English Teaching Methods At Primary Level

Introduction

Recent years have seen considerable growth in the number of children learning a second or foreign language, as the importance of being able to use a language other than one’s first language has become recognized in an increasingly globalized world. In Asia and Europe in particular, there has been a tendency to lower the age at which school children begin to learn a foreign language, since it is believed that the earlier a child starts to learn a foreign language, the greater the ultimate achievement will be. In addition, in many regions of the world, vast numbers of children attend schools in which the language of instruction is not the same as their native or mother tongue.

While in some schools there is no extra support to help young language learners acquire the language of instruction, in most countries where there are large numbers of young learners, there is a growing

awareness of their special needs. There is therefore a need to identify the needs of young language learners, to determine what level, if any, of proficiency they have in the target language, to diagnose their strengths and areas in need of improvement, and to keep track of their progress in acquiring the language. Language assessment, whether this is informal, classroom based, or large-scale, thus has a critical role to play in gathering the information needed for these purposes.

The most pressing assessment need in school programmes for young learners is for greater knowledge and expertise in language assessment among classroom teachers. Although high-stakes accountability decisions are often based largely on the results of large-scale, standardized assessments, the formative decisions that help guide student learning and inform teaching are appropriately made on the basis of classroom based assessments that teachers make. Unfortunately, the vast majority of teachers who work with young language learners have had little or no professional training or education in language assessment. Nevertheless, teachers are involved in assessment on a daily basis, as they monitor their pupils’ classroom performance, as they collect work samples or compile portfolios, and as they develop formal classroom assessments.

Education is meant to open magical doors to students, offer exciting, fulfilling careers for teachers, and help create a world in which people work together for the common good. The possibilities are great. Students have so much to learn and so many ways to learn it.

A successful English Language Teaching is about how we teach second language (mostly English as a Second Language (ESL) and

English as a Foreign Language (EFL)) and how our second language

students learn.

CHAPTER ONE

Developing the child

1.1 Language development

It is important to realize that a child’s ability to use his first language, in our case Romanian, is an important factor in the process of learning a foreign language. His ability to use his mother tongue will reflect on his ability to acquire English or any other foreign language. When the child’s ability of using Romanian language is not sufficiently developed, the teacher should not expect, on his behalf, performances in learning English.

The relative speed with which children acquire the complex system of language is not yet fully understood. It may be that children are in some way programmed to learn language but psychologists also emphasize the role of dialogue between child and significant others in the achievement of meaning.

Chomsky made the radical proposal that the principles underlying language are not learnt but are innate. He rejected as inadequate the learning theories advanced by the behaviorists because they could not account for the creativity of humans using language. Language cannot be learnt by simply reinforcement or imitation, Chomsky argued, because we can speak new sentences. They have never been spoken by the speaker before or heard by the listener. Yet, the speaker can utter the sentence and the listener understands it. How can this be explained?

Chomsky’s answer to this question is that language learner that depends on innate structures, allow children to recognize and use the complex grammatical rules of a language.

What is crucial, according to Chomsky, is that we are all born with what has been called a language acquisition device (LAD). All languages have rules which enable the language user to generate new utterances which they have never heard or spoken before, he argues that since all language share key rules, the underlying structures must be built into human brain as the LAD. The LAD is programmed to recognize the universal rules that underlie the particular language that a child hears.

Chomsky also pointed out that language is universal. Children in all known cultures learn to speak, even a foreign language, unless they have some disability. According to Chomsky children who are exposed to a language learn to speak that language.

The analysis of children’s utterances in terms of deep structure, surface, and the transformational rules related by Brown (1973), Slobin (1973), McNeill (1970), has greatly enriched our understanding of early language development. Children’s language does seem to develop in a systematic way. Children do seem to progress through similar stages in the acquisition of a foreign language. However, many contemporary psychologists question the notion of an inborn LAD, which operates most efficiently during a critical period between birth and puberty.

1.2 Cognitive development

It appears that concepts that a child has learned in Romanian can be transferred into English. Children find it easier if learning a new concept takes place in Romania first rather than in English. It is well known the fact that if a teacher has to explain a concept in English, it is more difficult to be done than in children’s mother tongue because of the way in which human mind works. So, for any teacher to know what concept children in their class already know and what concepts they are likely to learn during the current year is of great interest. Some textbooks for learning English especially those which have been designed for Romanian speakers and schools might include concepts which are difficult or rather unfamiliar for young children and these should be well explained to our students as they are fundamental in their learning and acquisition of English.

Anyway, there is a difference between what children of different ages can do because some develop earlier, some later.

Piaget considered intellectual development to be a continuous process of assimilation and accommodation. The order of stages is the same for all children, but the ages at which they are achieved may vary from one child to another.

Many of Piaget’s observations about the concrete operational stages have been broadly confirmed by subsequent research. Although Piaget had noted that related concepts may develop at different times he gave no explanation for it.

Children’s performance in the concrete operational period may be influenced by the context of the task. In some contexts children in this stage may demonstrate more advanced reasoning than would typically be expected of children in that stage. For example, Jahoda (1983) showed that 10-year-olds in Harare, Zimbabwe, had more advanced understanding of economic principles than British 10-year-olds. The Harare children, who were involved in their parents ’small businesses, had a strong motivation to understand the principles of profit and loss. Jahoda set up a mock shop and played a shopping game with the children. The British 10-year-olds could not understand that a shopkeeper buys for less than he sells, and did not know that some of the profit has to be set aside for purchase of new goods. The Harare children, by contrast, had mastered the concept of profit and understood about trading strategies. These abstract principles had been grasped by their involvement in the running of a business. Jahodas’ experiment, like Donaldson’s studies (1978) indicate the important function of context in the cognitive development of children, highlight the answer to the issue how children learn to make sense of the world in the shared, social context.

1.3 Emotional development

There is considerable evidence that children can understand other people’s emotions, desires and believes by 3 or 4 years of age and indeed the beginnings of this can be seen by 2 years of age. By 6 or 7 years children seem able to understand and manipulate emotions in a more complex way. It would appear that, as well as being able to understand that someone else can feel a different emotion, they can begin to operate recursively on such understanding.

When they get to 10-11 years old they have this emotional self-protecting feeling towards others and they try to hide their own feelings. For example, if they get a bad mark they try to hide the fact that they suffer, just to prove their peers that they are strong. At this age they do not realize that this might isolate them and they might become very lonely people and all that just because they think it is bad thing to tell others what you really feel.

It is not easy to examine all aspects of a child’s emotional development but it is important to be aware of the fact that young children differ in temperament. Some children are aggressive, others shy, some are over anxious to please and in some cases frightened of making a mistake, others are moody, especially if they do not get what they want. It is, then, obvious that their ability to take part in language-learning activities is affected by their temperament. Therefore, to overcome these difficulties an important role is played by the teacher who needs to be aware of differences in temperament and be able to help children make the best of an activity. There are many ways in which teachers can gradually find out about their children’s temperaments but the common ones consist in watching children in the classroom, in the playground or by talking to parents about their children. Once a teacher knows what sort of temperament a child has, he\she can allocate particular activities to that child, giving him\her an opportunity to develop his or her character. At the same time, the teacher will know better when to give praise and encouragement, so that such actions to be most effective.

1.4 Motivation

There are many different reasons for learning English or any other foreign language, and there are many different factors that may affect a pupil’s motivation. The motivation that students bring to class is the biggest factor affecting their success. Jeremy Harmer shows that “Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action”. If students perceive a goal and if that goal is sufficiently attractive, they will be strongly motivated to do whatever is necessary to reach that goal.

Language learners who are motivated perceive goals of various kinds. There are two main categories of motivation namely extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is concerned with factors outside the classroom, whereas intrinsic motivation is concerned with what takes place inside the classroom.

In Romanian schools, intrinsic motivation plays a vital part in the student’s success or failure as language learners. The factors influencing motivation are the teacher, the methods, the conditions, the atmosphere in the classroom, etc.

There is a big difference between children learning their first foreign language and children learning a second language at school: second language children have already experienced learning a foreign language. So, they bring with them to the language classroom a great deal of experience of language, of life and many other natural abilities which help them to learn English.

Children do not come to their English lessons like blank sheets of paper. They already haveays in which teachers can gradually find out about their children’s temperaments but the common ones consist in watching children in the classroom, in the playground or by talking to parents about their children. Once a teacher knows what sort of temperament a child has, he\she can allocate particular activities to that child, giving him\her an opportunity to develop his or her character. At the same time, the teacher will know better when to give praise and encouragement, so that such actions to be most effective.

1.4 Motivation

There are many different reasons for learning English or any other foreign language, and there are many different factors that may affect a pupil’s motivation. The motivation that students bring to class is the biggest factor affecting their success. Jeremy Harmer shows that “Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action”. If students perceive a goal and if that goal is sufficiently attractive, they will be strongly motivated to do whatever is necessary to reach that goal.

Language learners who are motivated perceive goals of various kinds. There are two main categories of motivation namely extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is concerned with factors outside the classroom, whereas intrinsic motivation is concerned with what takes place inside the classroom.

In Romanian schools, intrinsic motivation plays a vital part in the student’s success or failure as language learners. The factors influencing motivation are the teacher, the methods, the conditions, the atmosphere in the classroom, etc.

There is a big difference between children learning their first foreign language and children learning a second language at school: second language children have already experienced learning a foreign language. So, they bring with them to the language classroom a great deal of experience of language, of life and many other natural abilities which help them to learn English.

Children do not come to their English lessons like blank sheets of paper. They already have views and attitudes towards learning English. These attitudes are formed by the people around them, by the social environment in which they grow up. They can influence children’s desires and motivation to learn and ultimately their success in learning English.

“What are some of the things your pupils say about learning English?” What are the most important factors which influence pupils’ attitudes and motivation to learning English? ; asks Jayne Moon and she presents some comments of 11year olds, Spanish children. They say they like English because it is good to learn another language and to work in other countries of the world; it is not complicated, and it is a beautiful language; it is nice and can be useful later on; it is a language of great relevance in the world and because of that, they have more culture and they can understand computers and games instructions.

Other pupils said they do not like it because English is very difficult and they are not enthusiastic; they do not like English, because their English is poor and they feel a bit behind others.

