Hello everyone! So sorry for not writing earlier, it was a hectic week!


Hello everyone! So sorry for not writing earlier, it was a hectic week!
I would like to comment on the first reading tip. I usually never ask students to read out loud with the exception of total beginners, since my goal there IS to practice pronunciation and text are usually quite short, so it doesn't take much time. Students in Serbia are used to reading out loud, so higher levels usually feel surprised if they read silently.
The tip that really took me by surprise is number 3 - guessing from the context. I usually do Face 2 Face course books (huge fan, I must say) and they even have texts whose purpose is guessing from context. They do that with grammar as well and I am pretty used to it. I actually get two opposing ideas from my students - on one hand, they don't like to guess from context because it makes them think and reread and they prefer just to be given the words. On the other hand, higher levels have told me that they could read an unabridged English book with very little problems and that guessing from context helped them quite a lot.

Regarding writing, I love the idea of giving them short writing tasks. In general, just mentioning writing will make students roll their eyes, but if cleverly disguised in these activities, I think they may not even feel they're doing writing.

Overall - thank you all for these lovely four weeks. Thank you Penny for invaluable advice, insightful lessons and for devoting your time to help each and every one of us. Big thanks to the team that was always there when we needed assistance. Finally, a big thank you to all colleagues here who so selflessly provided tips and tricks from their own teaching context. I do hope we shall meet again in virtual or real world :)

Comments

  1. Claudie GDecember 2, 2017 at 3:56 PM

    You said it so perfectly - especially Penny's ability to touch base with everyone...what a lovely experience. The ESL/ELT world has wonderful people in it!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Scott van LeenenDecember 3, 2017 at 6:31 PM

    Regarding guessing from context... I guess it depends on one's focus. From Penny's exercise, it is clear that many words can be plugged in, with similar meaning, as well as divergent.

    On the other hand, in previous weeks, we had a discussion about not needing to understand every word to communicate.

    In the real world, one would often be faced with situations one has to guess by context or else be frozen uncommunicative.

    Remember, Penny also said:

    Never say never.

    Can being aware of the limitations help us make more effective exercises? I admit that I also do similar exercises and was surprised. However, knowing what I know now, I will still do them--just accepting the limitations and changing parameters.

    ReplyDelete

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