated when somebody takes the class in some other direction.
The class engages in discussion which was never planned by the teacher. At such
times, instead of feeling disturbed, ESL teacher must take it as an opportunity as it
increases interaction and participation and keeps them motivated. If the diversion is
not right, you have full right to divert the conversation.

8. Confusion in doing the task

When the teacher fails to give clear direction this problem erupts. Hence the teacher
should give clear instructions to avoid confusion, repeat them, make them short and
precise, easy to follow. One example may be shown to give them a better idea.

9. Teacher talk
The language which the teacher uses in the class is often difficult for the learners to
comprehend. Hence, teacher needs to be careful about the words and expression
used by them in class as well as the level of content selected for practicing skills of
Reading and writing. She should be able to use unambiguous questions and explain
concepts in a simple lucid manner.

10. Comprehensible input

As Krashen puts it, the process of language acquisition rests upon comprehensible
input. Determining the comprehensible input is an arduous task. The teacher may
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refer to experts, and institutional curriculum for deciding upon an input that is
comprehensible to the learners and go for a curriculum that reaches a child at their
existing level and challenge them with activities at just 1 level beyond their current
stage.

11. Anxiety, peer pressure, low confidence level

ESL learners are under constant stress, they experience anxiety in the classroom as
they fear using the language. The fear of making error in speaking, lacking accuracy
in their expressions affects their fluent language behaviour as well. Learners often
say that they experience inferiority complex and low confidence levels in the class.
The ELT practitioner should ensure that she keeps low affective filter in her
classroom. Learners making errors in communication should not be ridiculed. Even
correction in errors must not be done on the spot as it will act as a deterrent and
their fluency will get affected.

12. Context based meaningful tasks

The ESL teacher must try to create own adapted resources – worksheet, handout,
which are according to need, aspiration and competencies of the local context of the
learner. This will make language learning in meaningful contexts possible.

13. Lack of concentration and focus on instruction

It is often complained by ESL Teachers that learners fail to focus and concentrate
on the task given. Why does this happen? It is said that when we are listening to our
students, we consciously / unconsciously do one of the following:
• Ignore them - not really be listening at all
• Merely pretending to listen
• Engage in selective listening
• Choose to hear only certain parts of the conversation
• Engage in empathetic listening, paying full attention and focusing on the
words that are being uttered.
It is a hard fact that very few of us practice the fourth level - the highest form of
listening - empathic listening - listening with the intent to understand.
Communication experts state that only 10% of our communication is through
words, while 30% of it is by sounds and remaining 60% is through our body
language. While engaging in empathic listening we not only listen with our ears, but
also with our eyes and heart. We listen not just for meaning but also for feeling.
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Learning a language is a challenging task, where the learner has a lot of

apprehension, he is not sure of the appropriateness of his use of the target language.
The learner needs empathetic listening.
We may increase the concentration and focus of our learners by putting up the
same behaviour, listening to them carefully and empathetically.

14. Age of learner

The age of learner may also create a little difficulty in the acquisition of second
language.
The teachers need to give adequate exposure and practice as per the
requirement of the age of the learner.

15. Learner personality

The personality of a learner also affects the language learning process. An introvert
learner will be relatively slow in performing language tasks based on speaking skills,
however reading skills based tasks will be his favourite.
On the other hand the extrovert learner will be outgoing and perform well on
speaking skills based tasks. Keeping the current ‘multiple intelligences’ perspective
in mind, the ESL teacher must devise tasks keeping the individual differences and
their varied intelligence in mind.

16. Inadequate role model

The learners of English as a second language often complain that they lack adequate
role model in their environment. Thus it is desirable that the teachers must strive to
enhance their competencies and skills to become an adequate role model for the
learners.

17. Right attitude

Many times the lack of right attitude of the learners and teachers hampers the
process of language learning. The learners may not take the task of acquiring the
language skills seriously, hence will not participate in the tasks and class activities
whole heartedly. This lack of willingness and involvement affects the language
learning process. The teachers may help improve upon this by discussing with the
learners the benefits of bilingualism in improving cognitive processing and job
employability.

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18. Contemporary irrelevance of materials and methods

The course material and resources offered in textbooks are often irrelevant in the
contemporary
times and not keeping with the aspirations of the present day generation. This
makes the teaching learning of languages a cumbersome process instead of a joyful
and happy one. The English teacher has to make conscious efforts to bring more
relevance to the material and method used in the class by making use of authentic
material.
Thus, we see that though the problems are many, a thoughtful, committed, and
competent teacher can overcome them with the right attitude and right approach.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. State the problems that a teacher can face while teaching the English
language.
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2. How does the acquisition of poor environment hinder the learning of the
new language?
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7.4 SUMMARY

• A Good English Teacher must primarily be a ‘good teacher’, who is

effective in teaching. The teacher effectiveness, thus, is directly
proportionate to how ‘good’ a teacher is. Researchers have defined
teacher effectiveness generally under two categories – Personal and
Professional.
• In the process of learning a new language the students are bound to make
many mistakes and errors. The English language teacher needs to be
tolerant with the student. She should not create unnecessary pressure for
the student to perform as the rate of each student varies.
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• A good teacher is a person with high integrity, and an English Language

Teacher need to be very cautious of the content and material she uses in
the classroom. When she is taking something from a particular source, it
should be duly acknowledged and proper permission must be sought
before its use.
• The teacher is responsible for keeping the students’ motivation high so that
they participate in the various activities planned for developing their LSRW
skills.
• The ELT practitioner should ensure that she keeps low affective filter in her
classroom. Learners making errors in communication should not be
ridiculed. Even correction in errors must not be done on the spot as it will
act as a deterrent and their fluency will get affected.
• The personality of a learner also affects the language learning process. An
introvert learner will be relatively slow in performing language tasks based
on speaking skills, however reading skills based tasks will be his favourite.

7.5 KEY WORDS

• English as a Second Language (ESL or TESL): It is a traditional term

for the use or study of the English language by non-native speakers in an
English-speaking environment.
• Reinforcement: It is the process of encouraging or establishing a belief or
pattern of behaviour.

7.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Five characteristics of the personal attributes of a good teacher are:
• Personality
• Talk
• Imaginative
• Creativity
• Humour

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2. It is essential for an effective English language Teacher to be skilled in the

professional teaching skills such as:
• Skill of blackboard writing
• Skill of stimulus variation
• Skill of reinforcement

Check Your Progress - 2

1. The teacher faces a lot of problems which fall into three strands as listed
below:
• Learner
• Learning context
• Teacher
2. Sometimes it happens that the students are motivated to learn the language
but they are not able to get an appropriate environment at home. The
teacher in such cases must arrange for an appropriate exposure to the
target language in the school itself. There should be print rich environment
in the school, with availability of age appropriate books, CDs, recordings,
and others. Reading corner, display boards must be set up to provide
acquisition rich environment in school.

7.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What do you understand by ‘comprehensible input’?

