11.

Teaching Lexis to Beginners

Difficulties. At the beginning stage learners are introduced basic words meaning certain things and persons in the
classroom. Although such vocabulary is essential, it may seem unnecessary to the students, especially when
English is not used outside. The words they already know, satisfy their basic needs for communication. While
Vocabulary is best learned when students feel a certain word is needed.
Solutions. We can make the basic words in English necessary for communication To do so, we engage students in
activities that require those English words for the exchange of information or the expression of personal feelings. In
some classes, the students spend a great deal of time saying English words without thinking (or caring) about their
meanings. In such classes time would be better spent on meaningful use of words.
Presentation stage.
Showing the meaning of words
In a typical textbook a vocabulary lesson looks more or less like this.
VOCABULARY
Boy door girl picture wall
Clock floor person room window
To the right of each listed word there may be a corresponding word in Ukrainian or a picture. In books without
translation the teacher is supposed to provide a definition using simple words the class can understand after reading
aloud each new word.
At this stage the teachers pronounces the new word and conveys its meaning by using one of the following
techniques.
Drawing attention to meanings before drilling words
Receptive exercises
1)To draw the students’ attention to the words ‘boy, girl, man, woman’, the teacher draws on the blackboard a
set of illustrative stick figures. While pointing to the stick figures, we say “a boy’ or ‘This is a boy’. Below the
stick figures we write ‘a boy’. Only a very short period of time (about 3 min.) should be given to this
presentation of meanings and then of words.
2)Actions which are performed in response to commands.
3) Drawing a picture.
4) Using pictures /real objects. Suppose we have pictures of each of the following: a church, a taxi, a bus, a
traffic light, a policeman. The students have seen and heard English words for each one, and have copied the
words into their notebooks.

Conclusions:
1. People are best able to learn a word when they feel a personal need for that word.
[Link] can create in students’ minds the feeling that certain English words are needed.
3. To produce that sense of need, it is not just enough to mention an English word and give students its
meaning.
4. Understanding, hearing and seeing a word are only first steps to knowing it.
5. Those first steps should be followed by activities that require students to use the new words for
communication.
Now it will be important to give the students some experience with the use of these words for communication.

Production Stage
Reproductive exercises.
Communicative experience 2.
The best students are asked to give commands to other students which demonstrate their knowledge of the
vocabulary –‘door, window, wall’.
Communicative experience 3.
The teacher writes the following dialogue on the board, using names of girls in the class where blanks appear.
1st speaker I am thinking of a girl in this room. You have three guesses.
2nd speaker. Are you thinking of __________?
Communicative experience 4. Guessing game.
Pair work. Answering alternative questions.
.
5/Find someone who… (a substitution drill)
Teacher: Find the boy/girl who is wearing a black sweater

