Phonology: Individual Sounds

Consonant sounds can either be plosive sounds or fricative sounds.

Plosive sounds are when you hold the air and then release it when you speak, plosive sounds are:

p k ʈʃ t d dʒ b g

d3 is the j sound in words like January

ʈʃ is the ch sound in words like cheese

Fricative sounds are sounds that make a hissing sound, they are:

s v ʒ Θ f ð z ʃ

ʒ is the s sound in words like vision

ð is the th sound in words like this

ʃ is the sh sound in words like shout

Θ is the th sound in words like thought

Sounds made from the back of the mouth:

Plosive: p b k g

Fricative: s z ʒ ʃ

Sounds made from closer to the front and the front of the mouth

Plosive: ʈʃ d3 k g

Fricative:  Θ ð f v

Vowel sounds

Monophtongs are vowel sounds where the tongue stays in one position to say them, they are:

i: is the ee sound in sheep

I is the i sound in words like ship

ʊ is the oo sound in words like good

u: is the oo sound in words like boot

e is the e sound in words like bed

ə is a schwa which is a weak sound, it is the e sound in words like teacher

ɜ: is the i sound in words like third

ɔ: is the oo sound in words like floor

æ is the a sound in words like bat

ʌ is the u sound in words like up

ɑ: is the a sound in words like bar

ɒ is the o sound in words like on

Diphthongs are vowel sounds which combine two sounds so it starts off as one sound and turns into another towards the end, these are:

ɪə as in here

eɪ as in wait

ʊə as in tour

ɔɪ as in toy

əʊ as in flow

eə as in air

aɪ as in fly

aʊ as in ow

Writing and Speaking Tasks

In a writing or speaking lesson, there are different tasks compared to a reading or listening lesson. Here is the structure and some examples for a productive skills lesson:

Controlled practice: This is to improve writing or speaking accuracy

This can include:

• Gap-fill exercises
• 50/50 choice questions
• Changing something in a sentence

Then remind students of the context of the lesson

Free practice: This is to improve fluency and it requires a specific context 

This can include

• Group writing
• Presentations
• Debates
• Role-plays

When setting a free practice task, include:

• The language structure
• Context
• Task (what they need to do)
• Procedure (how they are going to do it)

Reading and Listening Sub-Skills

When you are teaching reading or listening, there are sub-skills that you will be focusing on teaching your students. These are:

Gist/skimming

• Short time, read quickly
• Don't need to read every word
• Get a general understanding of the text
• Give task before they read or listen so they can look for it

Specific information/scanning

• Answers are easy to find
• Don't need to think about the meaning
• The words in the questions are similar/related to the words in the text

Detail (comprehension)

• Requires students to think a bit 
• Need to understand the text and context to answer the questions
• Need to read more slowly and carefully

Guessing meaning from context

• Includes some new words
• Read text then use what they've learnt to answer questions
• Afterwards use CCQs and drill to check that they have understood the meaning and pronunciation

Reading for inference (reading between the lines)

• Need a deep understanding of the text
• The answers can't be specifically found in a particular sentence or part of the text
• Requires the students to make assumptions based on what they have read

Drilling

Drilling is another method that you will use in lessons. This is to help the students to pronounce the lexis.

How to drill:

When planning- 

• Have the word or sentence on the board
• Have the phonemes below potential problem words
• Show circles above parts of the word or sentence that are stressed (but let these come up after you have drilled)

During the lesson-

• Model the word or sentence
• Ask everybody or particular people to say it, you can do this numerous times 
• You can ask them where the stress is and then show it on the board

Eliciting

Eliciting is a way to obtain the answer from students without giving them the answer. You can elicit by:

• Including a picture and asking them what they think the picture is of
• Using the meaning of a word and asking 'what do we call...'

You can use elicting at the beginning of a lesson to set the context but you can also use it to introduce new words and phrases.

Elicting is used to teach lexis alonside CCQs and drilling.

Planning and Teaching: CCQs

Concept check questions, or CCQs, are very important for teaching English as a language. These are questions you use to check the learners' understanding of the context and meaning at different points of the lesson. You should include your CCQs in your lesson plan and make sure you ask them during lessons. 

So how do you come up with CCQs? Well when you do your lesson plan and your language analysis you will highlight any words or concepts that you think could be a potential problem for students to understand. In your language analysis you will include a definition for words and phrases and this is what will help you to create those questions. 

• Look at the context of the word or phrase you are teaching
• What is the meaning?
• What could students think it means that it does not?

You can use these misunderstandings to come up with your questions. Your questions should be short and to the point. Answers should be short, for example yes or no or past, present or future etc.

CCQs check the students' understanding of the meaning and context of a word or phrase. They should be simple and not above the language level of the students. Do not use the word or phrase in your question!

If you are teaching grammar, your CCQs should be focused on the grammar point in the sentence in context from your lesson.

Grammar Lesson Structure: Guided Discovery

One way of structuring a grammar lesson is to use guided discovery. This is where you use examples followed by the meaning, form and pronunciation of the grammar and then practice of using the grammar. 

An example structure of a guided discovery lesson:

• Set the context using pictures and eliciting 
• Personalise the context by asking students to discuss their own experiences related to the topic
• Receptive task (listening or reading)
• Grammar: meaning
• Grammar: form
• Grammar: pronunciation
• Controlled practice (help students understand the use of the grammar with a limited task)
• Free practice: a productive task (writing or speaking) to help the students with forming the grammar themselves

Hint: remember to use your lesson plan and language analysis to help with all of this.

Language Analysis: Functional Skills Lesson

Example of a language analysis structure for functional skills lessons:

Context you are using to teach the language

Formality and relationship between speakers

What will this language enable the students to do or improve upon?

 

Examples of target language:

Example

Pronunciation (include phonemes and stress)

Form (part of speech it is) e.g. fixed expression

What does it mean and what is it’s function in this example?

CCQs

Problems and solutions with meaning, pronunciation or form