2. Elaborate the personal attributes of a good language teacher.
3. How does switching over to native language affect the language learning?
Elaborate.
4. Analyse the professional attributes of a good language teacher.
5. Write a short note on learner personality.

7.8 FURTHER READINGS

NCERT. 2006. Position Paper of National Focus Group on Teaching of

English. New Delhi: NCERT.
Harmer. 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching, 4th edition.
Pearson Education PTE Ltd: Singapore.
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UNIT–8 RESOURCES

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Discuss the ways in which the classroom can be used for teaching English
Language
• Describe the structure, functions and advantages of a language laboratory
• Explain the significance of community as a resource in ELT
• Discuss with suitable examples the relevance of a museum for ELT
• Explain the role of environment in promoting development of English
Language
• Describe the role of library as a rich source for exposure to English language

Structure
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Classroom
8.3 Laboratory
8.4 Community
8.5 Museum
8.6 Environment
8.7 Library
8.8 Summary
8.9 Key Words
8.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
8.11 Self-Assessment Questions
8.12 Further Readings

8.1 INTRODUCTION

The language learners and language teachers are able to create a happy environment
in the classroom only when each has the freedom to exercise their will in the course
of teaching-learning process. This curiosity of learners to know the language as well
as to use it must be maintained by the English Language teacher by the adequate use
of available resources for planning instructions. In the present unit you will gain
awareness about the various resources available to a language teacher such as
classroom, laboratory, museum and others for planning her instructions, which if

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judiciously used will engage the learners in learning the language while enjoying it as
well.

8.2 CLASSROOM

The classroom offers numerous opportunities for language teaching and learning. It
provides four crucial things:

1. Context
The teacher can design communicative tasks based on the classroom context – class
activity such as exhibition, recitation competition, nature walk, and so on. This lends
scope for introducing grammar points in a contextualized setting which makes it
more meaningful. Likewise, the reading corner may be developed in the classroom,
equipped with variety of texts in all forms – books, journals, travelogues, recipes,
novels, anthology of poems, magazines, flash cards, and so on.

2. Teacher talk
The teacher can control the aspect / skill of language she would like her learners to
focus on at a particular point of time. This may not be possible in situations outside
the classroom. She can achieve this through her talk with her learners in the
classroom. Teacher talk has proved to be an excellent medium for selected language
exposure.
The language used by the teacher is referred as ‘Teacher Talk’, research in
language education has revealed its significance for second language learning. It is
considered to be a vital aspect of classroom based language teaching and learning.
Thus, it becomes one of the main resources of language input for the learners. The
‘Teacher Talk’ often involves different phonological, syntactic, lexical, or even
discoursed modification in an attempt to make the language input comprehensible for
students.
It is to be noted that besides the linguistic aspect of teacher talk, the affective
aspect of the teacher talk is equally important. The teacher through her words of
encouragement has the potential to motivate learners to use the target language.
On the other hand, if the teacher uses sarcasm, humiliation in the class the learners
will get discouraged and it will have a negative impact on their language
development.

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The teacher talk generally comprises of three steps:

• Initiation – usually a question
• Response by students
• Feedback – by teacher
It has been reported by a number of research studies in language education that
the teacher talk has a significant proportion of questioning by the teacher. This
questioning serves several purposes-drawing focus of learners, promoting interaction,
assessing their progress, giving insight into what and how of planning, and so on.
Teacher gives directions, clarifications to the learners to perform the task, she
sometimes acts as a mediator, evaluator, task assignor, teaching material interpreter,
inspector, manager of learning environment and one who contextualizes and
simplifies learning as per her learner’s profile.
The classroom is the place which provides ample opportunities for scaffolding,
interactional discourse, comprehensible input, and negotiated meaning.
In the major part of the language lesson teachers dominate classroom speech by
using the I–R–F framework (teacher’s initiation – student’s reply – teacher’s
feedback/follow-up) which results in twice as many teacher utterances as students’.
Teacher talk is characterised by simplification of speech (rate, syntax,
vocabulary, pragmatic functions, Grammar, and vocabulary), paced pronunciation, a
slower speed of talk, self- repetition, frequent and longer pauses, and the IRF
framework.

3. Teacher control
The whole idea of teaching revolves around the control exercised by the teacher
over a range of activities starting from defining the objectives of the lesson, preparing
the unit plan and lesson plan, selecting and designing the material for teaching,
maintaining active student involvement during the teaching process, evaluation
procedure, feedback mechanism and remedial instruction everything determines the
input and output of a language classroom. This teacher control ensures quality in
language classrooms. Hence, if used appropriately, it can be a very good resource
for teachers.

4. Classroom discourse
The learners are engaged in various activities while performing on the tasks. This
creates multiple opportunities for learners to use different types of discourses in the

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classroom. A language teacher must make use of these discourses for developing her
language lesson plan. Some researchers have categorized classroom discourse into
two aspects:
• What is being talked about (topic)
• The way the topic is being talked about (activity)
According to this taxonomy, four major types of classroom interaction are:
• The first type of classroom interaction occurs when the topic and activity is
not controlled by the teacher,
• The second type of interaction takes place when the teacher controls the
topic but not the activity. This type of interaction requires teacher
transmitting some information or explaining an issue.
• The third type of interactions need teacher control of both the topic and the
activity.
• The fourth type happens when the teacher controls activity but not the
topic.
The following things need to be taken care of in a classroom discourse:
• Pay attention to discourses held in the classroom as well as outside the
classroom
• Topic should be selected keeping the age, interest and level of the learners
so that they get involved willingly.
• The topic must be familiar to the learners, relevant to their specific local
context.
• Learners should be given an equal treatment by the teacher, their views,
background and experiences must be respected and not ignored or
mocked.
• The teacher should value her learners and communicate with love and care
to them through her words and behavior.
• In order to have interactive discourses, the teacher must be flexible in her
approach.
• Learner-centered discourse provided ample opportunities for negotiation
(of form, content, and classroom rules of behavior), which significantly
contributes to creation of an environment favorable to L2 learning. In
contrast, teacher-centered discourse was shown to provide rare
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opportunities for negotiation and consequently not really effective in

language learning.
• Appropriate use of teacher talk in classroom discourses is essential for
clarifying doubts of learning and facilitating their understanding.
• Questions, if used, appropriately by the teacher, have the strength to
motivate, sustain, organize and channelize the thought processes of the
learner. It promotes reflection as well as self-examination by the learner.
• Studies have revealed that open-ended and cognitively demanding
questions stimulate learners a lot to use the language in order to think,
reflect, and communicate.
• The teacher should use more of structured and cumulative questioning along
with discussion in the classroom discourse so as to guide, prompt, reduce
choices, minimize risk and error, and facilitate absorption of concepts and
principles.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What is classroom discourse?

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2. State the four major types of classroom interaction.