12. Teaching Lexis to Intermediate Students

1. Introducing New Vocabulary.
Using definitions and sentences to introduce new words.
Like in lessons for beginners, the Intermediate Lexis lesson includes many words for things and persons
in the learners’ daily lives. There is much that the two levels have in common.
Compared with beginners, however, Intermediate students have one great advantage. They have learned
a number of English words that now can be used by the teacher for defining new vocabulary.
E.g.: A sister-in-law is my husband’s sister.
Learners’ Dictionaries (like Oxford Students’ Dictionary) can be of much help here. At the Intermediate
level, a learners’ dictionary can show teachers how to explain new words by means of the English words the
students are most likely to know. It is very useful to see a new word in an example sentence. It is easy to
explain the meaning of the word “contain” by using the word in a sentence.
E.g.: These boxes contain chalk. That bottle contains water etc.
In the Intermediate textbook, words from several different categories are usually introduced together in
one lesson: furniture, kitchen appliances, kitchen utensils etc. To make vocabulary learning more systematic,
the Intermediate students should keep a notebook and add each new word to the appropriate section of the
notebook (e.g. a page for furniture)
How to highlight the form
After introducing a new word/ collocation in a sentence, the teacher has to attract the students’ attention
to the way it is pronounced and spelled.
There are a number of ways of highlighting the spoken form of the word.
Essentially, these are
- Listening drills;
- Oral drills;
- Broad work.
In a listening drill the teacher repeats a chunk of the new language to get the students accustomed to the
phonological features of the word. After saying “listen to the new word/s”, the teacher repeats it two or three
times.
The teacher can also ask the class to identify the stressed syllable by asking “Where is the stress?” More
recently the writers have suggested allowing the learners two or three seconds ‘processing time’ between
hearing the new word and saying it, saying it might have benefits in term of retention in memory. This is
called ‘subvocalisation’ or a mumble drill. After the teacher says the new word, the students mumble or
mutter it to themselves at their own pace. Evidence suggests that subvocalisation is a technique that successful
learners use naturally. It may be appropriate to let the students pronounce the word after they have
subvocalised it, by means of choral or individual repetition, i.e. drilling.
 Traditionally presentation of the written form of the word used to be delayed until learners were
thoroughly familiar with the spoken form. But what may be right for beginners, is not exactly good for
intermediate students. In speaking sounds tend to merge or are even dropped entirely (handbag sounds like
hambag, and police station comes out as plee station). So depriving students of the written form of the word
may be counterproductive.
How to involve learners.
Learners have to be actively engaged in the process of presentation of the new vocabulary. One
technique is elicitation. The teacher presents the pictures and the students supply the word.
T (showing a picture of waterfall): What’s this?
St.: a waterfall?
Another important way of involving learners is to have them personalize the new words.
E.g. Learners make questions for others incorporating the new words: What makes you frightened?
Ask learners to make association network centered on the new word.
E.g.: When studying the topic Food, ask the students to rank the items in order of personal preference –
from most preferred to least preferred.
2/ Practice Stage.
Receptive tasks
There are many different kinds of tasks that can help learners move words into a long-term
memory. Such tasks require brain work. Tasks in which learners make decisions about words, can be
divided into the following types, arranged in an order from least cognitively demanding to most
demanding.
- Identifying;
- Selecting
- Matching;
- Sorting;
- Ranking and sequencing.
The more of these task types can be performed on the set of words, the better. In other words, an
identification task can be followed by a matching task, which in its turn, could be followed by a ranking
task.
Identifying words means simply finding them where they otherwise ‘be hidden’, such as in texts.
Example1. Read the text and
- Count the number of times ‘planes’ and ‘trains’ have been used in the text.
- Find 4 words connected with flying in the text.
- Find five phrasal verbs in the text;
- Find eight comparative adjectives in the text.
Selecting tasks are cognitively more complex than identification tasks, as they involve both
recognizing words and making choices amongst them.
Sorting activities require learners to sort words into different categories. The categories can
either be given or guessed.
 Finally, ranking and sequencing activities require learners to put words into some kind of order.
This may involve arranging the words on a cline (ranking the adjectives according to preferences):
Production Stage.
In productive tasks the learners are expected to incorporate the newly studied words into some
kind of speaking or writing activity. These tasks can be of two main types:
- Completion – of sentences and texts;
- Creation – of sentences and texts.
Sentence and text – completion tasks are generally known as gap-fills.
They have many different formats, but the basic extinction is made between open and closed
gap-fills. The open type is one where the learner fills the gaps by drawing on their mental lexicon. In a
closed gap-fill the words are provided (at the beginning of the exercises, for example).
13. Teaching Grammar
[Link] is Grammar
Grammar consists of two elements –morphology and syntax. Morphology is the way morphemes are put
together to make words.
2. Ways of presenting grammar.
There are two major ways to present grammar – implicit and explicit. Implicit approaches are based on
giving learners exposure to language and giving them an opportunity to work out the rules for themselves,
without the teacher drawing attention to particular patterns or forms. Explicit teaching involves the teacher
drawing attention to specific language items.
Explicit grammar teaching may involve deductive learning and teaching where learners are given a
rule and then are expected to apply it, or an inductive approach, where learners are presented with examples of
language use and from the examples, work out the rules for themselves. The working out may be supported
by the teacher asking questions to guide the learners in their discovery. Implicit teaching is also inductive in
nature but would not include the guidance outlined here. Explicit teaching is teacher-initiated teaching, where
the teacher decides beforehand what will be taught and introduces the language item into the class. In reactive
teaching the teacher provides input in response to learners’ questions, misunderstandings and errors.
The basics of explicit grammar teaching include:
- Engaging learners;
- Making explanations clear and concise;
- Dealing with how a piece of language is formed;
- Dealing with what a piece of language typically means;
- Showing how a piece of language is used in context;
- Providing varied practice opportunities.
Teaching grammar from texts
Teaching grammar from situations
Teaching Grammar from Tasks
[Link] of practising grammar
Teachers need to give their students plenty of opportunities to practice using the new language. The
given below examples of practicing the language can be used with a wide range of language patterns.
 Find someone who…
A Drill
Drilling involves repetition of the same pattern after the teacher or a model several times. Drills provide
intensive oral practice of selected sentences, giving the learners a chance to ‘practice, getting their mouths
around the language” without worrying too much about meaning.
Repetition drills.
Substitution drills.
T: He is going to eat the cake
Sts: He is going to eat the cake.
T: coffee
Sts: he is going to drink the coffee
T: Mary
Sts: Mary is going to drink the coffee.
Transformation drills.
In a transformation drill the students make their own sentence based on the model and information
given by the teacher.
T: He’s opening the cake tin.
Sts: He is going to eat the cake.
T: He is standing beside the swimming pool.
True sentences.
The most useful drill may be the one where the student is giving real information in his answers – on
other words, there is communication as well as language practice.
Elicited dialogues.
These are short dialogues (four to ten lines) which contain a number of examples of specific items to be
practiced. Using a dialogue places these items in a typical or useful context, integrating practice of newer
grammar with the items previously studied.
Grammar Practice Activities and Games
Grammar-practice activities are designed to focus on the use of particular items of grammar.
Split sentences
Write out some sentences using the first conditional for warnings and then cut each sentence in half.
Hand out these pieces to the students, who have to read out their half and find the matching half
amongst the other students.
If you eat that… You’ll be sick
If you touch the dog, it’ll bite you. Etc.
Grammar quiz.
Run a quiz for two teams. Write a verb infinitive on the board; the first team to put the Past Participle
correctly, wins a point.
Variations: - use a noughts and crosses grid to score on – the team must get three symbols in a row;
- get students to prepare the questions themselves for the other team to answer.
Communicative practice.
 14. Teaching Pronunciation
Pronunciation includes the way we pronounce the sounds of a language; the stress in words and
utterances, the rhythm with which we speak and the intonation patterns we use (the pitch movement of our
voices up and down).
1. Basic Principles of Teaching Pronunciation
1. Give lots of exposure to natural spoken English. Students will probably will end up copying what
they hear.
2. Help learners to hear differences before producing differences. Before trying to get learners to
produce the accurate sounds, it is always useful to help them hear the differences between the
sounds, to recognize the rises and falls of intonation and word stress. It is very useful to do
receptive exercises before producing the sounds.
3. Make pronunciation teaching visual where possible. This can be done by transcribing individual
sounds [i] – [i:], by marking stress patterns or intonation patterns on the blackboard.
4. Give lots of opportunities for practice. Learners need the opportunity to say the words or sentences
a lot of times.
5. Use (sensitive) correction if communication is hampered. Teachers should remain very
encouraging.

