Professor Jack C. Richards

The official website of educator Jack C Richards

Strategy Development for Better Listening

Question:

Submitted by Muhammad Shujaat, Saudi Arabia

In coursebooks, usually the sequence of a listening lesson proceeds from the general to the particular and then the students pair-check their answers. Is this proof enough that students are developing their listening or does there have to be another dimension of the strategy development for better listening?

Dr. Richards responds:

It depends on the kind of text students will listen to and what their purposes for listening are. Listening to a news story involves a different approach to listening than listening to casual conversation. So first one has to consider the type of text, the level of complexity of the text, what background knowledge students bring to the text, and the listening purpose.  The choice of listening task or activity that you use should provide guided practice in listening. Support for listening can be given through pre-teaching key words, by activating background knowledge, and by establishing an appropriate listening purpose. A series of tasks can be used that first require global listening, and then move to more detailed listening.

 

Developing courses, In the classroom, Language learning, Methods, Questions & Answers

Difference Between Testing and Assessment

Question:

Submitted by Laleh Kohandel, Iran

What is the difference between Testing and Assessment?

Dr. Richards responds:

A test is one form of assessment and refers to procedures used to measure a learners’ learning at a specific point in time and often involves collecting information in numerical form. Common forms of tests are multiple choice questions and gap-fill or cloze tests. In English classes, teachers also need to assess their students’ learning to determine the effectiveness of their teaching and of the materials they use. Assessment refers to any of the procedures teachers use to do this, which may include interviews, observations, administering questionnaires and reviewing students’ work.

Assessment covers a broader range of procedures than testing and includes both formal and informal measures.

 

Assessment, Questions & Answers, Testing

English in the Classroom Compared to a Native-Speaker’s English

Question:

Submitted by Ali Abdulhussain, Iraq

What is the difference between the language we teach in schools, language institutions, coursebooks etc and the daily language spoken in an English-speaking country?

Dr. Richards responds:

In schools there is a very limited amount of time available to teach English so a very restricted range or words, structures etc can be taught. Obviously native-speaker- English is very different, since it has been acquired over many years and is used in many different contexts and for many different purposes. There will hence be a big gap between the language of the classroom or textbook and the language people use in English-speaking countries. These days media, technology and the internet enable learners to access authentic uses of English outside of the classroom.

 

In the classroom, Language learning, Questions & Answers

Commercial vs Teacher-Made Materials

Question:

Submitted by Abdu, Yemen

What are the virtues and the weaknesses of the commercially-produced materials as opposed to the localized teacher-made materials?

Dr. Richards responds:

Commercial materials are usually intended for a diverse audience of teachers and learners, so will often not be directly applicable to a local context and may need to be adapted and localized.  Teacher-made materials have the advantage of reflecting the specific context and the needs of learners in that context. An advantage of commercial materials is that they are usually prepared by experts and carefully edited and field tested before publication. With teacher-made materials there is no guarantee that the quality will match those of commercial textbooks, since teachers may not have had any training in materials’ preparation.

 

Developing courses, Publications, Questions & Answers, Teaching Materials

Using Authentic Materials

Question:

Submitted by Weldehaweria Gebrekrstos, Ethiopia

We teachers are required to use authentic materials to enrich learners’ use of the language. What advice can you give?

Dr. Richards responds:

When textbooks and commercial materials were the primary sources of classroom teaching and learning, a debate that emerged was the use of authentic materials versus created materials. Authentic materials refers to the use in teaching of texts, photographs, video selections, realia, and other teaching resources that were not specially prepared for pedagogical purposes. Created materials refers to textbooks and other specially developed instructional resources that have been prepared to include examples of specific grammatical items discourse features. Dialogs in course books, for example, might be specially written to highlight certain grammatical choices or to illustrate specific conversational strategies. Hence, it was often argued that authentic materials are preferred to created materials because unlike the often rather contrived content of much created material, they contain authentic language and reflect real-world uses of language.

Typical claims for and against the use of “authentic” materials are:

For

  • They have a positive effect on learner motivation.
  • They provide authentic cultural information about the target culture.
  • They provide exposure to real language.
  • They relate more closely to learners’ needs.
  • They support a more creative approach to teaching.

Against

  • Created materials can also be motivating for learners.
  • Authentic materials often contain difficult language.
  • Created materials may be superior to authentic materials because they are generally built around a graded syllabus.
  • Using authentic materials is a burden for teachers.           

In many language programs, teachers use a mixture of created and authentic materials because both have their advantages as well as limitations. Furthermore, the distinction between authentic and created materials is increasingly blurred because many published materials incorporate authentic texts and other real-world sources. And today many books take on the aura, if not the actuality, of authenticity, containing considerable amounts of photographically reproduced “realia”, in the form of newspaper articles, maps, diagrams, memo pads, menus, application forms, advertisements, instructional leaflets and all the rest. Some books, indeed, almost entirely consist of authentic material, including illustrations, extracted from newspapers, or magazines.

In addition, this debate has become less relevant in today’s world since the Internet provides ready access to authentic materials of every kind. Classroom teaching and classroom materials hence serve to prepare learners to navigate, explore, and access authentic materials related to their needs and interest through the Web, as we discuss further below. There is no reason, therefore, why textbooks and other classroom materials should not contain a mix of authentic and created texts depending on the intentions of the materials.

When choosing authentic materials care must be taken to ensure they are at an appropriate level for learners, and that that they are used in a way that supports learning rather than causes frustration for learners.

 

In the classroom, Language learning, Questions & Answers, Teaching, Teaching Materials

Teaching Speaking

Question:

Submitted by Yassin Elidrissi, Morocco

Some methodologists choose the following model to teach speaking: setting up, speaking practice, and feedback. Is this model conducive to a better mastery of the speaking skill?