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8.3 LABORATORY

It has often been perceived by teachers that only science and mathematics teachers
require a laboratory. Advancements in technology have brought a shift in this
perspective and significant researchers in the field of second language learning have
highlighted the significance of laboratory for language teacher. The language teacher
has at her disposal two types of laboratories:

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• The Language Laboratory

• The Curriculum Laboratory
In the sections given below a detailed description is provided.

The Language Laboratory

The language lab is a room equipped with electronic devices and language learning
software for recording and reproducing speech in contrived situations. It provides
students with the technical tools to get the best samples of pronunciation and usage
of different aspects of language. It engages learners in the teaching-learning process
facilitated by the teacher in the teacher’s console and language learning software. It
provides a suitable platform for presenting, practicing and producing language. It
enables development of language sub skills and gives ample opportunity to acquire
various aspects of language such as vocabulary, grammar and style through
interactive and communication based interventions. The purpose of a language lab
is to engage students in language learning exercises in such a manner that they get
more practice which is otherwise not possible in a traditional classroom environment.
Language laboratory provide several resources to the teachers as well as the
learners. Such as:
• Ready access to different types of texts, images, audio, and video clips
• Facility for recording of own voice and playing back the recordings
• Simultaneous interaction with each other and the teacher
• Option of storing scores for future reference to trace the progress in
language development thus promoting self- directed learning
• Possibility for teachers to control learner’s computers and intervene in
order to provide prompt feedback to the learner and track the progress of
learners
• Exposure to native speakers’ conversation in naturalistic setting
• Availability of recorded material to cater to individual learner’s existing
proficiency level

(a) Structure of a Language Laboratory

• Teacher console equipped with a master computer with appropriate
software for conducting language exercises

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• Headsets for teacher and students that block outside sounds and
disturbances
• Media player/recorder for listening to audio as well as for recording speech
• Connection via LAN (local area network) or separate audio cabling
• A server computer or a separate storage device where learning material is
stored in a digital format
• Sound proof laboratory, so that there is no disturbance from outside.

(b) Purposes of teacher’s Console

(1) Input – process – output control: Teacher employs classroom
management tools for:
• Controlling web browsing
• Managing interactive chat sessions
• Monitoring the quality and quantity of content
• Monitoring students’ on-screen work and activities
• Monitoring model imitation, voice recording, voice graph, and variable
speed of students
• Comment on accuracy, accent neutralization, and fluency of learners
• Administer tests
• Attending to black out screens; lock cursors and keyboards to focus
attention of learners on a selected task
• Shut down, log off or restart students’ computers

(2) Reinforce learning

Learners’ use of target language structure is reinforced through various activities by
the teacher from the console. She can monitor student’s workstation from the
console.

(3) Installation of language software

The master computer located in the console is loaded with the language software
which determines all the activities, its nature, implementation, and so on.

(4) Broadcast of instructions

The teacher can pause, intervene student’s work at any point of time for necessary
input. She can broadcast general instructions for smooth functioning of the activity as
well from her console.
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(c) Use of Language laboratory

The language laboratory serves multiple purpose some of them are listed below to
help you realize its significance for second language learning:
• Promotes effective communication
• Acquire a sensibility for the sounds and rhythm of a language
• Appropriate exposure to different aspects of phonetics of a language such
as pronunciation, accent, stress, etc.
• Exposure to English for specific purpose
• Opportunities for preparing for IELTS, TOFEL, and other competitive
examinations
• Provide platform for assessing development in listening and speaking skills
• For creating and editing scientific and technical materials, for teaching
language, the language lab could be utilized
• Allow a learner to engage in self-paced learning
• Teachers are able to follow the progress of individual child on the aural
skills of learners
• Provides exposure to specific aspects of Grammar of a language in a
systematic, organized and focused manner
• Activities organized in a language laboratory help learners in assimilating
what has been learned through guided exercises such as- repetition
exercises (word pronunciation, sentence pronunciation), substitution /
transformation exercises (sentence practice, grammar practice) and so on.
• Provide learners opportunities to put rules to practice by way of several
tasks such as: Reflection on the use of vocabulary and Grammar in fill-in-
the-blanks exercises, analyzing a sentence in its entirety in order to place
the correct word and so on
• The objective of other types of exercises include putting the acquired
knowledge into practice through written expression. Such exercises may
consist of:
o Guided expression, consisting of the transformation of context (Text
Transformation)
o Semi-guided expression, in which it is necessary to write texts based
on an image or video, or to write a summary of a longer text (Written
Expression)
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• The language laboratory provides opportunity for combining extensive,

high-quality content with flexible and interactive multimedia technology at a
particular point of time
• Enables teachers to provide comprehensible input to learners
• It gives scope for individualized learning through the use of cultural texts,
images, maps, and corresponding activities

(d) Objectives of a language laboratory

The main objective of working in a language laboratory is
• To provide comprehensible input for accuracy in grammar of the target
language
• To develop pragmatic competence
• To enrich the discourse competence
• To provide wide range of activities for practicing language learning
strategies
• To correct pronunciation
• To practice accent neutralization, use of intonation, rhythm
• To practice listening comprehension

(e) Techniques to improve Listening and Speaking skills though

Language Lab
The language laboratory is used for developing language skills among learner:

1. Techniques to improve listening

Teaching listening involves training in ‘enabling skills’ such as:
• Perception of sounds, stress, intonation patterns, accents
• Differentiating the speaker’s attitudes, interests, and so on
• Comprehending different types of oral discourses

Suggested Activities
• Use of minimal pair perception exercises (ship/sheep, ten /then)
• Interpreting speakers’ intention in short dialogues
• Gauging the missing word from a given speech by using context based
understanding

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Guidelines for organizing listening based activities

• There should always be a ‘purpose’ in listening task
• Regular ‘procedures’ for listening activities must be established in which
students will move from general (gist) to specific comprehension through
repeated listening and performing a specific activity at each stage.
• Contextualizing the task – learners need to be briefed about the context
who are the speakers, where are they from, how many speakers there are,
their ages, gender, roles, professions, moods of the speakers, what they
are going to talk about and all other necessary detail. This prepares the
learners to think about the setting so that they can go on to predict the
content of what the speakers will say and make sense.
• Pre-teach new vocabulary: It is a good idea to introduce well in advance
any new term or word which learners may get exposed to in their task and
which might hamper their adequate comprehension of the message.
• Time limit should be monitored: It is advisable to have small tasks of
ten to fifteen minutes duration at a time, so that learners are able to focus on
the task. Too lengthy tasks may distract them from the key message.
• Variety: In order to meet individual needs it is essential to have four to
five types of task sheet to address the need of learners’ with different
competence.
• Discussion: After the completion of the tasks the teacher must
immediately discuss the responses, speakers’ mood, speed and style of
speech, the use of hesitation, repetition, false starts, paraphrasing and so on
to make the experience meaningful and enriching.
• Graded Listening tasks: It is a worthwhile thought to grade the listening
tasks from easy to more difficult, known to unknown, general to specific,
from audio scripts with one speaker to audio scripts with two and more
than speakers. The gradation can also be brought about by degree of
formality and contexts as well.

