English Teaching for adult women

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• English Teaching for adult women

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• Nowadays, being able to communicate in
  foreign languages is a necessary requisite, both
  from a professional and interpersonal point of
  view.
• Speaking English is the key to successful
  international relationships, business and
  personal communications.
• The knowledge of other languages besides
  our own is an important instrument to widen
  ones perception of reality, by getting into
  contact with different cultures and mentalities.
  In particular, a language like English has become
  indispensable, as the basic communication in the
  field of international business and the new
  computer technologies is all in this language.
• From the analysis carried out by partner
  institutions about the learners needs, also
  during the meeting in Naples, it has come out
  that there are several reasons because grown-up
  people can feel the need to learn English
• to develop professional skills in order to enrich
  ones own curriculum
• to improve abilities especially in the business,
  tourist, marketing and computer fields
• to enjoy ones spare time in a creative and
  intelligent way, since most of the magazines,
  Internet, music, videogames, nowadays include
  this language
• to be independent while travelling abroad, since
  English is spoken on an international level.
• 
  

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Minimum standard to learn a foreign Language
succesfully

• To be considered communicative competent in
  a certain language, one have to reach a standard
  based on linguistic functions or tasks, such as
• asking for and giving personal data
• asking and answering about habits and daily
  activities
• asking and answering about the weather, the
  time, the date
• describing oneself and people
• talking about possession
• describing ones and others abilities
• asking and talking about likes and dislikes
• asking for a direction
• ordering at the restaurant
• classifying and pointing out objects
• asking and talking about future actions
• asking and answering about quantity, prices
• making comparisons among things and people
• inviting, accepting, refusing.

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How to facilitate the learning process

• From the interviews accomplished on a
  sample of 10 teachers it has emerged that their
  privileged didactic method is not based on a
  grammatical approach, but on a communicative
  and functional approach. We dont have to learn
  an abstract language, spoken only in books, but
  we must develop a communicative competence,
  enabling us to solve practical problems.
  
• Meaningful interaction and natural
  communication in the target language are
  necessary for successful language acquisition.
• To facilitate adult learning we have to
  keep in mind that adults are self-directed in
  their learning, they are practical,
  problem-solving-oriented learners, they want
  their learning to be immediately applicable to
  their lives and finally they want to know why
  something needs to be learned. Hence derives that
  teachers must give learners opportunities and
  purposes for communication that reflect or relate
  to their lives and use authentic materials in
  activities whenever possible
• role-playing
• a doctor/patient exchange or creating a chart
  with information on local medical services
• listening for details in a recorded telephone
  message
• reading classified ads from the local newspaper.

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The importance of languages didactic

• With the acceleration of the globalization,
  to know the English today means "to know itself
  to have a cultural relationship" with
  interlocutors of several origins.
• Today, therefore, the Glottodidattica
  inquires on methodologies for "the intercultural"
  teaching of the languages, in particular of the
  English language.
• How to prepare the student to pick and to
  make own the shape mentis and the system of
  values of the interlocutors , anyone they are?
  How to prepare the student to use these
  cognitions in order to communicate in the way
  more comprehensible (and congenital) possible?
• The new didactics of the language must be
  used to promote a communicative and functional
  approach to the language
• Effective language use involves an
  automatic processing of language.To become
  proficient, learners need to move from a
  concentrated focus on grammar, forms, and
  structures to using language as a tool to
  accomplish communication tasks.

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Adults learn anything best when

• They feel in control and have choices in the
  direction of the learning process.
• they are given a high level of respect for their
  current viewpoints and status.
• there is no condescension by the teacher.
• the teaching builds on their previous experience.
  
• there is 'transferability' they can apply the
  teaching immediately to real situations in their
  own lives.
• teachers realise that most people have a
  surprisingly short attention span. The hour-long
  lecture is not, in general, a good means of
  communication. After about 10 minutes of
  continuous input, people cease to absorb much new
  information.
• there is a mixture of teaching approaches,
  including considerable interactivity role-play
  or drama, discussion groups, questionnaires or
  other feedback.

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• visual aids are used e.g., video-clips, OHP
  graphics, Powerpoint.
• learners are given the space to come to their own
  conclusions based on evidence offered to them, in
  a non-pressured way.
• the learning environment is friendly, informal,
  and often humorous.
• they have the option to ask questions without
  fear of embarrassment or condemnation.
• they have a good trusting relationship with the
  teacher who should be sending them a good
  'para-message' in other words, learners are
  looking to see if the teacher's own life reflects
  the content and usefulness of the teaching does
  he or she 'walk the talk'?
• the teaching has a specific, practical,
  assessable goal, rather than being vague,
  abstract, or aiming at a range of targets.
• they have a good relationship with the other
  learners.
• at least some of the learning process is within a
  small interactive group

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Units planning

• The Skills
• Comprehending oral and specific oral information,
  related to everyday life linked to the personal
  and professional experience of the pupils
• Producing oral information, related to everyday
  life topics linked to the personal and
  professional experience of the pupils
• Producing written information, related to
  everyday life topics linked to the personal and
  professional experience of the pupils.
• 
  
• Vocabulary
• Each didactic unit will provide a specific set of
  new words to be learnt by the pupils in the least
  possible mechanical way.
• For instance clothes, colour, rooms, sport,
  etc.