As I said, at the beginning of this part, their motivation and attitude is influenced by the people around them, especially their parents. This is, in fact, a conclusion of what they say: “I think my parents are pleased that I’m learning English.”

Attitudes do not remain fixed and can be affected, both positively and negatively, by influences on pupils from outside school, for example, their friends’ views. They can also be influenced from people inside school, for example, their teacher’s view on English and what the teacher does to stimulate their interest.

Motivation can also be influenced by the learning process itself and by its outcomes. So if pupils enjoy English classes and are successful this may develop positive attitudes and increase motivation.

Pupils vary widely in their attitudes, and they can be changed by their experiences. When they found it difficult, a change of method could stimulate their interest.

Others may have experienced an early lack of success, which could have contributed to their negative feelings. Achieving success could change their feelings.

1.5 Children and teacher’s expectations

Young children, especially those up to the age of nine or ten learn differently from older children in the following ways:

They respond to meaning even if they do not understand individual words

They often learn indirectly rather then directly, that is they take in information from all sides learning from everything around rather that only focusing on the precise topic they are being taught.

Their understanding comes not just from explanation, but also from what they see and hear and crucially have to tough and interact with.

They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and curiosity about the world around them.

They have a need for individual attention and approval from the teacher.

They are keen to talk about themselves and respond well to learning that uses themselves and their own lives as main topics in the classroom.

They have a limited attention span; unless activities are extremely engaging they can easily get bored, losing interest after ten minutes or so.

Teachers need to work with their students individually and in groups, developing good relationships. They need to plan a range of activities for a given time period and to be flexible enough to move on to the next exercise when they see their students getting bored.

In her book, “Children Learning English”, Jayne Moon presents some of the children’s expectations concerning language learning. As I have pointed out before, two of the most important reasons for pupils liking English appear to be the teacher and the teaching methods.

So I asked my pupils what they expect from English classes and from me as their teacher. They were mostly concerned about classroom relationship. They want a teacher who cares for them, who is patient with them, does not get angry and helps them to learn this language, new for them. This suggests that one of the important conditions to promote language learning is for teachers to build good relationships with pupils and a happy and secure learning environment.

They also told me that they expect from me to use a variety of methods, interesting and captivating for their age, to plan funny and creative activities, wall displays of pupils’ work.

Children respond well to surroundings, which are pleasant and familiar. They expect to find an attractive classroom with pictures, drawings and writings. They want to have plants, animals, and any kinds of interesting objects, anything which adds character to the room, to the activity. Children learn and play best when feel secure, when they have a good motivation and when there is a strong relationship between teacher and children.

Children have very definite ideas about what they like in a teacher. If a teacher has a sense of humor, is open-minded, adaptable, patient, respects his\her pupils and is realistic about what they can manage at an individual level, then their expectations are met, and they are ready to make the effort to meet the requirements their teacher sets for them.

If children do not get what they have expected in the English lessons, they are disappointed. If parents do not get what they have expected and cannot see progress, they are disappointed, too. Parents’ enthusiasm can motivate; while their disappointment can reflect on their children, causing them to lose interest.

Young language learners are those who are learning a foreign or second language and who are doing so during the first six or seven years of formal schooling. In the education systems of most countries, young learners are children who are in primary or elementary school. In terms of age, young learners are between the ages of approximately five and twelve. Many young language learners can be called bilingual. Bilingual learners are those learners who learn two (or more) languages to some level of proficiency. This rather vague definition – impossible to pin down because of the variety of experiences of learners – would tend to include children who are learning a foreign language in immersion and bilingual programmes and all children in second language programmes. Young language learners may be foreign language learners, learning a language in a situation where the language is seldom heard outside the classroom. Young language learners around the world share many common characteristics and they learn in programmes that share many common beliefs and practices concerning the environment that young learners need in order to learn. Language programmes for young learners vary in their purposes and intended outcomes, their duration and their intensity.

1.6 Encourage learner autonomy

TV soaps

Media is a very important ally for second language learners as teachers of language students must prepare the students for real or authentic listening situations with language that is, as Field says, “the type of foreign language listening that occurs in a real-life encounter or in response to authentic material,” which, he says, “is very different” from that of a text that has been graded for a language learner. TV soaps provide such examples of authentic language that is real and has not been graded for any particular level. Teachers can adjust input to whatever level they want to teach; all that the teacher has to do is to make certain to activate the students’ world knowledge

of the soap schemata before starting this activity. Farrell (2006) has

designed the following six-stage approach to using TV soaps to encourage Learner Autonomy that teacher can adapt to their own learners’ needs:

TV Soaps

• Stage 1: Fun

The students are asked to watch a particular TV soap and have fun. No response is required.

• Stage 2: Names and Faces

Students are next asked to listen only for the names of the characters on the show. They should write these and try to draw a picture of each person.

• Stage 3: Relationships

Students now have to establish the relationships between these individuals.

• Stage 4: Personalities

At this stage, the students should be taught the necessary vocabulary to describe personalities in order to write a personality description of all the characters they have identified and, also, to write about which characters they like and/or dislike.

• Stage 5: Summary

By this time, the students should be ready to watch for story content. They will be asked to write a summary of that day or week’s show.

• Stage 6: Fun (Again)

The cycle comes full circle and fun returns to watching TV soaps in English. The use of TV soaps is an excellent way to promote Learner

Autonomy because it can show that TV programs in English can be accessible to students of all levels of proficiency, and that English language learning can even be fun.

1.7 The social nature of learning

One of the basic tenets of the social nature of all learning is that we can learn from each other rather than trying to learn by ourselves. This idea can be carried over into our second language classrooms when we realize that our students can also learn from and with their peers. Whereas in the traditional approach or paradigm, the rules often were, “Eyes on your own paper,” and “No talking to your neighbor,” the goal in the Social Nature of Learning essential is to encourage our students to share with their peers and their teachers. Indeed, research suggests that second language students learn from and teach others all the time, especially when they are not in formal teaching settings (Breen, 2001), and more specifically within a CLT approach, as Richards and Rodgers (2001) have noted, it is actually expected that second language students will interact with their classmates in speech and writing during class activities as well as outside of class. In order for this to

happen though, both second language teachers and their students need to be aware of cooperative learning skills.

Cooperative learning (also known as collaborative learning) is one of the most researched methods in all of education, with thousands of studies havingbeen done involving a wide range of students, as to age, ethnicity, and nationality, and a wide range of subject areas, including second language. These studies suggest that cooperative learning can lead to gains of cognitive and affective variables. What should be emphasized is that it is seldom useful for teachers to just ask students to form groups and work together. Instead, preparation must take place. The literature on cooperative learning offers principles and techniques to aid in this preparation.

Many students need some preparation for group activities as they may not be accustomed to working with classmates on academic tasks. Instead, they may have mostly experienced teacher-fronted instruction. To prepare students to cooperate, second language teachers often include explicit instruction in cooperative skills. The teaching of cooperative skills is a cooperative learning principle. Examples of these cooperative skills include praising others, asking for help, and giving and receiving suggestions (Gillies, 2007). These cooperative

skills are also vital second language skills; skills that will serve our second language students well in their future academic careers and in other aspects of their lives where they collaborate with others.

Johnson and Johnson (1999) explain a useful six-step procedure for facilitating students’ regular use of cooperative skills that can be used in second language classrooms:

1. Students understand why a particular skill is important.

2. Students know the words, phrases, gestures, etc. typical of use of that one skill.

3. Students practice the skill in isolation, e.g., they do a game or role play that features the skill.

4. Students use the skill during a cooperative learning activity involving regular course content.

5. Students monitor their use of the skills and discuss their findings.

6. The skill is emphasized in an ongoing way, rather than just once.

Another means second language teachers have of promoting collaboration in their classrooms is to foster an overall atmosphere in which cooperation acts not just as a methodology for second language learning, but also a topic in itself for learning, and as a value embraced in all learning activities (Jacobs, Power, and Loh, 2002). Examples of cooperation as a topic for learning would be second language students writing compositions about the times that they (or people whom they interview if this can be incorporated into the course) have collaborated with others. To establish cooperation as a value, the class as a group can look at what processes in the school, such as norm-referenced evaluation and in society, such as contests with only one winner, promote competition as a value. It should be noted that the aim is not to eliminate competition or individual work; the aim is to achieve a better balance.

1.8 Classroom implications

Group work

The most common way that teachers can implement this view of learning as a social activity is by the use of cooperative learning activities in their second language classes. As noted above, cooperative learning offers second language teachers many ideas for how they can go beyond merely asking students to work together in pairs or groups. Different techniques will be appropriate with different learning goals and will match with different views of teaching; furthermore, techniques can be adapted to fit particular learning situations.

There is a specific group technique: Snowball

Snowball is actually two techniques in one: Forward Snowball and Reverse Snowball. Forward Snowball involves students in working together to generate ideas, and in Reverse Snowball, students choose from among the ideas their group has generated. Forward Snowball is used for brainstorming and highlights the benefit of heterogeneity because it is good for gathering as many ideas or as much information as possible.

Step 1 – Each group member works alone to list ideas or information.

Step 2 – Pairs explain their lists to each other and then make a combined list. Duplications are eliminated.

Step 3 – Pair One and Pair Two get together and make a combined list. Duplications are eliminated.

Forward Snowball is also useful for teambuilding (creating bonds among group members) because it provides dramatic proof that two (or more) heads really are better than one. Within second language teaching such as an English as a second language (ESL) class, Forward Snowball can be used as follows: The teacher writes a word on the board, such as “important.” Students do Forward Snowball to see how many words they can generate using the letters of “important.” Perhaps they can use various aids, such as electronic dictionaries and websites, to find more words. In Forward Snowball, the group’s list gets bigger and bigger, however, in Reverse Snowball, it gets smaller. Thus, this technique builds analysis and evaluation skills as in the following steps:

Step 1 – Each group member works alone to list ideas or information.

Step 2 – Pairs explain their lists to each other and then make a list of only those items that appear on both lists or only those that they think are the best.

Step 3 – Two pairs repeat the same process.

Reverse Snowball could work as follows: Each group member lists four examples of good writing in a particular text. By Step 3 of Reverse Snowball, they try to agree on the best example of good writing in the text and prepare to explain their choice.