2. Techniques to improve speaking

Learners and teachers get an opportunity to record their speech and go back to it
again to look at their pronunciation, accent, accuracy and fluency of expression.

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Suggested Activities
• Group discussions and role plays: Learners may be put into random
pairs or groups to participate in role plays and group discussions , from
their respective workstations The performance can be recorded for
monitoring , evaluating or for future discussion .
• Digital recorder: It is an interactive multimedia programs which allows
learners to simultaneously record their own voices for practice. Using this,
students feel like they are interacting with a live native speaker. Such an
experience helps learners increase their comprehension, vocabulary and
speaking skills.
• Voice recognition technology: This technology enables learners to
record their voice and compare it with a native speaker. An accuracy scale
on the screen then displays their voice match to the native speaker on a
scale of “Bad”, “Acceptable”, and “Good”.

Guidelines for organizing speaking based activities

• The tasks should be appropriately contextualized
• The speaking must be designed keeping the interest of learners and other
factors such as their competence , age , social environment
• The language input should be appropriate to their existing level of
comprehension
• The teacher must pre inform the evaluation criteria , so that they stay more
focused during the task

(f) Language Learning Software for tracking learner progress

The Language learning based software provides teachers with means for evaluating
performance of individual learner. By engaging learners in speaking, listening, writing,
and participating in other activities, teachers gain access to learners progress in
various skills. She has an opportunity to record and store the results for comparison
over a period of time. The exam module under the Teacher’s Console provides
interactive and automatic quiz module, containing scripts, text, graphics, audio, video
items. The teacher has the freedom to employ any media to create tests and evaluate
the learners. The best advantage of such tests is the ready access to the results
immediately after the test, to both the teacher as well as the learner in different
forms, pie chart, bar graph, and so on.

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(g) Advantages of Language Laboratory

• The language laboratory provides all learners an equal opportunity to hear
the instructor and to be heard by the instructor, due to the direct nature of
the sound transmission heard by each learner via his or her individual
headset.
• The headset/microphone provides learners an opportunity to get over their
inhibitions and shyness. The instructor can speak to a single or group of
learners in privacy without interrupting anyone in the class.
• It draws each individual student’s attention to the program material being
studied, gradually increasing their attention span and teaching the student to
listen and analyze the content of the lesson independently.
• It encourages learners to take responsibility for their progress, it makes
them self – directed and accountable for their learning.
• Language laboratory provides the best space for good listening skills,
learners get to hear the correct language patterns all the time through their
headsets instead of mimicking other learners / teacher who may be
pronouncing incorrectly.
• The lab is nothing short of a personal teacher for the learners, they can
stop, pause, slow, and speed up as per their need. It motivates learners to
perform, they do not get pressurized at any point of time, hence, anxiety
level is also low.
• The learners get a rich exposure to the wide spectrum of sounds, contexts,
and speakers by means of language laboratory. They can listen to native
speakers in all contexts
• The mere thought of going out of the classroom to the language laboratory
motivates the learners.
• The language laboratory increases teacher efficiency in monitoring learner
progress. The lab makes efficient use of time possible, learners get more
time to practice their language efficiently.
• It adds variety to the classroom proceeding with visual and audio input
thereby, increasing the attention span of the students.
• It ensures better discipline among learners.
• An automated record keeping process saves much time of the teacher.

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• The students can access digitally stored programs, exercises and tests
available online as open resources and free wares, which can be completed
at their own pace and at a time they decide is appropriate, thereby
encouraging independent learning skills among learners.
Thus, we have seen in this section that the advent of new technology especially
language laboratory has proved to be a boon for language learning programmes.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. What are the objectives of working in a language laboratory?

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2. How does language learning software help in tracking learners’ process?

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8.4 COMMUNITY

A community resource may be defined as anything that has the potential to improve
the quality of life in a particular community. It would include:
• Public services, such as banks, libraries, milk booths, telephone booth, post
offices;
• Gathering places, such as community centers, temples , churches, stadium,
• Recreational places such as parks, gardens, circus, amusement park, and
• Businesses that serve the community by providing jobs and easy access to
day to day products such as vegetable markets, blacksmith, tailor,
shopping malls.
• Individuals who work to improve community life by helping others, cleaning
up the community or organizing informal community activities
• NGOs and other organizations providing shelter to old age people, the
orphans, rahgirii, and so on.

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• Local artisans such as puppeteers, circus, nat, dancer, story teller,

craftsmen, and so on.
All these resources based in a particular community can prove to be a valuable
source of information for the learners. As a language learner, these resources
provide several contexts for use of the target language. The language teacher may
use the local resources in the following manner for the benefit of her learners:
• Invited talk/guest lecture: The speaker may be any experienced person
from the community who can share the rich heritage and culture of that
community with the learners.
• Story telling session: The wise people from the community may be
invited to share some interesting stories related to that community with the
learners.
• Field visit: The learners may be taken to different sites such as Agarsen’s
‘baoli’ in Delhi and asked to write their experience on the same.
• Community outreach activities: Learners may be asked to engage with
an NGO and work for orphan / old age people for a while and maintain a
daily diary on the same.
• Performance by a renowned personality of the locality: It would be a
great experience to have a renowned dancer / musician to the school for a
cultural programme. The performance may be asked to interact with the
learners.
The access to community resources creates the right platform and context for the
learners as they get a purpose for communicating in the target language.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Give any two cases that help in improving the quality of life in community.
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2. Write a short note on story telling session and field visit.

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8.5 MUSEUM

Organizing a trip to a museum takes a lot of careful preparation, look at the

following guidelines which should be kept in mind while planning a visit to a museum.
1. Choose the exhibit carefully
• Age, interest of the learners should be kept in mind
• Gather information about its timing, entry fees and other instructions, etc.
2. Design worksheets to keep the students engaged meaningfully
• Visit the museum and take lots of notes, using these notes, prepare a simple
one or two page worksheet
• Keep jargon to a minimum and try to see the exhibits from the learner’s
perspective.
Here are some examples of questions which may be asked in the worksheets:
• Circle select places on the map
• Which section of the museum displayed old coins?
• What was the weight of … displayed in hall no 6?
• What were the key features of Hindu calendar?
3. Seek permission from the museum authorities in advance
• Ensures better arrangement by the authorities
• They suggest places which are worth seeing
• Let people know where they can gather for general overall interaction
4. Briefing the learners
• Parents’ consent must be obtained
• Learners must be briefed of what will happen an where they are going ,
what are the rules therein etc
5. Reflection and Experience sharing
After returning from the vision, the teacher must involve learners in reflecting and
experience sharing activity.

