Community Language Learning (CLL)

Ankara: Vizetek, 2020

Materials: Coursebook (including the literary text, the related grammatical structures and their explanations, the related lexis with meanings given in Turkish), whiteboard, board markers. Learning Objectives: In the course of this lesson, students will: • Learn about D. H. Lawrence and his famous work titled Etruscan Places. • Translate sentences from the text written in the Simple Past Tense. • Give the meanings for the following vocabulary items: destroy, lose, ultimately, race-consciousness, superstition, inert. Phases and Time Allocated Activity 5. Students should learn to think in the target language as soon as possible. Vocabulary is acquired more naturally if students use it in full sentences, rather than memorizing word lists. 6. The purpose of language learning is communication; therefore, students need to learn how to ask questions, as well as answer them. 7. Pronunciation should be emphasized from the beginning. 8. Self-correction facilitates language learning. 9. Lessons should contain some conversational activity to provide the opportunity for students to use the language in real contexts. Students should be encouraged to speak as much as possible. 10. Grammar should be taught inductively. There may never be an explicit grammar rule given. 11. Writing is an important skill that should be developed from the beginning of language instruction. Lesson Difficulty Level: Pre-intermediate Age of Students: 10-12 years Lesson Topic: Celebrating Halloween Duration of Class Period: 50 Minutes Language Skills: Speaking, reading, listening and writing. Materials: A reading text, a handout with a fill-in-the-blanks exercise, realia (a carved pumpkin), pictures (Halloween costumes and celebrations). Learning Objectives: • Students will be able to predict the meanings of active vocabulary items given in the reading text. • Students will be able to produce their own sentences using the target vocabulary. • Students will be able to deduce the usage of the future tense from the reading passage. • Students will be able to formulate new sentences using the target grammar point. • Students will develop cultural familiarity by participating in reading and speaking activities about Halloween. Introduction (10 minutes): The teacher introduces new vocabulary items related to Halloween using the realia and pictures. Reading aloud (15 minutes): The teacher introduces a reading text of a person's narration on how he 'usually' celebrates Halloween, as well as his plans on how 'he will' celebrate the next Halloween. The students take turns reading aloud different sections of the text. The text is read two or three times, depending on the accuracy of their pronunciation. Later, the teacher asks questions on the content of the passage. In the question and answer session, the learners start using the target structure as well. Dictation (5 minutes): The teacher dictates a short paragraph with content that is similar to the reading text. This text is read two or three times, depending on students' performance. Fill-in-the-blanks exercise (5 minutes): Students complete a fill-in-the-blanks exercise which revolves around the target grammatical structure. Conversation practice (15 minutes): The students ask and answer questions of one another on what their plans are to celebrate the next Halloween. 1. Discuss, in general terms, the principles of behavioral psychology and linguistics that form the foundation for the ALM; 2. Describe the historical background in which the ALM evolved; 3. Reflect on the advantages and drawbacks of language teaching according to ALM principles; 4. Prepare and teach a lesson plan that is designed in accordance with this method. Image Credits 1. Microphone. Courtesy of office.microsoft.com 2. Choral drills. Retrieved from www.scoopit.com. Mehmet DEMİREZEN is a full professor in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Ufuk University in Ankara, Turkey. He received an MA in English Linguistics from Hacettepe University in Ankara, as well as an MA in Linguistics from the University of Texas-Austin. He holds a PhD in Linguistics from Hacettepe University. Dr. Demirezen is the founder of the Department of English Language Education of Hacettepe University and held the position of department head for two decades. He has also served as a Higher Faculty Board Member of Hacettepe University's Faculty of Education.

The past six sets of papers have given those of us involved in TEYL a lot of food for thought and have also led more recent students on the MA in TEYL to follow similar Action Research projectswhich shows both a great link with former students' research and their own and a link to the wider community of TEYL practice.

System, 2010

Anyone in the world of language learning and teaching who has not heard the name of I.S.P. Nation has not read much about vocabulary for quite a while. These books demonstrate that Nation is not only a consummate scholar and a ground-breaking lexicologist, but also a clear-headed and skilful teacher educator. Nation and his colleague, Jonathan Newton, have written this set of two short books for teachers who are either following a professional qualification course or seeking independently to develop their teaching knowledge and skills. The books can be used separately, but taken together they deal with all four language skills in a clear, evidence-based and thorough fashion.