Classroom assessment of language use

Classroom assessment or teacher assessment refers to assessment carried out by teachers in the classroom. It may be formative when teachers are collecting information about children’s strengths and weaknesses in order to provide feedback to learners and to make further decisions about teaching, or it may be summative, when teachers are collecting information at the end of a period of time,

generally to report to others about children’s progress. Summative assessment carried out by teachers may also inform their own teaching, if, for example, the learners return to them in the following school year. Formative assessment is also called assessment for learning. Not all assessment in the classroom is classroom assessment. If teachers are administering tests in the classroom prepared by others, this is not considered to be classroom assessment because it is not prepared by the teacher but by others who are at least one step, and maybe many steps, removed from the learners and the learning situation of the classroom.

Teachers have opportunities to adopt performance assessment in its widest sense in the classroom, engaging children as active participants in assessment processes, assessing processes as well as products, collecting multiple sources of evidence over time, and working with parents and others in a collaborative assessment process. In classrooms there are many opportunities for assessment through language use tasks, when children are able to engage in language use in games, information gap oral tasks, story writing, question-and-answer tasks related to literature, project work and so on.

Purposes of classroom assessment

Teachers carry out classroom assessment continuously through the school year. Classroom assessment might occur in the following ways and for the following purposes:

• initial diagnosis at the beginning of the year (What are the strengths

and weaknesses that need to be addressed from the start of the year?)

• ongoing diagnosis leading to decision-making about teaching during

the course of teaching (How are they progressing? What feedback can I give right now? What do I need to teach next?)

• ongoing collection of evidence leading to information-sharing with

children and their parents. What can I share with children about their

ongoing progress and needs? What can I tell parents and others about

children’s ongoing progress?

• ongoing collection of evidence of progress leading to reporting against externally developed criteria (How are the children progressing

towards the criteria?)

• summative purposes (What have they achieved? What do I report

about their progress?)

Many assessment procedures for younger learners are embedded in classroom teaching and the purposes therefore reflect the purposes of teaching and learning.

Incidental observation

Incidental observation happens as part of teaching, as teachers move around to observe and work with children during teaching activities. Incidental observation occurs as the teacher circulates among students who are engaged in classroom tasks and activities. Puckett and Black(2000) describe how teachers engage in incidental observation in the elementary classroom.

“During story time, for example, the teacher scans the listeners for facial expressions and body language and listens for verbal responses indicative of enjoyment, language development, and comprehension. . . .The children are also observed as they interact with one another and with adults. There are innumerable incidental observations inherent in day-to-day interactions with children. These incidental observations provide valuable information about what individual students are feeling, thinking, understand, and can do and guide the responsive teacher in setting appropriate expectations and experiences for them.”

Incidental observation can take place, for example, during oral interaction, during the drafting process in writing, and during reading, when there is a feedback and support process about the reading, and when questions and discussions take place on reading. Observation might take place outside in the playground (are the second language learners able to hold their own in the new language during play), or in the school assembly (do they appear to be understanding or are they

‘tuning out’?). Mental or written notes are made by the teacher to

inform teaching decisions.

Planned observation

Planned observation can involve a number of techniques. Teachers may watch children’s performance in tasks and activities in the classroom and take notes of what they see in a regular and systematic way. They may use observation checklists or rating scales. These checklists may be developed externally or may be developed by teachers for their own particular purposes.

Mason (1992) suggests that teachers should have a schedule for observing children:

“Be consistent and systematic with your observations because young children’s learning about written language develops and changes very rapidly. Have a schedule for observing different children every day or every few days. In this way you will always have an up-to-date detailed record of every child’s learning.”

Observations become assessment only when they are recorded systematically over time so that characteristics and changes in student performance are noted. The figure 1.1 is a simple example of an observation checklist developed by a teacher reflecting the objectives for a unit of work she is teaching. Note that children might achieve at different levels. Other terms could be used, such as ‘low, high, not applicable’, ‘beginning, consolidating, established’, or a space could be left open for comments.

Planned observation of this kind could relate to any aspect of

language learning – to sound–letter correspondence, word recognition,

reading skills and so on.

Figure 1.1. A teacher-constructed observation checklist for a unit of work.

Observing to check progress against externally developed criteria

Observing against externally developed criteria is often the basis for planned observation. Education Departments provide teachers with externally developed criteria. Teachers are asked to make decisions about children’s progress – on which level they are performing – and to report during the school year to the school and the Education Department.

Teachers will also take information from specifically designed assessment tasks and will combine this with observation data. The following form (Figure 1.2) can be used by teachers to observe features of children’s language. On the left are criteria, developed externally, and chosen specifically for the planned unit of work, or perhaps because they are salient in the children’s learning at present (e.g., they may be working at Level 4, and the teacher is aiming to move them to Level5).

Figure 1.2Form for observing an individual learner against externally developed criteria (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority).

Teachers have space to write comments and suggestions over time as they observe specified criteria. The value of this pro forma is that it helps teachers to check that a criterion is well-established before deciding on the level at which the child is working. The very best way to assess children’ progress against externally developed criteria is for the teacher to get a picture of the child, make sure that he knows the child’s abilities, then go to the checklist and fill in the form. Teachers observing against externally developed criteria might follow the guidelines set out in Figure 1.3

Figure 1.3. Guidelines for teachers observing against externally developed

criteria (adapted from Northern Territory Board of Studies, 1995).

CHAPTER TWO

Ways of teaching English

2.1 Classroom assessments of language use

Conferences

Conferences involve the teacher engaging in a focused discussion with young learners about their work. Conferences can focus on individual pieces of work or reading selection, or a portfolio of work. Teachers ask questions to elicit children’s responses, in order to assess their progress, and help children to reflect on their own performance. ‘What reading did you do this week?’ ‘Why did you choose this story?’ ‘Read this piece for me and tell me what it is about.’

Other people in young learners’ lives are sources of information; parents can give valuable information, for example, about children’s use of their language at home, their interest in reading (in the first and second language) and their emotional well-being. Bilingual aides can share their observations about children’s oral language and literacy in their first language. Bilingual aides and other teachers can also share their knowledge of the child’s progress in other areas of learning.

Conferences with such people provide invaluable sources of information on which to base decisions about children’s needs, as well as their performance and progress.

Portfolios

Portfolios are collections of a student’s work prepared over a period of time. They may include drawings, written pieces, audio tapes of performances, photographs of artwork (preferably with related language samples, for example, a written piece or a short interview with another child about what it is and how it was made); children’s self-evaluation sheets, and so on. The use of portfolios becomes an assessment strategy when there are plans to select tasks for assessment and collection, and when materials are systematically collected.

Much has been written about portfolios note(e.g., Genesee and Hamayan, 1994; Moya and O’Malley, 1994; Brown and Hudson, 1998; Puckett and Black, 2000). Portfolios are widely advocated by those involved in elementary education (e.g., Puckett and Black, 2000) and have formed a strong component of assessment in elementary education for many years. They provide a basis by which teachers can accumulate a record of children’s achievement over time, motivate learning and discuss progress with others. Children should participate in the selection of portfolio content (following established criteria for selection), and there should be criteria for assessment of individual items and/or criteria for the whole portfolio. There should be evidence of student self-reflection. Using these tools, children are able to reflect upon their efforts and accomplishments, go back over past performances, and through this, become aware of what constitutes progress and how well they are progressing.

Moya and O’Malley (1994) summarize the literature findings about the strengths of portfolio assessment. Portfolios are able to do much more than provide a record of a child’s progress. From a perusal of Moya and O’Malley’s article, we gain an understanding that portfolios have the potential for:

• enhancing teacher professionalism through meaningful and active

involvement in student assessment;

• establishing a sense of community among evaluators;

• encouraging thoughtful activity in the classroom;

• promoting serious discussion of criteria and what goes on in the

classroom;

• creating instructional links at different grade levels;

• linking assessment more closely to classroom activities;

• allowing students to draw on the skills they learn in process-centred

classrooms;

• allowing assessments to become a teaching strategy to improve

learning;

• drawing on students’ strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses;

• involving both students and parents in assessment;

• making assessment more equitable.

The judicious use of portfolios can underpin classroom assessment, establishing greater learner and parental involvement in learning, more opportunities for explicitness in expectations and greater support for learning through assessment. These benefits will come if the philosophy of alternative assessment is linked to the use of portfolios.

The aggregated portfolio is a class portfolio that includes, for example, representative work samples from each student’s portfolio and summaries of class records. It is concerned with evidence for accountability and for evaluation of the programme. Weigle (2002) has evaluated the assessment of writing (of older learners) through portfolios in relation to Bachman and Palmer’s six qualities of test usefulness.

“In academic settings in particular, portfolio assessment has the potential for greater construct validity, authenticity, interactiveness and impact, and thus may be an attractive choice for assessing writing. Portfolio assessment is also especially appropriate for internal [classroom] assessment where classroom teachers want as close a link as possible between instruction and assessment, and reliability is not a major factor.”

Self- and peer-assessment

Self- and peer-assessment are strategies that can be used throughout classroom-based assessment. Children can be encouraged to be active participants in the assessment process if they are guided to think abouttheir own performance, and the performance of their peers.

Figure 1.4 shows an example of a self-assessment sheet that can help guide children to begin to focus on their learning and the problems they encountered in a task. If they are aware of the criteria being used, they begin to become more conscious of the quality of their work, and more responsible for their own learning. Teachers can help children to understand, reflect on and refer to criteria. A series of guided discussions about ‘what makes a good piece of work’, suitable for the age level, can help to make explicit what they should be aiming for. Children can complete charts about their performance and what they have learned. These kinds of activities, discussing pieces of work and filling in charts, can be conducted in the target language, giving another opportunity for language use. Self- and peer-assessment activities can also be very effectively conducted in the first language.

Figure 1.4 Self-assessment sheet

Another example of a self-assessment chart below (Figure 1.5) gives children a chance to check their abilities against set criteria or competencies.

These criteria may come from the objectives of the course, and

therefore raise awareness about what they should be learning, and how

much they have achieved so far.

Teachers might sometimes use ‘yes, mostly, a bit, no’ as alternatives to guide answers. Interviews between the teacher and individual children can develop self-assessment skills, and also give feedback about the child’s motivation and interests. (‘What is the best thing you did this week?’). The use of contracts (see previous section) helps children to become more aware of their own plans and progress.