Dr. Richards responds:

Yes, it is. Speaking activities can either have an accuracy focus or a fluency focus, or sometimes both. The “setting up” involves careful modeling, guided practice, leading to freer practice.

Activities, In the classroom, Language learning, Questions & Answers, Teaching

Methods and Techniques for Young Learners

Question:

Submitted by David Chacha, Tanzania

Can you suggest methods and techniques for young learners?

Dr. Richards responds:

A number of principles can inform the following approaches to teaching young learners.

  1. Build teaching around activities and physical movement.
    Link language learning to physical activities by having children use and hear English for making things, drawing pictures, completing puzzles, labelling pictures, matching words and pictures, playing games, acting out movements in response to instructions and other activities that involve hands, eyes and ears. Teachers often make use of TPR activities (activities based on linking language with actions, drawing on the method known as total physical response). Many listening activities for young children use this principle, such as activities in which children listen and respond to commands (e.g. ‘sit down’, ‘turn around’, ‘touch your nose’), listen and choose a picture, listen and draw a picture or listen and number a sequence of actions in a picture. Similarly, speaking activities with young learners may involve use of songs, dialogues, chants and fixed expressions that students can practise in different situations.
  1. Build lessons around linked activities.
    Since young learners have limited attention spans, it is important to include several short activities in a lesson and to move quickly from one activity to another. Activities of five to ten minutes in length are most successful. A balance between the following kinds of activities is often useful:
  • Quiet / noisy activities.
  • Different skills: listening, talking, reading / writing.
  • Individual work / pair work / group work / whole-class activities.
  • Teacher–pupil / pupil–pupil activities.
  1. Build lessons around tasks.
    A task is a meaning-focused activity that requires learners to draw on and use their existing linguistic resources to complete a task, such as drawing a picture from oral instructions, or working in pairs or groups and sequencing a series of pictures to complete a story. The key features of classroom tasks for young language learners are:
  • They have coherence and unity for learners (from topic, activity and/or outcome).
  • They have meaning and purpose for learners.
  • They have clear language-learning goals.
  • They involve the learner actively.
  1. Provide scaffolding.
    Scaffolding refers to how a child learns through collaboration with a more knowledgeable partner (a parent, a classmate, a teacher). When children work collaboratively on tasks (such as sequencing pictures in a story, completing a puzzle or completing an information-gap task), more proficient learners can often provide the scaffolding less proficient learners need.
  1. Involve students in creating resources that support their learning.
    Learners can draw pictures of the characters they hear in a story or create puppets to help retell a story. They can colour pictures of items and characters from stories. They can find pictures in magazines, related to a theme or topic in a lesson, and bring them to class. In my Quebec primary classes mentioned earlier, we did not use a textbook. The children created their own coursebook, as the course developed, using the resources that formed the basis of the course.
  1. Build lessons around themes.
    Lessons can be built around topics or themes, such as animals, friends, food or family, for very young learners; and for older learners, themes can be drawn from subjects in their other classes and the community, such as transport, country life, travel and famous people. Theme-based lessons provide continuity across activities and enable English learning to be connected to the children’s lives.
  1. Choose content children are familiar with.
    Teaching can also be built around familiar content from the children’s culture, such as stories and events (e.g. national holidays or cultural practices). Since the learners will be familiar with talking about these topics in their native language, it will be easier for them to connect with how they can talk about them in English.
  1. Use activities that involve collaboration.
    Children enjoy socializing with other children, and activities that work best with young learners are those in which children are working with others in pairs or groups, rather than remaining in their seats, listening to the teacher. Activities that involve collaboration require careful preparation to ensure that children have the words and expressions they need in order to carry out an activity.
  1. Create a supportive learning community in the classroom.
    A class of young learners needs to become a community of learners – that is, a group of learners with shared goals, needs and concerns. Thinking of a class as a community means seeing it as a place where each child in the class cooperates and collaborates to achieve the class’s common goals. This leads to more productive learning. Children who interact and collaborate with other learners develop a more positive attitude towards learning and a greater sense of self-confidence than those in other learning arrangements.
  1. Use enjoyable activities that children can accomplish without frustration.
    Young learners enjoy taking part in activities that they can successfully achieve, but which also offer some kind of challenge. Activities of this kind depend on the teacher providing language input and modelling for young language learners, where the teacher and the materials are the primary source of language.
  1. Provide rich language support.
    Since the learners will have little knowledge of English to call upon, they need careful language support for learning activities. Success will depend on the teacher providing language models, demonstrating the way the activities can be carried out in English and providing the language support an activity depends upon.
  1. Give clear goals and feedback.
    Children like to be successful at things they do in class. In order to achieve this, it is important to set clear goals for children and to let them know when they have been successful, or if not, why not. Praise for success is very important for young learners, for example, by using stars, stickers, points or smiley faces.
  1. Use English for classroom management.
    Use English for instructions, for routines such as forming groups, for introducing activities, for giving feedback and for other teaching processes.
  1. Use the mother tongue when needed.
    While the goal of teaching young learners is to use as much English in class as possible, when teaching homogeneous classes, it is quite appropriate to use the mother tongue when necessary to explain the meaning of words and expressions and to help explain activities. Occasional use of the mother tongue provides a comfort zone for young learners, though the teacher and students should not become over-dependent on it.
  1. Bring speakers of English to class.
    Where possible, it is useful to invite speakers of English to class to meet the learners. These could be children from an international school or older children who are now quite advanced in English. They can ask and answer simple questions, take part in a role play and do other activities that will interest and motivate the learners.

 

Activities, In the classroom, Methods, Questions & Answers, Teaching