Teaching Speaking and Listening Skills

988 Words4 Pages
Teaching speaking and listening skills Submitted by jobertrand on 7 October, 2011 - 06:57 In this article you will find a few tips to get you started with teaching speaking and listening skills to young learners. The aims are: To think about what you say in class and to make your language more accessible to your young learners To think about how you can make listening fun and easy, not hard and boring Age The tips below are for your classes with 5-7 year olds although you can use similar principles when teaching older primary age (8-12). Listening - Instructions Remember you are their model so always think about how you are going to introduce an activity before you go to class. Writing out instructions as part of your lesson plan will really help you to notice what language you are using with your young learners. You may find that your language is too complex for the beginner pupils. Imagine yourself as a beginner learning a new language and see if what you say is too difficult to follow. You may need to modify what you say. Instructions, if well thought out and accompanied always with demonstration, can be communicated purely in English. Listening - Class management Don’t panic if you don’t speak the children’s first language. This won’t prevent a bond forming between you and the children. If they know you as the person who only speaks English then they will always want to communicate with you as much as possible in English. Discipline can be easily understood by young children through your facial expressions and smiley/cross faces drawn on the board. Feedback can also be understood clearly when you use your face to help express whether or not you are pleased with the work they produce. Listening - Using a song Prepare the learners before they listen to anything. Show them pictures of characters from the song. If it’s a song
Open Document