Figure 1.5 Example of a self-assessment sheet.

Self- and peer-assessment forms can be used to guide children to think about their progress; they can be placed in children’s portfolios or folders.

Classroom tests

A classroom test refers to an individual task, or set of tasks, in which the conditions (e.g., support, interaction with others and time) are controlled. The scope of tasks that can be used in this way is very wide; they should be selected using a plan that reflects the objectives of the course, the content covered and the types of tasks used in teaching.

Teachers may also devise a classroom test that includes a number of tasks. There are various ways of working out the best balance or spread of tasks in such a procedure. An example of a multi-task procedure, in which the tasks are organized, with weightings, around speaking, vocabulary knowledge, listening and sound–symbol relationships, is given in Figure 1.6 below.

Quizzes (one word or short answers – e.g., ‘Who won the running race yesterday?’ ‘What is the name of our principal?’) and paper-and-pencil tests can be used for a careful check on a child’s progress, while ensuring that the work is all the child’s own work, and giving him a chance to concentrate without interruption. The following chapters give many examples of tasks and items that can be used for the assessment of oral language, reading and writing.

Figure 1.6 A planned assessment for young beginning foreign language learners.

Keeping records in classroom assessment

Keeping records is an integral part of classroom assessment. It enables teachers to draw together data on children’s performance from the range of assessment procedures that are used in the classroom. A folder or portfolio can be kept for each child, into which the teacher’s notes of observations, samples of work, records of discussions with parents, and so on, can be kept. All these sources help teachers to gather together a picture of children’s needs and abilities, and to report on progress to others.

Children can be involved in record-keeping, for example keeping records of their reading, or filling in charts about what they can do. Doing this helps them to reflect on their own learning; it also provides a record of their perceptions of their own learning for the teacher (Rivalland, 1992). Record-keeping is important for accountability purposes. In most educational contexts there is an expectation that records on children’s performance and progress will be kept. After assessment tasks are carried out, scores need to be recorded in class books or in individual learner folders. Criteria sheets may be filled in and placed in the folder, together with samples of work. The result – a mark together with some qualitative comment if possible – might be noted in a class book with children’s names down the left, and descriptions of the tasks along the top.

An extract from a teacher’s class record sheet is given in Figure 1.7, with notes made for each child against criteria set out along the top of the sheet.

Figure 1.7 Class record sheet.

Some teachers may prefer to rely on the individual records they keep in each child’s folder (see Figure 1.8), rather than to have an overall class shee

Figure 1.8 Individual record sheet – Maria.

2.2 Assessing oral language

This chapter is devoted to the assessment of young learners’ oral language. The assessment of oral language is challenging because of the combination of speaking and listening activities that may be involved: sometimes more speaking than listening (as in extended speaking tasks like news telling); sometimes a combination of both (as in conversations); and sometimes more listening than speaking (as in teacher-led class discussions). Teachers and assessors need to be able to assess children’s language use ability in speaking and listening in tasks such as interviews, pairwork tasks and group interaction tasks that combine these activities. Teachers also need to be able to assess speaking and listening separately, especially in extended speaking and extended listening tasks.

Through oral language interactions with the teacher and with each other, young learners are able to try out their hypotheses about

language, receive feedback and form new hypotheses. Through oral language children clarify their ideas about the world and from this base can move towards more formal expositions of their ideas in oral and written forms.

Oral language is therefore the mainstay of both language learning and academic learning for young learners and a central tool in teaching and assessment in the classroom.

Oral language assessment is often avoided in external testing because of practical considerations; yet oral language makes up the core of young language learners’ curriculum. Hence, to skip over oral language and to assess language learning through reading and writing is to deny the essence of young learners’ language learning. Ways need to be found to assess oral language in external testing situations, if the impact of testing is to be positive.

In this chapter, I will outline the kind of oral language expectations that young foreign and second language learners encounter at school and then discuss the relationship between spoken and written language.

This is followed by a description of the scope of oral language to be assessed, an overview of issues in oral language assessment, and then examples of types of assessment tasks in speaking and listening. Sections on assessing vocabulary and grammar in oral language complete the chapter.

2.3 Oral language at school

Children learning a foreign language in formal school settings learn best by communicating primarily through oral language; effective programmes give children early opportunities for practice of routine language and basic language patterns, but also for imaginative play, action rhymes and songs, response to narrative texts and participation in narrative and simple description. As they grow older (beyond ten) and become more proficient, young learners continue to learn best primarily through oral language, moving into conversations, narratives, simple recounts and reports. Written language is limited in its support of oral language learning in the early years, though a ‘switch point’, when written language becomes more supportive of oral language development, happens around eight or nine years of age (Cameron, 2001, pp. 66–7).

In some foreign language programmes oral language activities move towards being content-based activities, when children move beyond social interaction in the classroom to academic use of language. Most children in second language situations are engaged in primarily oral learning activities in the early years of school, but many will also be engaged in the serious business of learning how to read and write at the same time. For second language learners, a lack of oral language in the target language constitutes a major drawback for literacy development.

However, oral language, once consolidated, provides an essential foundation for literacy development, and later, for academic learning (Bills, 1995). Oral language activities at school tend to become more and more content-based, mirroring the demands of the curriculum, as second language children progress through school. Second language children are generally expected to produce a wider range of genres and more extended talk incorporating more complex background knowledge as they progress through their primary years.

2.3.1 The nature of oral language ability

In language use situations, when people speak, it is not the case that they simply open their mouths and speak the words and sentences. When people speak, they are doing so in a cultural context, they are speaking to another person or persons (perhaps friends, a teacher or a tester) who bring with them a relative degree of status and power and they are doing so in order to meet the purpose required of the interaction, which may be a conversation, or a task that needs completing.

Children use oral language either in conversations or in extended talk(Cameron, 2001). Conversations usually involve unplanned speech and are more casual in nature. Extended talk usually involves planned speech and is more formal. Assessment of participation in conversations is a challenge because conversation is ‘dialogic’ in nature; people take turns, finish off each other’s utterances and build on each other’s ideas: ‘any attempt to unravel one pupil’s spoken thread and regard it as a solo ‘text’ is doomed to failure.

In conversations, speakers are supported by feedback from interlocutors (other speakers) through nods, smiles, responses and by the kinds of responses, for example follow-up questions, incorporations (taking up what was said and using it), exclamations and so on. Scowls, interruptions and lack of eye contact deter even the most proficient speakers. The role of interlocutors is just as important in classroom interaction. As I will discuss below, in wider classroom interaction children’s opportunities for participation depend on the nature of the classroom interaction that is set up by the teacher.

Children’s participation may be affected by the behaviour of one or several of the other participants, and by the kinds of interaction with the teacher. When teachers ask two-choice questions (‘Do you like lettuce [or not?]’) or display questions to which everyone knows the answer (‘What colour is your hair?’), responses are more limited. When teachers ask referential questions to which they don’t know the answer (‘What do you think about that?’ ) and add their own personal contribution, then children are likely to contribute more. Children in second language classrooms may have difficulty participating in classroom interaction for more cultural reasons: they may not yet be familiar with the implicit rules of interaction in the classroom, for example, who should speak when, and to whom, and the degree of informality that is acceptable.

Spoken language often has incomplete sentences, non-specific words, and may contain relatively little information in any given chunk of language (Brown and Yule, 1983). This is because speech is made up of idea units.

Speakers use fillers and hesitation markers (e.g., kind of, sort of) and will use periods of silence and repetition to give themselves time to speak.

More mature speakers use phrases like Now, let me see and That’s a good question. Therefore in informal conversation-type tasks speakers (even native speakers) are unlikely to produce language with complete sentences and precise word choice without hesitations and backtracks, slips and errors. Even in more formal, extended talk tasks, it is natural for speakers to stop in mid-sentence to begin a new sentence, hesitate, and to add ‘ums ’ and ‘ahs ’ as they think. The only time this will not happen (except with the most gifted speakers) is when speakers have detailed notes, or are reading a prepared speech word for word. This level of ability is not expected from young foreign/second language learners who, even when reading a prepared speech, will tend to hesitate because of their developing reading abilities, the demands of the foreign/second language and usually shyness about speaking in front of others.

In extended talk, there is also interaction; speakers must monitor their audience’s response and adapt if necessary to convey the message more clearly; they need to meet their audience’s expectations of the discourse structure (e.g., a morning talk), and their listeners need to be attentive and supportive.

The ability to use language for conversational interactions and oral presentations is not necessarily present in young learners. Cameron (2001, pp. 52–3) describes how, for example, children through to 10 years of age gradually develop the ability they need in oral language to estimate what other people will understand from what they say, and to ask for information if they don’t understand. Thus complexity of oral language assessment of young learners is compounded by these maturational factors; children may not participate because they do not yet have the cognitive and social skills that are needed.

2.4 Issues in the assessment of the oral language of young learners

Below, I discuss briefly a number of issues that arise in relation to the assessment of the oral language of young language learners.

Selecting oral language assessment tasks

Various factors need to be taken into account in the selection of oral language assessment tasks for young learners.

Motivation

Young learners need to see the value of participating in the assessment tasks that we use; therefore assessment tasks for oral language require a genuine need to communicate. To engage children, tasks usually have incorporated into them devices to maintain interest: colourful and interesting pictures, an action or doing component, a requirement for an immediate and compelling one-to-one interaction with another person, usually an adult. Puppets can also provide the gestures and to-and- fro interactions that keep children’s attention in conversations.

Incorporating an element of surprise or unpredictability into the task helps to keep a child’s attention, as does the idea of a problem or mystery to be solved.

Determining the appropriateness and usefulness of oral langauge assessment tasks

How can teachers and assessors determine the appropriateness and usefulness of oral language tasks? Oral language tasks will be more useful, and more likely to engage learners in language use, when more support is available – for example support from the things around in the environment, visual support like pictures and objects, or conversational support such as gestures and facial expressions.

Without these here-and-now features, oral language becomes more decontextualized and more cognitively demanding. And not only do objects and pictures that children can handle and look at provide support, they can help children to feel less anxious, drawing them into the task. Oral language tasks can be more, or less, engaging depending on the language that is being used by the interlocutor. Language use becomes more difficult, for example if a wider range of vocabulary is used, and if grammar is more complex.