2. Teaching Individual Sounds.

Let us look at three broad categories of sounds: a pure vowel sound, diphthongs and consonants. A pure
vowel sound is created when the air stream remains relatively unobstructed. There are 5 vowel letters in
English but 20 pure vowel and diphthong sounds. This is because each letter or letter combination can
represent a range of sounds. A diphthong is created when there is a movement (or glide) from one vowel
sound to another. Consonant sounds are when the tongue, teeth and lips are used to restrict air flow in various
ways. There are two types of consonants: voiced (b, d, z, n, m) and unvoiced (p, t, s, k).
Presentation stage.
The sounds are presented separately and then in words.
For teaching purposed the sounds are divided into three categories;
1. The sounds which sound like some sounds in the students’ native language (E.g.: [e], [i]).
2. The sounds which are slightly different from those in the foreign language. E.g.: [k], [s], [ʃ] etc.
3. The sounds which do not exist in the learners’ mother tongue, and are completely new to the
learners, like [w], [ð], [θ] etc.
Practice Stage.
At this stage the aim of the teacher is to get the students recognize, identify the sounds and
differentiate between the sounds which are alike.
For this purpose the students do receptive exercises of the following types:
1) Exercises, in which learners recognize the sounds.
2) Exercises, in which learners identify the sounds.
3) Exercises in which learners will differentiate between sounds.
Production Stage.
 At this stage learners repeat words, phrases, tongue twisters, poems after the teacher, thus doing oral
repetition drills:
E.g.: 1) T: Repeat after me: [i] [i:]