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Check Your Progress - 4

1. Why is it essential to seek permission from the museum authorities while

planning a trip there?
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. Which points should be considered before planning to visit the museum?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

8.6 ENVIRONMENT

The environment can also prove to be a valuable resource for the teachers of English
Language. Some suggestions are given below:
• She may ask learners to read weather forecast and ask them to comment
on it and record their view.
• Lost species such as dinosaurs have a huge impact on the learners, learners
may be engaged in creative writing on related topics.
• Further the changing environment, increasing pollution may be used for
initiating a lot of critical and open discussion.
• Learners may be taken for a nature walk and asked to observe and record
their observation s in a diary.
• After festivals such as Diwali, often it is claimed that the air pollution has
increased. The learners may be asked to closely follow such details and
then a debate may be initiated in the classroom on topics such as ‘Burning
crackers should be a punishable crime’.
• The growth of a seed over a week so may be observed and learners are
asked to record their observations, talk about their feelings in the class.
• The learners may be taken on a picnic and asked to compose a poem on
any idea that triggers their mind.

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• The learners may be engaged in reading for pleasure under the shade of a tree.
• Writing is a creative process and it gets considerably stimulated when close
to nature, thus learners may be engaged in creative writing outside the
school, in a garden / park where there is open air, greenery around, birds
chirping on trees and a sense of general relaxation.
The environment can be a very positive influence in the development of reading
and writing skills of the learners as excursions and field trip allow the learners to
experience new things and think out of the box.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. How can environment be a positive influence in language learning?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. State how festivals can be a valuable resource for learning?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

8.7 LIBRARY

A class library is a collection of books kept in the classroom and used for extensive
reading. It is usually meant for developing learner’s interest in reading and reading for
pleasure.
Example:
A classroom library can include readers, the teacher’s own books, and books lent
by learners.
Some of the ways to encourage learners to use a class library include practicing sub-
skills such as:
• Guessing meaning from context,
• Guiding learners in their selection of material,

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• Giving learners the opportunity to share their thoughts and reactions to

books through discussions and mini-presentations.
• Maintaining a reading log
• Sharing their likes and dislikes about the works of a particular writer
• Maintaining character log
• Reading and responding to a variety of texts : narratives, expository,
transformative
• Appreciating different discourses in a text
• Expanding their knowledge and awareness of diverse topics
Reading experience in a class library can be supplemented some activities such as
the ones suggested below:
I. Initiating learners to record their first response
Reading Response
• I was reminded of ………
• I love the way ………
• I was surprised……
• I wonder why ………
• My favourite character is ………
II. Reading Response Journal
My Reading Journal
Title: _________________________
I selected it because _____ ________
I Liked _______________________
I disliked _______________________
My Favourite character was _______
I liked this character as ________
The plot of the story followed the following sequence
_____________
_____________

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The library, if well-equipped provides a good exposure to the target language. It

provides learners to read extensively as well as intensively. Some of the reading
available in the library include:
• Textbooks
• Story books
• Encyclopedia
• Dictionary
• Recipe books
• Travelogues
• Brochures
• Pamphlets
• Anthology of poems
• Science Fiction
• Comics
• Children’s literature
• Newspaper
• Magazines
• Posters
• Reading cards and so on.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. List (any five) the reading material available in the library for the benefit of
English Language learners.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. How can learners be encouraged to visit library often?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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8.8 SUMMARY

• The teacher can design communicative tasks based on the classroom

context – class activity such as exhibition, recitation competition, nature
walk, and so on. This lends scope for introducing grammar points in a
contextualized setting which makes it more meaningful.
• The teacher can control the aspect / skill of language she would like her
learners to focus on at a particular point of time. This may not be possible
in situations outside the classroom. She can achieve this through her talk
with her learners in the classroom.
• The teacher should use more of structured and cumulative questioning along
with discussion in the classroom discourse so as to guide, prompt, reduce
choices, minimize risk and error, and facilitate absorption of concepts and
principles.
• Advancements in technology have brought a shift in this perspective and
significant researchers in the field of second language learning have
highlighted the significance of laboratory for language teacher.
• The language lab is a room equipped with electronic devices and language
learning software for recording and reproducing speech in contrived
situations. It provides students with the technical tools to get the best
samples of pronunciation and usage of different aspects of language.
• The Language learning based software provides teachers with means for
evaluating performance of individual learner. By engaging learners in
speaking, listening, writing, and participating in other activities, teachers
gain access to learners progress in various skills.
• The language laboratory provides all learners an equal opportunity to hear
the instructor and to be heard by the instructor, due to the direct nature of
the sound transmission heard by each learner via his or her individual
headset.
• A community resource may be defined as anything that has the potential to
improve the quality of life in a particular community.
• Writing is a creative process and it gets considerably stimulated when close
to nature, thus learners may be engaged in creative writing outside the
school, in a garden / park where there is open air, greenery around, birds
chirping on trees and a sense of general relaxation.
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8.9 KEY WORDS

• Resources: It refers to anything that helps in the teaching learning of

English language, thus it may be human oriented (teacher, learner) physical
(environment, museum, library) or it may be a particular experience.
• Travelogue: A film, book, or illustrated lecture about the places visited by
or experiences of a traveller.

8.10 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Classroom discourse is when the learners are engaged in various activities
while performing on the tasks. This creates multiple opportunities for
learners to use different types of discourses in the classroom. A language
teacher must make use of these discourses for developing her language
lesson plan.
2. The four major types of classroom interaction are:
• The first type of classroom interaction occurs when the topic and
activity is not controlled by the teacher.
• The second type of interaction takes place when the teacher controls
the topic but not the activity. This type of interaction requires teacher
transmitting some information or explaining an issue.
• The third type of interactions need teacher control of both the topic
and the activity.
• The fourth type happens when the teacher controls activity but not the
topic.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. The main objective of working in a language laboratory is:
• To provide comprehensible input for accuracy in grammar of the
target language
• To develop pragmatic competence
• To enrich the discourse competence

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• To provide wide range of activities for practicing language learning

strategies.
• To correct pronunciation
• To practice accent neutralization, use of intonation, rhythm
• To practice listening comprehension
2. The Language learning based software provides teachers with means for
evaluating performance of individual learner. By engaging learners in
speaking, listening, writing, and participating in other activities, teachers
gain access to learners’ progress in various skills.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Quality of life can be improved by:
• Opening up recreational places such as parks, gardens, circus,
amusement park
• Having opportunities of doing things like businesses that serve the
community by providing jobs and easy access to day to day products
such as vegetable markets, blacksmith, tailor, shopping malls, etc.
2. In a story telling session, the wise people from the community may be
invited to share some interesting stories related to that community with the
learners.
In field visit, the learners may be taken to different sites such as Agarsen’s
‘baoli’ in Delhi and asked to write their experience on the same.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. It is essential to seek permission from the museum authorities in advance of
the trip because:
• It ensures better arrangement by the authorities
• The museum authorities suggest places which are worth seeing
• The authorities people know where they can gather for general overall
interaction
2. Points that should be kept in mind while planning any such trip are:
• Age, and interest of the learners should be kept in mind.
• Gather information about its timing, entry fees, and other instructions etc.