Language is easier if words are repeated, and if redundant information is given(Phillips, 1993). Oral language tasks that require more sophisticated communication strategies, like taking turns in group discussions and interrupting politely, are more difficult that those that are structured and supported closely by an adult. Expectations of register variation in the task (talking politely to a visitor, or talking in a friendly way to a peer) also affect the task difficulty.

Other dimensions of oral language tasks that influence performance,

and therefore the selection of tasks

A task may involve conversational language or extended talk. Both have their own dimensions of cognitive difficulty. Conversational

interaction requires children to listen to short turns in order to respond, to make split-second decisions about what to say, when to intervene and how to take a turn. Extended speaking involves a child giving a talk that is likely not to be interrupted and that requires its own internal coherence(e.g., the use of connectives which indicate the organization of the ideas, such as then, after that).

Other dimensions of oral interaction tasks are:

• the topic of the interaction;

• the level of formality (informal, consultative, formal);

• the number of participants;

• the relative status of the participants (high/low; low/high; equal);

•the familiarity of the participants with each other (stranger, acquaintance, friend);

• the gender of the participants;

Each of these dimensions can make the task easier or more difficult, depending on the characteristics of the task and the personal characteristics of the learners.

CHAPTER THREE

English teaching methodology

3.1 The use of written texts

Finally, the use of written text as a basis for an oral assessment task should be avoided until literacy skills are known to be secure. For example, it would be inappropriate to ask children to read and answer questions on a story, when the child does not have the literacy skills to read that story well enough to gather the details of that story that are needed. Even though children’s oral language may be progressing well, their performance on the oral task may be hampered by yet-to-be-developed skills in literacy.

3.2 Assessing pronunciation

When assessing pronunciation, teachers and assessors need to be concerned with the articulation of words and longer stretches of language in discourse rather than in isolation. Words change when they are used in sentences, for example in English in the sentence ‘Please sit down,’ ‘please’ and ‘sit’ become joined because the /z/ sound at the end of ‘please’ becomes devoiced or becomes an /s/ sound, when it is followed by the/s/ sound in ‘sit’. In addition, the intonation, rhythm and stress of sentences change when sentences are combined to convey meaning in discourse.

In the main, pronunciation is best assessed in the context of language use. The central criterion for assessment should be intelligibility – can children be understood when they say something to others? If children cannot be understood, are there persistent errors that are being made that are causing this difficulty? Is the problem that specific sounds, for example the shortening of certain vowel sounds ( as when ‘dark’ sounds like ‘duck’ in English) is consistently a problem? Or is the problem to do with prosody, that is, with features such as loudness, intonation, and word and sentence stress patterns?

Knowledge of the characteristics of the child’s first language will help a teacher to know, in formative assessment, if a pronunciation error is due to the first language influencing the pronunciation in the target language. In young learners, pronunciation is not usually a long-term problem if children have good models in their input, and many opportunities to use language.

3.3 Assessing vocabulary

Vocabulary can be assessed both through a child’s oral language use and through literacy tasks. I include vocabulary assessment in this chapter because vocabulary development first takes place in oral language, and in the early stages of learning; it is only once vocabulary knowledge has established its foundations in oral language that it will be transferred to literacy. Once literacy is well established, vocabulary knowledge can increase through reading, and can be assessed through writing in some of the ways described below.

As children’ language abilities develop to more advanced levels, assessors will be checking that children have the vocabulary they need to understand and use language for a range of purposes in a range of different contexts. They will be checking that children have, for example, vocabulary that helps them to describe things (circular, straight), vocabulary that helps them to compare things (better than, most exciting), idiomatic vocabulary and phrases (Once upon a time . . .), vocabulary that helps them to connect ideas (and, then, however), and vocabulary that helps them to modify the way things are said (I think, maybe, sometimes). Even as children develop to advanced levels of language ability, they may not have full control of the nuances of meanings in their receptive and productive knowledge. However, children’s ability to enhance meaning through vocabulary can be observed as they edit their written work, for example adding more words and phrases or changing words to achieve the exact meaning they want. The development of vocabulary knowledge is integral to the development of language ability; every component of communicative language ability (grammatical, textual, functional and sociolinguistic) relies on increasing knowledge of vocabulary, in all its definitions.

In the classroom, vocabulary can be assessed constantly and informally

during the teaching and learning process. Teachers can use flashcards and pictures to teach and to check understanding (‘Peter, what is this?’). They can point to objects and ask for words, and carry out oral gap-filling when they are reading stories (The man jumped onto the _____). Children may read a card aloud, or may respond with actions or by following the command (jump, hop, skip, dance ). Adverbs can be added (quickly, slowly). Vocabulary games (e.g., finding the odd one out, picking up a word card from a pile, reading it and looking for a match) can help children to gain reading vocabulary, and also help teachers to check vocabulary.

Teachers can ask children to brainstorm vocabulary in a topic before a teaching task. ‘What words can you think of that describe animals?’ This helps to check which children have learned the words. As children progress, and in order to look at more depth in vocabulary knowledge, vocabulary networks can be used on the board to check if children can organise the words in their relationships. An example of this is provided in Figure 1.9 in which children are asked, ‘What words can you think of that go with the topic word in the middle?’ Additional spines can be added as children progress in their knowledge of the vocabulary.

Figure 1.9 A Vocabulary network

3.4 Assessing grammar

Grammar is also included in this chapter because assessment of grammar for young learners begins in oral language and continues in a more focused way in writing tasks only as children’s language ability expands. There are different ways of looking at grammar. Grammar may simply be defined as accuracy (for example, Is the child speaking the language without errors in word order and word endings? Is the child understanding what is said to him? ). Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) theoretical definition of grammatical knowledge includes knowledge of vocabulary, syntax and phonology/ graphology; syntax refers to a range of features of syntactic structure depending on the requirements of the task, and grammar is assessed within the wider theoretical framework for language use that includes organizational knowledge, pragmatic knowledge and sociolinguistic knowledge. Purpura’s (2004) more recent definition of grammatical knowledge is even broader because he introduces the notion of conveyance of meaning into the idea of grammar (rather than into the broader definition of language use as in Bachman and Palmer’s framework). Thus, ‘Grammatical knowledge is involved when examinees understand or produce utterances that are grammatically precise and contextually meaningful’. Learners have the grammatical knowledge they need when they can do this at the sentence and discourse levels. Purpura reminds us that the type and range of grammatical features required to communicate accurately and meaningfully will vary from one situation to another. Young learners’ grammar can be assessed in oral language through observation involving analysis of children’s oral language as they engage in meaningful language use activities. Observation checklists, devised through a needs analysis, help teachers and assessors to check the grammar that is required for children’s successful engagement in the task; these checklists usually describe a range of features of language that are required – not just grammar.

As young learners progress in their language ability, and in their cognitive maturity, observations and analysis can look more closely at their knowledge of grammatical form at the sentence level and discourse level. At the sentence level, Purpura ( p. 91) lists prosodic forms such as stress and intonation, use of inflectional affixes, e.g., ‘-ed’, use of voice, mood, word order. At the discourse level, he lists cohesive forms such as using personal and demonstrative references, use of logical connectors, information management forms such as using prosody and emphatic ‘do’ and interactional forms such as discourse markers like ‘oh’ and ‘ah’ and repairs and fillers. For an account of the range of grammatical features that may need to be assessed, or refer to other theoretical frameworks for grammar such as functional grammar.

Observation

Observation is a central tool for assessment of oral language in the classroom. Oral language is used in classroom management (e.g., when teachers tell children to settle down), in classroom instructions (‘the next thing I want you to do is . . . ’), in group and individual readings of stories, discussions, class surveys, literature-based tasks, games and so on.

Interaction with the teacher can occur in a group setting or on a one-to-one basis. Interactions with other children, perhaps in problem-solving tasks, can be observed by the teacher with or without intervening. When literature is read to the class, teachers can check whether individual children are responding to the humor and/or the excitement at the expected moments.

In the classroom, oral language assessment often occurs as part of a cycle of teaching. Table 2 shows a teaching task that involves a set of integrated teaching activities, some of which give the teacher the opportunity to observe and assess oral language. It may be that only a sample, perhaps five children, are assessed in this one teaching task.

Table 2 Big book activity with opportunities for oral language Observation

1. Teacher calls children to mat

Children listen to instructions and come to sit on the mat.

2. Group reading of big book

Teacher reads to children, pointing out words as she reads . . .

3. Group questions on the book

What happened to the . . .?

What do you think . . .?

4. Children draw pictures depicting the story and write under pictures

Teacher discusses with children what they are drawing and helps with writing.

5. Second group reading of book

More teacher questions . . .

Teachers asks children to choose a character and describe him/her/it.

Children respond in the group with initial questions about this.

6. Children draw and describe their character at their desk

Teacher comes around and asks questions

Who is your character?

Can you read what you have written?

What else are you going to say about him?

Observation of oral language can take place in the first activity (listening and following instructions), the third (answering questions on the text – both literal and interpretive), the fourth (ability to describe and explain what they are doing), the fifth (answering questions on the text, and listening to instructions) and the sixth (answering questions about their character).

3.5 Types of oral language assessment tasks for young learners

The following are examples of task types for assessment of oral interaction. Oral language tasks such as these may be integrated into classroom teaching tasks, may be used more formally for summative purposes or may be used in external tests. Each task requires refinement to suit the purpose of assessment, the context of assessment and learner characteristics.

3.5.1 Tasks involving speaking only

News telling

News telling is the first of the extended speaking tasks suggested here. However, if children in the audience are encouraged to ask questions, then the task becomes interactive. News telling involves children telling other children what they have done recently. It may be done in a whole class setting, in a small group or in partners. This task assesses children’s ability to do this in a way that conveys information to the audience with adequate detail, in an appropriate sequence. The abilities of children in the audience to listen critically for detail, and to generate questions can be assessed.

Selected children can be invited to tell news to the whole class, giving teachers a chance to focus attention on that child’s abilities; alternatively, teachers can observe performance as they move around different groups. Tape-recordings can be made and performances analysed.

Storytelling

Children’s ability to tell a story can be assessed with the use of illustrations cut away and laminated into a book. It is best to show the entire sequence of the pictures first, and ask for the story, because if children tell the story from page to page they tend to treat each picture as a separate unit, losing the sense of the connected story in their storytelling. Note-(Carpenter, Fujii and Kataoka, 1995). Children may know the story, having heard it in story-reading sessions, and therefore are likely to know the vocabulary and language they need. If the story sequence is new, they may need help to practise the vocabulary first.