Grin green

2)These three little sheep have eaten three green leaves each.
3. Connected Speech
When people speak quite quickly, small changes can occur in how words are pronounced when
compared to how they may be pronounced in isolation. It is important that learners are not distracted by these
changes when listening and remain able to recognize what they hear.
In connected speech, speakers are more likely to produce the following features:
Weak Forms.
In English we tend to stress the words that are important to the message. Look at the following
utterances;
A bucket of water

Linking Sounds.
Elision
Sometimes sounds are missed out altogether. In ‘you must be joking’, the ‘[t] in must is likely to
omitted.
Presentation Stage.
These features do not always need to be explicitly explained to learners. Instead, short periods of time
devoted to the short activities described below will probably give the help that is needed.
Practice stage.
1. Use a recording that contains features of connected speech. It may be from a course book, a song or
some other source. Play it a couple of phrases at a time and ask the learners to write exactly what is
said.
2. Read sentences fairly quickly. Ask learners to count how many words they hear.

[Link] Stress.
Presentation Stage
When introducing new words, write them on the blackboard and mark where the primary stress falls on
them. Explain, that the stressed syllables are pronounced louder that the unstressed ones.
ˈCamera pho ˈtographer ˈtripod ex ˈposure ˈalbum
Ask learners to repeat new words.
Practice Stage
Receptive exercises
- Hand out cards with a list of recently learned words and ask learners to mark the stresses .
Bookcase, armchair, window, kitchen
- Hand out cards with a list of recently learned words and ask learners to underline the ‘odd one out’
 Flattering, fingertip, flamboyant, following (flamboyant is different because the stress is on the second
syllable)
Productive Exercises
- Ask the learners to copy the following table from the board:
First syllable Second Syllable Third syllable

15. Teaching Intonation

Intonation is the pattern of pitch changes or the ‘melody’ of the language.
We use intonation for various purposes:
- to show our attitude to things – (interest, surprise etc.);
- to separate the flow of speech into units, making it easier to understand;
- to show how these units are related to each other, in particular, what information is considered new and
what is considered common and already known;
- to manage a conversation, indicating where turns end and so on.

Practice Stage
Receptive exercises
At this stage learners learn to recognize the main intonation patters, identify and differentiate between them
and recognize their communicative functions.
- Listen to the sentence and clap your hands if it is pronounced with the falling intonation(recognizing
the intonation pattern).
- Listen to the sentences and raise your hand if the intonation is rising and put it down if it is falling
(identifying the intonation pattern)
- Listen to the two phrases and put a ‘+’ if they are pronounced with the same intonation or “-“ if they
are said with a different intonation pattern. (differentiating between the intonation patterns).
- Listen to the sentence ‘We are going to the shops’, which will be pronounced several times with a
different intonation. Decide what attitude it expresses. Number the following attitudes with figures 1-5.
(Identifying the communicative function)
Bored ( ), surprised ( ), interested ( ), excited ( ), sounds like a question( )

Productive exercises
These exercises are aimed at teaching learners to imitate and produce the main intonation patterns.
- Give the learners a simple sentence like this: “A dark man in a black suit entered the room”. Pronounce
it in the ways that you sound bored, surprised, excited, interested. Ask the students to repeat after you
expressing the same attitude. (Oral repetition drill)
- Learners mingle around asking each other the question ‘You from Vinnitsya’ aren’t you?’ If the asker
is very confident of the answer, they should say it with the falling intonation and the response should
be non-verbal – just the nod of the head. If the asker is less confident of the answer, they should use a
rising intonation and receive a verbal response (Very near there, yes.)