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Check Your Progress - 5

1. The environment can be a very positive influence in the development of
reading and writing skills of the learners as excursions and field trip allow
the learners to experience new things and think out of the box.
2. Festivals can be valuable resource of learning because after festivals such
as Diwali, often it is claimed that the air pollution has increased. The
learners may be asked to closely follow such details and then a debate may
be initiated in the classroom on topics such as ‘Burning crackers should be
a punishable crime’.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Some of the reading material available in the library include:
• Textbooks
• Story books
• Encyclopedia
• Dictionary
• Recipe books
2. Some of the ways to encourage learners to use a class library include
practicing sub-skills such as:
• Guessing meaning from context
• Guiding learners in their selection of material
• Giving learners the opportunity to share their thoughts and reactions to
books through discussions and mini-presentations
• Maintaining a reading log, etc.

8.11 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the essential points to be taken care of during classroom discourse.

2. What is a language laboratory? Explain its meaning and structure.
3. Analyse the uses of language laboratory.
4. List the advantages of having a language laboratory.
5. Elaborate the guidelines to be followed while planning a trip to the museum.

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6. How can environment prove to be a valuable resource for the teachers of

English language?

8.12 FURTHER READINGS

NCERT. 2006. Position Paper of national Focus Group on Teaching of

English. New Delhi: NCERT.
Harmer. 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching, 4th edition.
Pearson Education PTE Ltd: Singapore.

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 Innovation in English Teaching
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UNIT–9 INNOVATION IN ENGLISH TEACHING AND ITS

FUTURE

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Explain the meaning and characteristics of the term ‘innovations’
• Describe some of the innovations in English Language Teaching
• Analyze some of the innovations in English Language testing
• Discuss the future of English Language Teaching

Structure
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Understanding ‘Innovations’
9.3 English Language Teaching and its Future
9.4 Summary
9.5 Key Words
9.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
9.7 Self-Assessment Questions
9.8 Further Readings

9.1 INTRODUCTION

The primary purpose of education is to prepare a child for future. As the times
advance, the children are experiencing considerable changes around them. By the
turn of the 21st century, the advent of new technology, availability of web 2.0
technology has made it possible for the classrooms to become more learner
centered, individualized, catering to diverse needs and backgrounds at almost the
same time. So far, we have gained an awareness about the nature of language,
English language teaching methods, instructional material, assessment in English
language teaching and so on. In the present unit you will gain awareness about the
innovations in the field of English Language Teaching.

9.2 UNDERSTANDING ‘INNOVATIONS’

As development is taking place in all spheres of life the existing methods of teaching
and testing are gradually becoming outdated. It is a matter of high priority that

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teaching stays in tune with technological advancements so that we are successful in

preparing the new generation for facing the futuristic challenges well. This preparation
for future requires innovation.
‘Innovation’ in general may be defined as any step which is taken for the first
time to adapt to the change, be it in any sphere, it is geared towards addressing a
challenge or problem, to overcome it and generate better results.
In ELT this term has been understood in different ways, four characteristics which
have been used to define this term include –
• Change: One is forced to think and question can all ‘change’ be termed as
‘innovation’?
• Novelty: Another question which we need to look at is ‘How novel does
an idea need to be in order to be accepted as an innovation’, because due
to diversity among people and diversity in social contexts, it has been
observed that what is new in this part of the world today may have been
implemented long time ago in some other part of the world.
• Development: Many researchers have discussed innovation as
‘curriculum development’ or ‘programme development’, can we term
‘development’ as necessary for innovation, what if we are trying out a
different approach and implementing an already developed curriculum in a
new setting ? Is it innovation or not?

Read the following extract in this context and discuss with your colleague.

Source: Lano, Riley and Crookes (1994) The meaning of innovation for ESL teachers

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Improvement Elsevier Science Ltd: Great Britain

Further to this view, the fourth characteristics has been introduced-
• Improvement: Carless (2013) defines innovation as ‘… an attempt to
bring about educational improvement by doing something which is
perceived by implementers as new or different. Thus, innovation would
refer to
• New approaches to language teaching such as Task based teaching
• New approaches in testing such as alternative assessment in the form of
portfolio
• Integration of technology in teaching such as CALL – computer assisted
language learning’

Which characteristic appeals you more?

I would suggest that Innovation may be understood as ‘improvement’ in practice
which is based on a sound theory drawn from insight gained from one‘s experiences
/ reading / researches for realizing the goals of ESL programmes.

Factors inspiring innovation

A review of available literature in this area reveals the following as major factors
contributing to ‘innovation’
• Critical incident: It would refer to those experiences which challenge
existing beliefs, values, and practices of an organization.
• Research: The fruitful culmination of any research is its implementation in
the practical sphere. The pedagogical practices undergo innovation in
accordance to the emerging research findings related to linguistic theory and
theory of language learning. However, such research based
implementations must be well thought out.
• Entrepreneurs/catalyst of change: In an organization an innovation may
be initiated by any change agent. This change agent may be a consultant,
curriculum adviser, community member, teacher, administrator, student or any
other person. Read the following in this context for better insight:

Source: Lano, Riley and Crookes (1994) The meaning of innovation for ESL teachers
Improvement Elsevier Science Ltd :Great Britain
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Innovation in English Teaching
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Phases of Innovation
A study of available literature on ‘innovation in ELT’ reveal the following three
phases. Any teacher or researcher who is interested in working on an innovation or
implementing it, must be aware of the three phases of ‘innovation’. The details are
given below:
Step I Initiation
Step II Implementation
Step III Continuation
Let us look at each phase in detail:

Step I Initiation
This phase is centrally concerned with a decision making on what change has to be
implemented, why and how. It includes two things:
• Diagnosis of the existing situation: From available data, such as
reports, achievement tests, evaluations, observations, focused interviews,
feedbacks and other sources, the weaknesses of the existing system need
to be culled out. These findings need to be discussed with those involved in
the process, a thorough discussion with the teachers, curriculum
developers, community and students will help in diagnosing the main
problem. Thus the need for change should be established at this stage.
• Prescription of change for improving that situation: In the light of the
shortcomings of the prevailing state of affairs, objectives of the course, the
change is chalked out in realistic manner.

Step II Implementation
This is a very crucial phase as here the select change / idea is put into practice for the
realization of identified objectives. This stage involves detailing of material to be used
for the change, its pilot testing, evaluating, reviewing, and revising. Once the material
is in final form and all the steps of introducing the change have been worked out, the
change is implemented in the field.

Step III Continuation

After the implementation, the change is evaluated, whether it was a success, or has
the potential to be successful or it was a total failure. Decisions are thus made,
• whether this innovation should be taken forward in the system, or

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• there is a need to bring out some necessary modifications to make it fit the
system / structure or
• Out rightly reject it
Overall evaluation of the innovation helps determine if the innovation is to be
continued, whether the innovation has the scope to get ‘embedded and built into the
system’.
It must however be noted that the process of innovation is not always linear and
smooth , many times it is a tough bumpy ride with lots of moving forwards and
backwards during its initiation, implementation, and continuation.