Picture talks

Children can be asked to describe a picture. They can be given one or two minutes to look at the picture before they describe it.

Categorization tasks

A categorization task involves children sorting and finding patterns. Categorization tasks can assess children’s descriptive language, and language of comparisons, as well as abstract explanations and academic talk and content. Children are asked to choose from a set of four pictures – which one is different or doesn’t belong with the other three. There may not be a ‘right answer’ and children can be told this. The pictures are chosen according to the level of the children. For younger, less proficient children simple choices such as pictures of three plants and one person might be used. A content-based assessment task (that is, one in which children are being assessed on both language and content) for more proficient learners might involve, for example, the classification of animals in science.

3.6 Tasks involving both speaking and listening

Question-and-answer tasks

Simple one-word answer questions are useful to elicit vocabulary and formulaic expressions in beginning learners. In the following example from a beginning seven-year-old, the answer ‘I am seven years old’ will have been learned as a formulaic expression. (The teacher’s or assessor’s knowledge of the children will ascertain whether this is the case.)

Question and answer tasks should move beyond simple learned question- and-answer routines as soon as possible, since learned routines only help to assess that children have memorized the language taught.

Since we are looking for communicative language use, where children call on their language resource, we can extend question and answer tasks by doing the following:

• adding an element of surprise and unpredictability

• increasing the complexity of the questions (even though the expected response may remain simple)

• including new vocabulary (sometimes unknown) into the questions

• supporting new language in questions with gestures, objects, pictures to help children to predict from the context

• supporting new language by asking simpler or explanatory follow-up questions where needed

Question and answer tasks like this can be extended according to the proficiency level of the children, and can be used in individual or whole-class sessions. Extending the language of questions, and adding supporting visual aids and questions, alters the characteristics of the task, and the changes should be noted by teachers and assessors in their judgment of performances.

Oral interviews

Oral interviews assess children’s ability to interact using both listening and speaking skills. Oral interviews typically involve teachers talking on a one-to-one basis with a child. However, group oral interviews, where children prepare their own questions with support, can also be successful with children in the upper elementary age group. A script for the interview may be prepared, with guidelines on the questions to be asked, the stages of the interview and ways to close the interview. Interviews work best if there is a warming up stage when the child is made to feel comfortable while easy questions are asked (‘What’s your name?’ How old are you?’), a level check, to determine the child’s level of proficiency, a probe when questions are asked that push the child to show the limit of his or her skills and then a wind-down to bring the child back to a level when he or she is able to talk comfortably and finish with a feeling of success. Interviews with children need to be short, depending on their age and proficiency level.

Oral interviews are not an ideal vehicle to elicit young learners’ best performance, especially if they are classic face-to-face question-and answer interviews. Observations of language use in familiar settings, in tasks suited to their everyday learning environment, are more likely to be more effective. However, with a familiar adult, and with the use of objects and pictures, a sample of the child’s oral language may be elicited. Children often go quiet in interviews with adults, especially strangers. The interviewer can use a puppet to talk to the child, and perhaps the child can also talk through a puppet. Picture tasks, manipulation tasks and role plays can be incorporated into oral interviews, turning the child’s attention to the colourful pictures, and the manipulation of objects (‘Can you put the horse in the field?’).

An oral interview needs to be planned carefully, with a check that the language to be elicited is broad enough to represent what the child is expected to do. It is best to follow the planned pattern of questions, though some deviation away from the plan and then back again helps interviewers to probe children’s abilities further. In high-stakes situations assessors should be trained and made aware of the degree to which they are able to adapt their responses to the child’s performance, or should adhere to the set questions. Hughes (2003) advises interviewers to give as many ‘fresh starts’ as possible, to encourage participation. He suggests that a second tester should be available if possible to help to observe and make decisions on the performance without being distracted by the need to elicit language. Interviews should be carried out in a quiet room.

3.7 Assessing listening only

Listening assessment is often combined with speaking in ‘oral language assessment’ and is then largely ignored. However, there are many situations in which listening needs to be assessed explicitly, especially in school learning contexts where listening plays an important role, not just in language learning, but in learning itself. Children need to be able to listen to texts (e.g., teacher talk and peer talk around activities in the classroom, and extended texts like teacher input on learning topics, and stories) to learn about the world, to pick up new vocabulary and to connect language with what they see and do. For these reasons, listening needs its own profile in assessment.

A child’s listening ability is strongly influenced by the nature of the spoken texts that are being encountered, and spoken texts, as I discussed earlier in this chapter, vary according to the purpose, topic and context. The spoken text may be part of a conversation, it may be an extended talk or it may be teacher talk made up of extended input with questions, responses and asides incorporated. It may be accompanied by gestures, pictures or actions or it may not. Stress and intonation may help children with their understanding, but different accents, fast speech and long stretches of input may hinder understanding. If there is a gap in listeners’ understanding in a communicative situation, they will compensate by using other available information from the context, or from their background knowledge. This may be harder for those listening in a foreign and second language, because of differences in backgrounds and culture.

Listening is more difficult to assess than speaking because it is ‘invisible’ and has to be assessed indirectly. Evidence of listening comprehension can be readily observed in conversations, where children’s responses and participation can be used as evidence of understanding. In listening only tasks where the aim is specifically to assess listening comprehension, teachers and assessors need to find evidence of understanding in children’s reactions and in subsequent activities. Thus in the examples of listening-only tasks given below, the tasks often involve listening and doing – carrying out actions, answering questions, retelling and so on. In listening-only tasks, children need to concentrate, to try to grasp the overall meaning of what they are listening to and to monitor the structure of the monologue. They have to listen to decide what the main points are, and identify signals that indicate the structure of organization of the ideas. The cognitive load can therefore be high.

Listening-only tasks surround children in classroom learning. For example, the teacher is constantly giving instructions, showing pictures and telling stories. Mixed in with this will be opportunities to interact, to respond and ask questions. Thus the classroom is a rich site for listening only assessment.

3.8 Selecting listening-only tasks

As in oral interaction tasks, there needs to be a reason for listening to the task beyond being told to do so (because otherwise they might simply choose not to). Children need to be prepared for listening tasks. They need to know beforehand why they are listening ‘Listen to the story and try to find out why the monster ran away’.

Teachers and assessors should give children every chance to show they have understood. In a conversation, the evidence will be in their participation. In listening-only tasks, there should be a ‘product’: for example, they should be asked to perform an action, to draw a picture or fill in a diagram, to build a model or to do a short piece of written work. Listening is an ‘invisible’ skill without these products. Pictures, simple charts, puppets and other visual materials might be required as a support in assessment tasks for listening comprehension, especially with younger and less proficient children. If there is suitable visual support, the text can be slightly beyond the children’s current comprehension level; this will check children’s ability to use the context as they listen. We should be careful that interpretation of the picture or diagram does not substitute for the need for listening, and that the cognitive demand in the visual material and in the text is appropriate.

What kinds of texts should be used for listening tasks? Teachers and assessors should avoid using very familiar texts, because using familiar texts will only give an assessment of children’s accumulated knowledge of the text in question, but not of their ability to comprehend new language. Texts should introduce some new knowledge, or an element of unpredictability. As early as possible, it is valuable to move towards using authentic samples of spoken language, involving the stops and starts, backtracks and interruptions typical of real interactions. Authentic samples of language might also include ‘noise’ – elements in the text such as someone else talking, or music playing in the background. Second language children require the skill to deal with noise as they listen – how many subject content classes are not carried out without group work going on around them, interruptions from children in the class, or a football match going on outside in the playground? (For a discussion of the ‘listenability’ of texts.

3.9 ‘Listen-and-do’ tasks requiring action responses

In these tasks, a minimal (usually non-verbal) response is required to demonstrate understanding. The following are types of assessment tasks requiring a short response. Children enjoy responding with actions. Through actions, nods or shakes of the head, pointing, moving around, they can show they understand. As long as children see a point to following the questions and commands (we need to make sure that they do), then the evidence for their comprehension can be clearly seen in their actions.

Action tasks

Action tasks are excellent ways to assess listening comprehension, as are games like ‘Simon Says’. Assessors need to keep in mind that children might be copying each other, and checks with individual children may be needed. Instructions can also be given, for example to draw something or, to build something with building blocks.

Total physical response tasks

Total physical response or TPR tasks are action tasks that involve children in a physical response to a request or command. The requests can be simple, or become more and more complex depending on what is to be assessed. Understanding of cohesive devises, as in the following example, can be included for more advanced students.

Simon, draw a picture of a car on the blackboard, and when you have finished, ask John to come and draw three people in it.

These tasks are good fun for observers. If teachers want to assess each child without immediate prior practice, it will be necessary to remove observers who are also to be assessed, as they will learn quickly from listening and observing others complete the action.

3.9.1 ‘Listen-and-do’ tasks requiring short language responses

‘Listen-and-do’ tasks might require a short language response, meaning that some skills in speaking or writing will be required.

True/false tasks

In a class assessment activity, children can be asked to respond physically, for example by raising a different-coloured piece of paper for true or false. For more formal assessment, children can be asked to circle ‘true’ or ‘false’ on an answer sheet, or tick/check the correct item.

Aural cloze

Aural cloze is suitable for children with appropriate literacy skills. A written passage is provided with words deleted at regular or irregular intervals and learners are asked to listen to the text and write in the missing words. Teachers and assessors need to be careful to balance the number of gaps with the time available for filling in the gap. This task does not focus on learners’ ability to predict meaning from context; more on their ability to distinguish the words being used. Story cloze is the same task using a story as the text. This task is assessing reading as much as listening.

Noting specific information

In these tasks, children are asked to listen for specific information(‘What did the mouse do when it saw the elephant’?) and to note the answer. The answer might be set out in written form as multiple-choice items.

Grids and charts

Grids are often used in children’s textbooks to stimulate language use. They can be used successfully in tasks to assess listening comprehension. Grids are usually rectangles marked off into squares, which children fill in as required. Teachers and assessors need to monitor closely that the cognitive demand is suitable for the age group, and that the texts are at the appropriate proficiency level. In this task, the text can be made simple or complex (e.g., information can be given in order or out of order; less or more redundant information can be given) depending on the proficiency level of the learners.