2015

This article explores the theoretical foundation of the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements, developed by the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), describes why and how to use these progress indicators in language education and reveals the value and impact on student learning when effectively integrated in the language classroom. These Can-Do statements serve as learning targets to document what learners “can do” with languages and can provide teachers and language programs with learning objectives for curriculum and unit design that are userfriendly, learner-centered and promote reflection and self-regulation aimed at involving the learner directly in the learning process. An exemplar for classroom implementation demonstrates how the teacher can involve learners in the reflective learning process to become self-regulated, autonomous language learners.

As discussed in previous THT talks, content-focused language teaching approaches such as Content-Based Instruction (CBI) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) continue to gain both recognition and credibility. At the same time, we hear of the struggles that teachers have with implementation. In this workshop-style presentation, the presenter shares some of the challenges he has faced with balancing the content and language sides of CLIL, as well as some of the strategies he and his colleagues have developed to deal with these challenges. Participants will be asked to share their stories and concerns regarding content-focused language instruction.

ELT Journal, 2016

This article explores the potential of the classroom as a venue for authentic, real-life language use, and highlights the importance of unplanned classroom communication. Examples from the lessons of prospective English teachers in Hungary and Turkey indicate that, when given the opportunity, EFL students enjoy using the L2 spontaneously. The classroom observations provide evidence that unplanned interactions can create conditions which give rise to humour and linguistic creativity, both of which feature prominently in language use outside the classroom as well. By raising metalinguistic awareness and promoting fluency, humorous language play facilitates language acquisition as it enables learners to experiment as well as express their own meanings and find their voice in English. Teachers should, therefore, encourage off-task conversations and make good use of students' humorous repartee and asides. Teacher educators should also encourage prospective teachers to create and exploit opportunities for naturally occurring interaction in their future classes. As soon as learners step outside the classroom, they act as users of English who communicate with other speakers of English from a wide variety of linguacultural backgrounds. Given the global spread of English and the fact that the majority of users do not speak English as their mother tongue, learners are likely to be involved in interactions with other non-native speakers. These situations then bear the hallmarks of English as a lingua franca (ELF), which is 'any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option' (Seidlhofer 2011: 7). Since ELF speakers represent various cultures and languages, ELF contexts of use are characterized by diversity and the subsequent unpredictability and variability of communication. Therefore, interactions where English functions as a lingua franca require active engagement in the meaningmaking process by the participants. One of the consequences for ELT is that the focus should shift from the desired product, i.e. language which is correct and appropriate in reference to native-speaker norms, to the actual process of communication. As Seidlhofer (ibid.: 198) puts it: 'What really matters is that the language should engage learners' reality and activate the learning process'. In the practice of ELT, such a process-oriented approach

The use of corpora in the classroom represents an innovative way to enable English language learners to undertake independent study of lexical and grammatical patterns; however, only a limited amount of investigation into the use of corpora with students exists. This paper will first briefly introduce pertinent literature, which will give a basic overview of corpus linguistics. The paper will report on the use of the British National Corpus (BNC) and other corpus tools with students in a semester long course in a Japanese university with advanced EFL learners. These students undertook a series of tasks and projects, which allowed them to achieve the overall course goal of being able to conduct independent research into lexical and grammatical patterns. In order to assess student progress and to gather student opinions about the course and the use of corpora, data was collected in two ways: pre and post CEFR style student selfassessments, and a course reflection and evaluation survey. The results indicated that the students had progressed throughout the semester and that they had a largely positive opinion of the course. In concluding the paper, suggestions for teachers wishing to use corpora and corpus tools with their students will be offered.

These notes consist of three parts : 1. Some short backround notes on the profession of teaching languages; 2. A few useful links for teaching tips and content; 3. A collection of ten activities which the seminar presenter has invented or borrowed, and found to be popular with students.// This is an outline from one of a monthly series of seminars by Thor May on teaching skills. The seminars were given as a teacher inservice for Chinese English teachers in Zhengzhou, Henan, China. This seminar was conducted on 10 June 2008