Need and Significance for Innovation

It is said that change is the only constant in this world, hence we need to be always
on a look out for finding new and innovative ways to adapt to the change. Some of
the reasons for engaging in ‘innovation’ could be:
• For introducing reforms in English Language Education
• To make maximum utilization of available technology especially latest
technology
• For developing economic competitiveness
• For strengthening accountability system of all stakeholders
• To meet the challenges of globalization
• To improve the success of ESL learners

Factors determining success of innovation

On the basis of a study of large number of different types of innovations, Rogers
(1983/ 2003), identified a set of innovation characteristics described which were
likely to enhance or reduce the possibility of adoption of an innovation in a specific
context.
In their most recent work (2003), these characteristics have been listed as given
below:
• Relative advantage: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as
better than the idea it supersedes.
• Compatibility: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being
consistent with the existing values, past experiences and needs of potential
adopters.

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• Complexity: the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to

understand and use . . .
• Trialability: the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with
on a limited basis . . .
• Observability: the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible
to others.
(Rogers 2003: 15–16)

Contexts of Innovation
The theoretical framework for understanding the diverse contexts of innovation has
been discussed by Kennedy (1988), and is shown in diagrammatic form in the figure
given below. Each of the arcs in the figure represents a ‘sub-system’ of the context
of innovation as a whole. The arcs are visualized as hierarchically related, ‘with the
outer rings being the more powerful and influencing the inner rings’. Thus, the
‘cultural’ sub-system appears as exerting a strong influence on the nature of the
‘political’ and ‘administrative’ sub-systems, which in turn shape the nature of the
‘educational’ sub-system, and thus the characteristics of teaching institutions and
what happens in the classrooms which they contain which attempts to analyze
operational environments in terms of scientific, technological, economic, political and
other trends).
It is also suggested that the change agent introducing the innovation must be
conscious and aware of the context of innovation. Any conscious or unconscious
ignorance of the change agent will have a direct impact on the success and failure of
the innovation.

Fig. 9.1 Contexts of Innovation

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 Innovation in English Teaching
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Figure showing the hierarchy of interrelating subsystems in which an innovation

has to operate (Kennedy, 1988)

Roles and responsibilities in an Innovation

No innovation can happen with a single mind, there is always a strong team behind
it. For the team to be successful in its combined effort the roles and responsibilities
of each member must be clearly delineated. Practitioners and researchers have tried
to identify such roles, one such classification is discussed below for your reference.
• Adopters: Those who endorse the concept / idea and sanction the
innovation (e.g. government officials);
• Implementers: Those who are directly responsible for putting the
innovation into practice in the field following the guidelines supplied,
generally in the classroom contexts it is the language teachers;
• Clients : Those who are intended to be the primary beneficiaries of the
innovation generally the language learner;
• Suppliers: Those responsible for providing the resources needed for the
innovation such as the content developers, materials writers, and designers;
• Entrepreneur: Those who share the overall responsibility for managing the
implementation of the innovation i.e. ‘change agents’, may be a senior
teacher, principal, counsellor, advisor, and so on;
• Resistors: Those who are critical and in opposition to the innovation.

Conditions facilitating the success of an innovation

Carless (2013) lists the following conditions as essential for the success of any
innovation:
• The innovation should not be overly ambitious
• It should have support from relevant secondary innovations in the field
• It must have appropriate time frames
• Its implementation should be such that it seeks to facilitate early, small-scale
success thereby generating momentum and positivity amongst the
implementer and client.
• Teachers input must be sought in the course of germination of the idea,
planning, initiating the innovation, so that their knowledge and experience is
recognized.

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• Institutional-based professional development and support must be built for

a smooth implementation process
• The innovation must contextually and culturally appropriate, promoting
values and interests which are in sync with those of implementers as well as
the client
• Potential problems must be visualized and problem-solving strategies must
be built into the project
• The implementers must be oriented and equipped with necessary change-
management strategies to tackle any challenge arising during and after the
implementation of the innovation.

Barriers in the success of Innovation

Some of the barriers responsible for the failure of any innovation as identified by
language researchers such as Carless include:
1. Teacher-related
• Lack of teacher ownership and willingness to implement the innovation
• Change in congruent with their existing values, assumptions and beliefs
• Negative and critical attitudes, owing to the additional workload entailed
• Emotional attachment in existing practices
• May experience personal threat, un nerving as it forces them to give up
their comfort zone
• May experience a feeling of alienation with the new/innovation
2. System-related
• In-effective communication and lack of mutual trust between change agents
and frontline implementers
• Emphasizing too much on the intricacies of the innovation itself instead of
deliberating on its implementation
• Lack of appropriate resources and infrastructure to support the innovation;
• Insufficient orientation for teachers and implementers
• Failure to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality
• Inability to align a pedagogic innovation with the requirements of high-
stakes examinations.

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3. School-related
• Lack of supportive culture for change and innovation
• Conservative forces within a school and community
• Lack of support or understanding from senior management and
functionaries
• Inadequate school-based resources
• Unwillingness of learners to get actively involved in the innovation.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. How is implementation a crucial step of innovation?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the four characteristics which are used to define the term
innovation.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

9.3 ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND ITS FUTURE

In the context of ELT, Rodgers (2000), tried to predict the future of language
learning and instruction. He listed future of methodology and language teaching in ten
statements which are given below:
1. Teacher/learner collaboration: Using matchmaking techniques to link
learners and teachers who have similar styles and approaches to language
learning.
By teacher-learner collaboration he referred to the importance of learner’s
and teacher’s style and strategy in the sense that any mismatch between
learners’ strategies and styles and the method used in the classroom would
be doomed to failure.

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2. Method synergistic: Crossbreeding elements of various methods to find

those practices which best support effective learning.
By method synergistic, he first referred to the failure of method as a general
concept. Rodgers believed that there are some commonalities among
methods but they are too abstract to be noticed. He referred to such
communalities as supra ordinate communalities. He makes a distinction
between classroom internal and classroom external. He believed that
classroom internals such as teachers’ belief should be supported.
3. Curriculum developmentalism: Viewing methodology as a component
integrated in a larger view of instructional design.
Curriculum developmentalism is a new term he invented. He believed that
educational design consisted of four aspects of knowledge (input and
output as well as content and topic), instructional (methods, materials,
programs, technologies, and educational environments, time, scheduling),
learner (ages, proficiency, and developmental stages), and administrative
(choice of instructional model). He stated that CLT has undergone three
periods, namely Wilkins’s functional/notional, Munby’s period of needs
analysis, and Prabhu’s period of techniques. He believes that the future will
be an integration of these periods.
4. Content-basics: Assuming that language learning is a by-product of a
focus on meaning, on acquiring some specific topical content.
Content basics means that language learning is a by-product of a focus on
form.
5. Multi-intelligencia: Basing instruction on a multiple-intelligences view, in
which different approaches play to different learner talents.
Multi-intelligence refers to raising the teacher’s awareness of learner
diversity and interest.
6. Total functional response: Reconstructing the Notional/Functional idea
with some new systemic twists.
By total functional response he meant considering genre, language
functions, and text types.