Spot the mistake

Children listen to a familiar story, but there are errors in the story. They need to signal there is a mistake and explain it. Alternatively, children can be given a picture sequence depicting an event; they listen to the description of the event and check if there are any mistakes in the picture sequence.

3.9.2 Listening tasks requiring longer responses

As we move into listening assessment tasks which involve making longer responses, we move into a zone where very careful consideration is needed concerning the cognitive and literacy demands placed on the children. Asking children, for example, to paraphrase or summarize what they hear, to fill in gaps in a conversation, or to answer comprehension questions based on a spoken text should be treated with care for elementary-age children.

Responding to a series of comprehension questions

Children listen to a text (or view a video text) and answer a series of oral or written comprehension questions. The text and questions should be very carefully chosen to ensure that children are able to deal with the cognitive load, the literacy requirements, and that they have the background and cultural knowledge required. In these tasks children should be given the questions first before they hear the text. Assessors have to be careful that this kind of task does not become a memory test.

Dictation

Dictation involves children listening to a text and writing it down as they hear it. The reader may pause after a phrase or after a sentence or even longer, depending on the proficiency level of the students. A dictation task enables teachers and assessors to check children’s perception of the sounds and words, and also their understanding, as it is difficult to write down a series of sounds that you don’t understand.

Dictation texts should be chosen carefully to suit the literacy, proficiency level and concentration span of the students. Dictation does not give assessors any indication of the children’s writing ability beyond the mechanics of writing, because children have not creatively produced the language themselves. Dictation is best used to provide some indication of listening perception and comprehension.

Summary

Oral language, consisting of speaking and listening in different combinations, is the foundation for language learning. It is through oral language that children develop literacy skills. This is so, both for first language learners learning their first language, and for foreign and second language learners learning a new language.

Oral language also establishes the foundation for learning through the foreign/second language, when children are able to interact with new ideas and establish new concepts through interaction with others and with the world through the language. Whilst this and the following chapter are organized around oral interaction and literacy, there are many complex differences between the notions of spoken and written language, and any simplistic division between oral and written modes is inappropriate. A ‘mode continuum’ (Derewianka, 1992) helps to illustrate that there are closely shared features of language in face-to-face oral language tasks and literacy tasks (e.g., conversations and personal notes), and also closely shared features between extended spoken and written tasks (e.g., formal debates and formal written pieces). The differences are not simply spoken and written. In the final analysis, however, it is the task, rather than the skill, that will determine the nature of the language to be used (Bachman and Palmer, 1996), and it is most appropriate to analyse the task and its demands, rather than the skill involved.

The scope of oral language to be assessed depends on the curriculum which may be influenced by sets of standards. Curricula may describe oral language in terms of objectives or outcomes, as genres or functions; underlying skills are described and are also assessed in formative assessment. Teachers and assessors can also refer to theory to inform oral language assessment; the Bachman and Palmer (1996) framework is one theoretical perspective that helps to define the components and characteristics that define successful oral language use.

Teachers and assessors need further knowledge of child development and language acquisition and the characteristics of learners (their language programme, their current age, their first language literacy development, etc.) to know what exactly should be expected. With this, they will know which tasks to select, and the characteristics of performance that indicate both quality and growth.

There are many issues for teachers and assessors to consider in relation to oral language assessment. Assessment of oral language requires knowledge of, amongst other aspects, the quality of classroom interaction (is it giving children opportunities to show what they are capable of?); understanding of the issues in task selection including task difficulty; and knowledge of the best ways to assess grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation in oral language.

CHAPTER IV

Assessing reading and writing

Introduction

In this chapter we turn to the assessment of the abilities of young learners to read and write in their foreign or second language. To many, assessment of reading and writing is more pressing than the assessment of oral language: this may be because these skills are more readily associated with learning and academic progress by parents and administrators, or because they are more likely (often because of testing costs) to feature prominently in high-stakes external tests.

The chapter then turns first to the assessment of reading, and then to the assessment of writing; each section presents examples of task types and tasks suitable for young learners. As Alderson (2000) reminds us, there is not a best method for reading (or, in my view, writing) assessment. No single assessment method can fulfill all the varied purposes for which we might test, despite claims that some procedures, such as cloze, are a panacea, widely used in tests. For young learners there are many alternative ways to assess reading and writing that combine teaching with assessment.

As a further introductory comment to this chapter, it is noted that, in many educational circles, reading and writing are commonly combined and thought of as literacy, with literacy dealt with through a range of theoretical positions, often sociocultural

4.1 Reading and writing in a foreign or second language at school

For children learning a foreign language in regular foreign language programmes, reading generally begins early, often incidentally, as they learn sight words and as they are exposed to simple reading texts (labels, posters, messages, stories) in the foreign language classroom. Young foreign language learners in the early primary school years are in the process of developing their literacy understandings and skills, whether in their first or their foreign language. They are in the process of becoming part of a new discourse community and developing a series of new identities.

Very early readers (and writers) in a foreign language tend to concentrate on code breaking (e.g., working out sound–symbol relationships, alphabet knowledge and so on) at first, and this can take a great deal of their attention. The texts that they read and write vary from short passages, poems, questions and instructions in beginning years, to passages and narratives and academically oriented texts related to content areas in later years (depending on the type of programme and the extent of contact with the language). Children are likely to be restricted in their literacy skills development in the foreign language by their oral language skills in the language which can only progress according to the contact hours they have with the language. If they are learning a language that has a different script from their first language, this too may affect their progress, at least initially.

Children learning a second language are immersed in their second language, and will need to learn subject content (such as social studies; maths) through the language, necessitating an early engagement with reading and writing, with expectations of achievement targeted to children who have spoken the language for at least five years or more of their lives. Second language children read a wider range of texts as they progress through school and are expected to use different styles of writing for different purposes. Despite these advantages, second language learners can be in a precarious position when their literacy skills are assessed. If the education system or school ignores their second language learning status and assesses them alongside their peers with the same tests or the same observational criteria, then they are in danger of being assessed unfairly. The criteria may be based on expected progress of first language learners the result can be that second language children can be wrongly assessed as falling behind or even slow.

4.2 Assessing reading and writing through computers

Assessing young learners’ literacy through computers has advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is the requirement that children have the requisite computer and keyboard skills. For the assessment of writing through short or extended texts (a narrative, a report), children need to have mastered the keyboard and at least some elementary word-processing skills. Computer assessment for extended writing would be selected only if children are known to have these skills.

It is possible to assess reading, grammar and vocabulary knowledge through selected-response and discrete-point assessment, when children are expected to click the mouse only (yes/no; select the right response; connect the correct statement to the picture). Computer adaptive assessment (in which the computer decides, based on the child’s responses, what level of item difficulty should be presented next) can be used to advantage with these kinds of items. We need to keep in mind the limitations of selected-response and discrete-point assessment items, but they can be useful for diagnosis, for assessment of some kinds of reading, and for assessment of some contributing knowledge and skills. One advantage of commercial computer-based programmes containing these kinds of assessment items is that in the classroom children can gain valuable practice, and perhaps motivation, by completing them. As they, individually, complete a level successfully on the commercial programme (perhaps when they have finished their set work), they move to a new level and are often motivated to continue to work on the programme to compete with their classmates.

It may be that computer-writing skills can be the content of the assessment, rather than language use itself. That is, children can be assessed for their ability to employ multimedia techniques, for example combining graphics, audio-recordings, scanned documents and hypercard techniques into their writing product. These kinds of skills are valuable ‘multi literacy’ skills, and enhance children’s engagement with texts and with learning. They are of great importance in children’s repertoire of literacy skills today. However, teachers and assessors need to recognize that these kinds of skills should be included in assessment decisions about language performance and progress only when they are part of the curriculum and when all children have equal opportunities to extend their abilities in these areas.

4.3 Assessing reading

The nature of reading ability

It is generally known that writing systems appeared long after spoken language existed. It is also well known that children learn to speak their mother tongue long before they learn to read and write.

Reading is the language skill, which is easiest to keep up. Many of us can still read in a foreign language that we used to be able to speak as well. Books open up other words to young children and making reading an enjoyable activity is a very important part of the language learning experience. Reading texts also provide opportunities to study language: vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and the way we construct sentences, paragraphs and texts.

Before commenting on reading referential objectives and activities is worth mentioning Jeremy Harmer’s six reading principles:

Reading is not a passive skill

Students’ need to be engaged with what they are reading

Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a reading text, not just to the language

Prediction is a major factor in reading

Much the task to the topic

Good teachers exploit reading text to the full

Reading involves making meaning from a text. Readers employ three main cueing systems when they read; they rely on graphophonic cues at the word level (i.e. cues from the way a word is written and how it ‘sounds out’), syntactic cues at the sentence level (i.e. cues that give information about the role of any one word within a sentence or clause of words) and semantic cues at the whole text level (i.e. cues that relate to the meaning of a word or words in relationship with the whole text, and also with associated pictures or photographs that accompany the whole text). A theory that maintains that reading evolves from a knowledge of the graphophonic and syntactic cues upwards takes a bottom-up perspective of reading, and a theory that maintains that reading begins with semantics and discourse organization takes a top-down perspective. It is currently believed by most theorists that reading is an interactive process, in which bottom-up and top-down skills work together in the reading process.

In the school practice we distinguish between different kinds of reading classified according to various criteria:

– according to the mode of reading we distinguish between loud and silent reading;

– according to content we distinguish between literary texts, scientific, social texts;

– according to understanding of texts we distinguish between analytic and synthetic reading.

Here are some reading techniques, which may be used with

the 5th and 6th forms.

Reading aloud is one of them. In school, most of the reading done in class is reading aloud. Reading aloud is not the same as reading silently. Teacher can use it as a means of training and checking rhythm and pronunciation. Reading aloud to the teacher should be done individually or in small groups. The reader then has the teacher's full attention. Reading aloud from a book lets the teacher ask about meaning, what the pupils think of the book, how they are getting on with it, as well as smooth out any language difficulties. Reading dialogue should be in pairs or groups. This is an efficient way of checking work.

Different reading materials- once the children are on the road to reading, it is important that there is a wide choice of reading materials available to them as possible.

