Teaching Tips 95

Students, teachers & publishers seem to be obsessed with the verb form so we thought we might have a brief look at an aspect of verbs. Do you understand the following verb terms?

A verb can be a main verb, or sometimes called a lexical verb, as opposed to the auxiliary verbs such as 'have', 'be', 'do' & the modals. But how can you tell the difference between the two types?

There is a nice way to tell the difference with the NICE test. Have a look at the following chart:

There are also other multi-part combinations that are considered 'semi-auxiliaries' as they come before the main verb, 'supposed to' - He's supposed to go.' 'be going to' - He's going to go. 'used to' - He used to come here.

All of this might well be confusing for some nationalities with no apparent rhyme or reason behind our use of verbs. It can get sticky when asked by a low level class what 'do' means in a question like 'Do you want to go?'. Sometimes referred to as the 'dummy 'do'', we need to get over the idea of a nuts & bolts word, one with no inherent meaning, present to help the main verb. A simple discrimination task would help to sort out the difference. Give a list of sentences with 'do' as the main verb & as a dummy operator & the students put them into the two groups. Another way to show the different forms of verb patterns is with cuisenaire rods. Have a look at the example page on the site.

Modals are also auxiliaries & they do provide meaning, which we'll look at in a later Tip.

For effective communication, our students need to manipulate auxiliaries in the different verb forms, in tags & for emphasis & need regularly reminding of their use - clear presentations, noticing activities & regularly picking up on in feedback slots all help. Although there are very regular rules of form, it's easy to underestimate the difficulty students have with them.

For a look at multi-word verbs, see the Tip 'Sorting them out'.

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March 20th is Earth Day, coinciding with the March equinox. The United Nations Cyber SchoolBus site:

Apart from the inherent interest, this could make for an interesting warmer discussion to a lesson. And for the younger learner, Earth Day would make a good springboard into an environment-based project.

Earth Day site:
http://www.earthsite.org/
What & when is Earth Day:
http://www.earthsite.org/day.htm

A few more links:
Wikipedia Spring entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring
Spring lesson plans from teachnology.com:
http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/holidays/spring/
Spring stuff from Kids Domain:
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/spring/

Information about Earth:
http://www.nineplanets.org/earth.html
Nasa's Earth Observatory:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
Quotes about Earth:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Earth

And talking of Earth, have you tried Google Earth? If you have a broadband connection to the internet & a relatively new computer, you should be fine for running it. Free & excellent.
http://earth.google.com/

We've had a few Tips about the speaking skill & helping students with the spontaneous nature of conversation:
A many-headed interview
Pairs
Quick thinking roleplay

Here's another spontaneous roleplay idea. Have a look at the following role cards:

The idea is that one student has the card, while the other student initially has no idea what is going on. The card holder begins the roleplay, standing or sitting depending on the situation, & the other has to work out the situation, catching on & carrying on the conversation. This all needs explaining very clearly beforehand so that the card holder doesn't give the situation away straightaway. Try it out, the cards are easy to write & the students have lots of fun.

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A brief look at aims & approaches when looking at writing in class. There seems to be a fairly common idea amongst teachers that if their students are putting pen to paper, they are developing the writing skill. For low level students who use a different script in their mother tongue, any kind of writing could certainly be said to be helping them with the writing skill.

However, for the more advanced students & those who have the Latin script in their mother tongue this isn't necessarily the case. There is a distinction between language consolidation & classroom language recording & actually developing the skills needed for effective writing. Have a look at the following activities & decide if they are writing skill development tasks or some other task.

1. students fill in the gaps in sentences with the past simple form of the verbs given.
2. students brainstorm ideas for the story they are going to write.
3. students re-write their letters to make them better.
4. students copy new vocabulary from the board.
5. students write postcards to each other.
6. students do a fastwriting activity - Tip - Just write it!
7. students make notes while they listen to a dialogue.
8. students write down the record of the new grammar point.
9. students transform sentences from the active to the passive.
10. students match words & definitions.

 2, 3, 5, 6 & 7 are writing skill development tasks.

Traditional ELT writing classes have used a 'model approach' to the skill. The students are given an example of the type of text they are to produce & they copy bits & change the content to match their brief.

Nowadays, when developing the writing skill, teachers combine three approaches; a 'product approach', a 'process approach' & a 'genre approach'. The first, the product approach is the more traditional one as in the 'model approach' above, that emphases the end product, what the students produce at the end of the writing. There is little concern as to how the student reached the product.

The process approach emphasises the journey to the product, the actual composing that may include the brainstorming, planning, drafting, writing, revising & re-writing. Clearly there is a product here, the students do produce a text, but we are also interested in the creative processes, as well as the end result.

A genre approach targets the common written genres that our students might need to produce. Some of these might include informal letters (to friends, colleagues), formal letters (that request information, complain & express opinion etc), emails, faxes, cvs, postcards, forms, lists etc. Here we might look at examples of the genre we are concentrating on, not to copy but to help the students refine their ideas during the process.

It is always a good idea to clarify aims & the writing skill also needs a principled approach. Combine the three approaches & you'll be doing your students a service.

A couple of excellent writing skills books:
Process Writing (Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers) by R.White & L.Arndt (Longman)
From Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0582024447/developingteac0b
From Amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0582024447/developingteache

Writing by P.Hedge (OUP)
From Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194370984/developingteac0b
From Amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0194370984/developingteache

Some past Tips on the skill:
Thank you - punctuation
Questioning it
Keeping to the limit
Listening in
There once was an English teacher
Silently chatting
Interesting writing
Writing for beginners
Hopeful haikus
Just write it!
Bizarre consequences

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To the Past Teaching Tips