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7. Strategopedia: Teaching learners the strategies they need so that they can
learn on their own.
Strategopedia means enabling learners to initiate, control, and maintain their
own learning through learning strategies.
8. Lexical phraseology: Recrafting both the nature and substance of
language learning (LL) to focus on lexical phrases and collocations.
Lexical phraseology holds the idea that only a minority of spoken
clauses is novel and this implies chunking issues. By chunk, we mean
that certain word collocation is learned through an exemplar system (N.
Ellis, 2003).
9. O-zone whole language: Engaging all aspects of language study—
literature, language history, and linguistic analysis—in support of second
language learning.
O-Zone whole language refers to the idea that language incorporates
literary study, authentic content, and learner collaboration in language
teaching. In this respect, learners, through comparing the parallel text, can
focus on form through consciousness-raising tasks.
10. Full-frontal communicativity: Engaging all aspects of human
communicative capacities—expression, gesture, tone, and so forth—in
support of second language learning
Full frontal communicativity means that communication involves many
features of speech, including attitude, meaning, information, and every
aspect of conveying the message to the listener and reader.
Alemi and Daftarifard, 2010 in a review of available researches in English language
teaching concluded that the potential pedagogical innovations in this field in future
will include the following:
• Students may take a matching test to be grouped with the most similar
teacher and groups in terms of style and strategy. Mismatches would be
given a specialized treatment.
• In post-Vygotskyan era, effective English Language Teaching will be seen
as dialogic in nature, with the emergence of new concepts such as

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practicum, collaborative dialogue, dynamic competence the teaching of

English language in school will undergo a significant change.
• Learner preparedness courses will be launched for initiating the learner in
the field of ESL learning through teaching learning strategies.
• The globalization of the world has witnessed the earmarking of a new
competence, named emancipatory competence. This competence has been
defined as the pragmatic competence displayed by the learner in
accordance to a particular context.
• The mind mirror project as suggested by Tully (2009), involving critical
thinking skills may be used in English Language Teaching in future. It is said
to increase students’ self-awareness and autonomy. In the mind mirror
project, learners prepare two quotations, two original statements, two
images and two symbols for every story they read. This way, they work on
a text once individually and once in a group through reading the teachers’
interpretations.
• There will be a textbook revolution, they may be mainly corpora based
books through which learners become familiar with the authentic use of
vocabulary and grammar. Literature suggests ‘Corpus’ as a body of written
and spoken language that teachers and researchers collect and analyze. It
is a compilation from textbooks as well as from representative journal
articles and manuals. The students analyze the corpus to reinforce learning
in grammar, vocabulary, and language skills.
• Richards (2002) introduced the concept of ‘ME’ as one of the component
of communicative language teaching. In the future, language as voice will
likely be more highlighted. The concepts Englishes instead of English, both
in testing and teaching, will be more highlighted.
• Language identity, using language for personal purposes and being flexible
in adopting different roles in the classroom are among those objectives that
might be the focus of attention in the language education.
• Language books might look like game-based textbooks through which all
micro and macro skills could be practiced.
• The E-portfolio concept will become more popular. Learners will be
recording their language progress in electronic form which will be readily

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accessible to both teacher as well as the learner. It shifts the responsibility

of learning to the learners.
• Multi-voiced perspective will be taken into account when doing needs
analysis, which will include both localized features as well as globalized
features of target language.
• It is possible that the in future classroom the misconceptions of learners will
the focus of ESL classrooms.
In addition,
• the concept of flipped classroom may become popular, wherein the learner
will be assigned tasks for home study and their responses will be picked up
for teaching in the classroom the following class.
• The use of latest devices such as mobile, I pod, skype, emails, blogs, story
boards will become popular
• English Language Testing will get considerably reviewed becoming more
and more individualized.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. What is method synergistic?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What do you mean by Strategopedia?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
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9.4 SUMMARY

• As development is taking place in all spheres of life the existing methods of

teaching and testing are gradually becoming outdated. It is a matter of high
priority that teaching stays in tune with technological advancements so that

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we are successful in preparing the new generation for facing the futuristic
challenges well. This preparation for future requires innovation.
• Any teacher or researcher who is interested in working on an innovation or
implementing it, must be aware of the three phases of ‘innovation’:
initiation, implementation and continuation.
• On the basis of a study of large number of different types of innovations,
Rogers (1983/ 2003), identified a set of innovation characteristics
described which were likely to enhance or reduce the possibility of
adoption of an innovation in a specific context.
• Rodgers (2000), tried to predict the future of language learning and
instruction.
• Lexical phraseology holds the idea that only a minority of spoken clauses is
novel and this implies chunking issues. By chunk, we mean that certain
word collocation is learned through an exemplar system.
• O-Zone whole language refers to the idea that language incorporates
literary study, authentic content, and learner collaboration in language
teaching.
• Language identity, using language for personal purposes and being flexible
in adopting different roles in the classroom are among those objectives that
might be the focus of attention in the language education.

9.5 KEY WORDS

• Strategopedia: A strategy that aims to prepare learners to take

responsibility for self-direction and a teaching approach directed to this
goal called learner training.
• E-portfolio: An electronic portfolio (also known as an eportfolio,
e-portfolio, digital portfolio, or online portfolio) is a collection of
electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the
Web.

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9.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Implementation is a very crucial phase as here the select change / idea is put
into practice for the realization of identified objectives. This stage involves
detailing of material to be used for the change, its pilot testing, evaluating,
reviewing, and revising.
2. The four characteristics which define innovation are:
• Change
• Novelty
• Development
• Improvement

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Method synergistic is the crossbreeding elements of various methods to find
those practices which best support effective learning.
2. Strategopedia means enabling learners to initiate, control, and maintain their
own learning through learning strategies.

9.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What are the steps involved in the process of innovation?

2. Which barriers affect the success of innovation? Explain.
3. Explain the factors which determine the success of innovation.
4. Analyse the future inclusions of potential pedagogical innovations as
suggested by the reviews of Alemi and Daftarifard (2010).
5. Discuss the future methodology and language teaching predicted by
Rodgers (2000).
6. Elaborate the roles and responsibilities involved in an innovation.

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9.8 FURTHER READINGS

Alderson, J. C. (Ed.). 2009. The Politics of Language Education: Individuals

and Institutions. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters
Alemi and Daftarifard. 2010. Pedagogical Innovations in Language Teaching
Methodologies In Journal of Language Teaching and Research. Vol. 1,
No. 6, pp. 765-770, November 2010 Academy Publisher: Finland.
Carless, D. 2011. From Testing to Productive Student Learning: Implementing
Formative Assessment in Confucian-heritage Settings. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Fullan, M. 2001. The New Meaning of Educational Change. New York, NY:
Teachers College Press.
Hargreaves, A. 2003. Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Education in the Age
of Insecurity. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.

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