Picture dictionaries- to begin with, pupils can just look at the picture dictionaries in the same way as they look at pictures books.

Books with tapes- some books and some easy reader series have accompanying tapes. These can provide useful listening material both for slow readers and for those who progress quickly.

Pupils, like the rest of us, need to be able to do a number of things with a reading text. They need to be able to scan the text for particular bits of information they are searching for. This skill means they do not have to read every word and line, on the contrary, such an approach would stop them scanning successfully.

Pupils need to be able to skim a text- as if they were casting their eyes over its surface- to get a general idea what it is about.

Whether readers scan or skim depends on what kind of text are reading and what they want to get out of it. They need to realize how to read for different purposes- including reading for pleasure and reading for detailed comprehension.

Reading for pleasure- will be a slower, closer kind of activity while reading for detailed comprehension must be seen by pupils as something different from the reading mentioned above. When looking for details, we expect pupils to concentrate on what they are reading.

Observation

In the classroom there are many opportunities for assessment of reading, and teachers observe children constantly as they read. Are they reading independently? Can they follow through after a conference? Are they keeping their diaries? Are they responding to teacher questions on the mat, and do they have some enthusiasm as they pick up a book? These kinds of observations can be noted in anecdotal records or on checklists. Teachers can also be guided in their observations by externally developed criteria that map children’s expected development in reading.

4.4 Assessing writing

The nature of writing ability

Writing in the foreign language is useful, essential, integral and enjoyable part of the foreign language lesson, because writing adds a physical dimension to the learning process while it lets pupils express their personalities. It is now agreed upon the fact that writing activities help to consolidate learning in the other skill areas. In a balanced activity approach, writing is meant to train the language and help aid memory. Practice in speaking freely helps when doing free writing activities. Reading helps pupils to see the "rules" of writing, and helps build up their language choice. But writing is valuable in itself. There is a special feeling about seeing your work print, and there is enormous satisfaction in having written something, which you want to say. What pupils write will depend on their age, level and the motivational effect of the task.

Traditionally, writing activities in foreign language classes have taken the form of the writing out of paradigms and grammatical exercises, dictation, translation from native language into foreign language and from foreign language into native language, imitative and free composition, summarizes, etc.

Copying. These are some stages the pupils have to pass. The first stage, copying (sometimes called transcription), is often despised by foreign language teachers as an unworthy and unchallenging occupation for a lot of pupils. This attitude is unfortunate and ignores the fact that there are many aspects of the foreign language which are very strange to the pupil and with which he needs to familiarize himself very thoroughly if he is to write the language confidently.

In English where sound symbol combinations are particularly complicated, copying activities may be continued side by side with more advanced writing practice.

In the early stages credit should be given for accuracy in copying in order to encourage pupils in careful observation of details.

Reproduction First pupils will be asked to rewrite, without a copy only the sentences and phrases which he has learned to copy. As a first step he will be asked to rewrite immediately each sentence he has copied without reference to his copy or to the original. He will then compare this version with the original for correction. Next, he will be asked to write down sentences he has memorized, read and copied as they are dictated to him. When dictation procedures are employed it is as well for the teacher to realize that he is calling for the exercise of two skills at once: listening comprehension and writing.

Recombination Pupils are required to rewrite learned work with minor adaptations. It must be continually born in mind that the work for recombination in writing will always be some distance behind what is being spoken and read.

At this stage, writing practice may take a number of forms.

Pupils will write out structures drills of various kinds: making substitutions of words and phrases, transforming sentences, expanding them to include further information within the limits of learned phrases, contracting them with pronouns for nouns or with single words for groups of words. The writing of drills not only gives careful valuable practice in accurate and correct construction of sentences but also consolidates what has been learned orally. It is a useful home study exercise ensuring that the pupil gives careful thought to work done during the day in class.

This becomes difficult where the textbook supplies all the responses to the drills. In such a case, the teacher will need to construct exercises of a similar type to give the pupils home study practice in recombination.

Guided writing, Pupils will be given some freedom in the selection of lexical items and structural patterns for his written exercise, but within a framework which restrains him from attempting to compose at a level beyond his knowledge. They will begin with summaries which allow for some individuality, but which also help them to keep to what they have learned, and they will gradually move on to composition which is so closely associated with what they have read or heard that they have no choice but to restrict themselves to the known. At their control of writing techniques increase they will be ready to move into the 5th and 6th stage composition where they may attempt to express their personal meaning in acceptable foreign language expression.

Composition involves individual selection of vocabulary and structure for the expression of personal meaning. In a foreign language, the 5th form pupil is not capable of being creative in his writing since he must write as a native speaker would write. If he has been carefully trained for a sufficiently long period through the preceding four stages, he will have developed an attitude of mind which will prevent him from committing basic mistakes.

At this stage, he will be increasing his understanding of the differences between speaking and writing a foreign language.

Correction of written exercises. The practical problem is that systematic training in writing requires systematic correction of individual scripts if it is to be effective. This can impose an intolerable burden on the most willing teacher. Methods must be evolved which will give the most help to the pupil while making reasonable demands on the teacher.

4.5 Selecting writing tasks for young learners

Teachers and assessors will select writing assessment tasks that help them to assess children’s achievement of the objectives or outcomes that need to be checked in the curriculum, and/or of their progress according to their theoretical perspectives about writing development.

Examples of the contributing knowledge and skills that underpin the ability to write:

Ability to write to suit purpose and audience. Ability to write to meet the purpose and audience, that is, according to the appropriate genre.

Ability to organize paragraphs logically. Ability to write paragraphs logically and in accordance with the expected stages of a genre (e.g., for recounts, orientation, events, evaluative comment or concluding statement).

Knowledge of a growing range of vocabulary. Ability to write using a growing range of vocabulary. Ability to use vocabulary accurately. Ability to take some risks and try new vocabulary.

Knowledge of a growing range of grammatical structures. Ability to use a growing range of structures in their writing. Ability to use structures accurately. Ability to take some risks and try out new structures (making some errors because of this).

Ability to punctuate. Ability to use the appropriate punctuation for the target language. (e.g., for English, can they use basic punctuation marks accurately?

Can they use capital letters for proper nouns, and to start sentences? Can they use full stops to end sentences? Can they use apostrophes for possession?)

Ability to employ connectives appropriately. Ability to employ a range of

connectives to express sequence (e.g., next, then, finally).

Ability to follow through a drafting procedure. Ability to draft and revise their work for improvement. (Can they reorder text to clarify meaning (moving words,

phrases and clauses)? Can they correct their own punctuation and spelling?)

Explicit knowledge of text structures (genres). Ability to identify purpose and

audience for a writing task. Ability to identify which genre is needed for a particular purpose.

Ability to write independently. Ability to look for and use words displayed in the classroom. Ability to use a dictionary or glossary. Ability to concentrate on the task, and work alone.

4.6 Topic-based work

The syllabus is topic based. In other words, the emphasis of the lessons is a subject, a topic or a theme, and the contents of a book are arranged around these topics.

Why does topic-based work? I do not suggest that topic- based teaching is the only way to organize one's teaching, but I would like to suggest that it is a useful, helpful, practical and exciting way to teach either all the time or some of the time. Here are some of the reasons why:

When one is concentrating on a particular topic, the content of the lesson automatically becomes more important than the language itself. This means that it is easier to relate the lessons to the experiences and interests of your pupils.

Working on topics can help the learning process. The children can associate words, function, structures and situations with a particular topic. Association helps memory, and learning language in context clearly helps both understanding and memory.

Topic-based teaching allows you to go into a subject in depth and brings out reactions and feelings in the pupils, which are not always covered in the textbook. It follows from this that pupils will usually need more and/or different vocabulary than the textbook provides. This in turn brings the learner and the learner's needs more into focus.

Working on topics allows you more easily to give a personal or local touch to materials, which may not have been produced locally. Lots of books have a section on pets, but this topic will not be relevant if you live in the country where people do not have animals as pets. You may want to change the topic to talk about animals in general. How you organize your material within a topic is very personal and is dependent on the particular class that you are teaching at that particular time.

Topic-based teaching allows the teacher to rearrange his/her material to suit what is happening generally at the time of teaching. It allows teachers to work across the curriculum in a way which structure-based language teaching does not. In a school that works on cross-curricular topics or projects, English lessons and their content will have to fit in with the rest of the school.

The amount of time that one spends on a topic can be as long or as short as the teacher likes, depending on how much interest it arouses, how much language work she/he thinks they are getting out of it, how much time they have available, as well as how much material they have.

Since the emphasis in topic-based work is on content; the work in the classroom naturally includes all the language skills as well as guided and free activities.

Conclusions

To understand and promote learning, we look not only at individuals but also at the people who make up their world and the connections among them. These people include not only teachers, but also peers, and others in the community.

The diversity of teaching styles seen may seem confusing: how can students really be learning language in so many ways? However, such diversity reflects the complexity of language and the range of student needs. Why should one expect that a system as complex as language could be mastered in a single way? Even adding these teaching styles together gives an inadequate account of the totality of second language learning. Second language learning means learning in all these ways, and in many more. This chapter has continually been drawing attention to the gaps in the coverage of each teaching style, particularly in terms of breadth of coverage of all the areas necessary to an L2 user – not just grammar or interaction, but also pronunciation, vocabulary and all the rest.

As teachers and methodologists become more aware of second language ability research, so teaching methods can alter to take them into account and cover a wider range of learning. Much L2 learning is concealed behind such global terms as ‘communication’, or such two-way oppositions as ‘experiential/ analytic’, or indeed simplistic divisions into six teaching styles. To improve teaching, we need to appreciate language learning in all its complexity.

But teachers live in the present. They have to teach now, rather than wait for a whole new L2 learning framework to emerge. They must get on with meeting the needs of the students, even if they still do not know enough about L2 learning. Teachers too have the duty to respond to their students. To serve the unique needs of actual students, the teacher needs to do whatever is necessary, not just that which is scientifically proven and based on abstract theory. And the teacher needs to take into account far more than an area of research; in the present state of knowledge, research has no warrant to suggest that any current teaching is more than partially justified.

Practicing teachers should weigh them against all the other factors in their unique teaching situation before deciding how seriously to take them. Considering teaching from an L2 learning perspective in such a way will, it is hoped, lead in the future to a more comprehensive, scientifically based view of language teaching.

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