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• Verbs To Have, To Be
  
• Simple Present
• Present Continuous
• Prepositions Of Time And Space
• Frequency Adverbs
• There Is / There Are
• Simple Past / Past Continuous
• Simple Future, Be Going To, Etc
  
• Some /Any
• Verbs Can, May, Must, To Have To, To Want
• Who-Questions
• Much-Many
• Comparatives, Superlatives
• Present Perfect
• If sentences

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Phonetics

• The alphabet, analytic pronunciation of
  the sounds and sounds groups, intonation, rhytm
  and stress.
• English phonetic transcription plays a
  very big role in the process of learning English
  pronunciation.
• For the language learner, a passive
  acquaintance with phonetic transcription enables
  him or her to extract precise and explicit
  information on pronunciation from a dictionary,
  bilingual or monolingual. Nowadays learners of
  foreign languages ought to have ample
  opportunities of hearing the language spoken, and
  not just by their teacher and their
  fellow-pupils. Television, video tapes, cassettes
  and CDs give todays learners an advantage which
  earlier generations did not have. However, mere
  exposure to authentic language material, while it
  will certainly improve a learners comprehension
  ability, is not sufficient to ensure a good
  productive command of the language or a good
  pronunciation. Almost everyone can benefit from
  explicit pronunciation teaching, in which the use
  of phonetic transcription has an important role.

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Metalinguistic reflection

• The pupils will be induced to develop simple
  reflections about English structures,
  pronunciation and talk habits.
• In recent years, students metalinguistic
  reflection has aroused considerable interest
  among researchers. This interest stems, in part,
  from the observation that communicative language
  teaching alone does not lead to the desired level
  of language competency. In fact, in L2 classrooms
  where teaching is exclusively meaning-oriented,
  students often experience difficulties with
  accuracy . Consequently, researchers have
  suggested that some attention paid to forms
  through grammar instruction is necessary and that
  grammar instruction should be integrated in
  communicative teaching by presenting grammatical
  features contextually to learners .

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Socio-cultural aspects

• Socio-cultural aspects
• Two aspects of context are important for
  teachers of English, situational context and
  socio-cultural context. When they learn to
  consider situational context,  students learn how
  their choice of language in a particular
  situation is influenced by  purpose, subject
  matter, the mode of communication and the roles
  and relationships between the speaker or writer
  and the audience.  Changing any one of these
  things changes the ways in which language is
  used.
• Students have some intuitive understanding of
  situational context.  They know that talking to
  someone they know is different from talking to
  someone they don't know.  They understand that
  they use language differently when asking for a
  favour or warning about danger. To help students
  build on this intuitive understanding, teachers
  expand the range of purposes and audiences for
  composing and comprehending and help students to
  think about how these influence their language
  use
• Socio-cultural context.is the other aspect
  of context that powerfully influences language
  use.  It is this aspect of context that teachers
  focus on when they talk about critical literacy. 
  Factors that have an impact on socio-cultural
  context include the values, attitudes, beliefs
  and assumptions held by the creator of a text and
  its audience.

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Example of a didactic unit

• Objective 1 to be able to greet people,
  introduce yourself, introduce others, ask for
  information, and give information.
• Module 1 teaching the dialogue
• Competency To be able to teach a dialog in such
  a way that the student can enact the dialog in a
  role play with classmates.
• Purpose There are two main purposes for teaching
  the dialog. First, it will provide the student
  with a bit of language that will help him perform
  in a particular setting (writing a check, buying
  a stamp, etc.). The more specific you can be in
  adapting the dialog to the students' immediate
  circumstances, the more meaningful the dialog
  will be and the more likely it will be that the
  students will learn and use it.
• The second purpose of the dialog is to introduce
  certain high-frequency patterns of the language
  which will be practiced further in the dialog
  expansion activities.

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• Module 2 dialog expansion, structure drills
• Competencies To be able to introduce new
  vocabulary associated with the dialog topic. To
  be able to give student meaningful practice with
  sentence patterns used in the dialog.
• Module 3 Cloze Type Dictation Exercise
• Competency To be able to conduct a cloze type
  dictation exercise.
• Purpose A dictation exercise can have many
  purposes. It is an excellent listening exercise
  and can by used to sharpen the skills of
  listening and comprehending. It also helps to
  develop reading and writing skills by exposing
  the student to the written form of the language
  as he listens to the spoken form. Students begin
  to recognize sight words and to make associations
  of sounds with letters. The dictations can also
  be used to develop spelling skills by leaving a
  blank in place of the words you want the student
  to practice. Finally, it can help the student to
  learn the structure of the language by focusing
  his attention of structures which he does not yet
  control.

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• Objective 2 To be able to give personal
  information about yourself. To be able to fill
  out forms with the appropriate personal
  information
• Module 1 teaching the dialogue (continued)
• Purpose This part of Module I is to re-enforce
  the dialog teaching skills which you developed in
  working with Lesson 1 by applying them to Lesson
  2. In this section you will learn a more
  effective way of teaching question-answer
  sequences.
• Module 4 teaching pronunciation
• Competency To be able to help students improve
  their pronunciation.
• Note Native-like pronunciation is difficult for
  most adult learners to achieve in a second
  language. The achievement of it requires not only
  skilled teaching but a high level of internal
  motivation on the part of the student. Most
  adults are satisfied with reasonably intelligible
  speech in the second language and this is an
  acceptable goal for the ESL teacher. This means
  that you need not concern yourself with
  correcting all the pronunciation errors you hear.
  Indeed this would do more harm than good. Your
  first goal should be to give assistance during
  the regular speaking lesson to students who are
  having difficulty with particular sounds. The
  particular sounds that students will find
  difficult will differ for different language
  backgrounds.

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• Module 5 teaching numbers
• Competency To be able to carry out several
  techniques for practicing numbers.
• Note Because most adults already have developed
  sophisticated number concepts in their native
  language, teaching numbers is a matter of
  manipulating numbers in ESL. The following
  suggested activities can be carried out in any
  order. Better results will be obtained if the
  instructor teacher several brief (5 to 10 minute)
  lessons on numbers rather than one or two long
  ones.
• Module 6 Teaching a Command Sequence Lesson
• Competency To be able to teach a lesson through
  the use of commands and physical movement.
• Purpose The command sequence lesson is based on
  the fact that in natural situations language
  learners usually develop listening skills before
  they are forced to speak a lot. It allows the
  student to hear commands and carry them out for a
  while and not feel compelled to speak before they
  are ready. The command sequence lesson is very
  non-threatening, and adults generally enjoy it
  and perform well. The first objective is to
  expose the student to commands and then later
  have him learn to give the commands. This second
  part -- having the students give commands -- may
  not happen during the first class.

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• Module 7 Teaching the Alphabet
• Competency To be able to enact several
  techniques for teaching the names of the letters
  of the English alphabet to persons literate in
• a language with a similar alphabet.
• Note These activities will focus on teaching the
  names of the letters. It is assumed that the
  students already knows the upper and lower case
  forms of the letters and the alphabetical order
  of the letters and that they already read and
  write in their native language. It is intended
  that only a few minutes of any class will be
  dedicated to teaching the alphabet. It is
  preferable to spend several small blocks of time
  doing it rather than one large block of time.
• Module 2 dialog expansion, structure drills
  (continued)
• Purpose This part of Module II is to reinforce
  the skills developed in teaching Lesson 1 by
  applying them to Lesson 2.
• Module 6 Teaching a Command Sequence Lesson
  (continued)
• Purpose This part of Module VI is to reinforce
  skills practiced earlier in this lesson by
  applying them to practice 6. In addition you will
  learn how to get students to verbalize the
  commands.

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• Objective 3 To be able to give information
  about your job and your family.
• Module 1 teaching the dialogue (continued)
• Purpose This part of the module has 3 purposes
• To give the new teacher the opportunity to apply
  what has been learned about teaching dialogs to a
  new situation.
• To suggest a way to integrate the teaching of the
  dialog and the dialog expansion exercises.
• To provide some additional suggestions or
  directions for various parts of the dialog
  teaching process
• Module 2 dialog expansion, structure drills
  (continued)
• Purpose Most of the dialog expansion has been
  done as the dialog was taught. This is the ideal
  way of teaching the dialog because it makes it
  relevant, real and communicative. This part of
  the dialog expansion module will present
  additional expansion exercises and will discuss
  how to teach grammar.

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• Objective 4 To be able to ask for the
  whereabouts of personal belongings. To be able to
  identify the locations of objects in the
  classroom.
• Module 1 teching the dialog (continued)
• Purpose By the time you finish this section of
  Module I you should be able to apply the
  techniques you have learned to the remaining
  dialogs.
• Module 4 Teaching a Command Sequence Lesson
• Purpose By the end of this part of the module
  you should be able to apply the skills you have
  acquired for teaching command sequences to almost
  any set of commands.