1 - Høgskulen på Vestlandet

Asbjørn Nåmdal




TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS
IN NORWEGIAN COMPULSORY EDUCATION

A TEFL course for college students of English and participants
in in-service courses for foreign language teachers







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BERGEN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
2005




TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 INTRODUCTION
5

2.0 THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE TO YOUNG
LEARNERS
7
A short introduction to some predominant ideas and principles for
TEFL in a
historical perspective - with particular reference to the teaching
of English in
Norwegian compulsory education
2.1 Background
7
2.2 The Latin method
7
2.3 The direct method
8
2.4 The audio lingual and the audio-visual teaching methods
8
2.5 The cognitive method
10
2.6 The concept of communicative competence or communicative
ability 10
2.7 Communicative language teaching
11
2.8 The audio-lingual method and communicative language teaching
compared 12
2.9 Acquisition and learning: the five essential elements in
Stephen Krashen's
hypotheses
13
2.10 A shift of focus from teaching to learning
15
2.11 Suggestion for A balanced topic-based activities approach
17
Topics for discussion
19

3.0 CURRICULUM GUIDELINES FOR ENGLISH IN NORWEGIAN
COMPULSORY EDUCATION FROM 1974 TO 2005
20
3.1 Introduction
20
3.2 The curriculum guidelines for English in M74 and M87
compared 20
3.3 The curriculum guidelines for English in M87 and L97
compared 21
3.4 What was essentially new in L97
22
3.5 Læreplan i engelsk 2005 ('Kunnskapsløftet')
22
Topics for discussion
23

4.0 WORKING WITH YOUNG LANGUAGE LEARNERS
25
4.1 The young language learner
25
4.2 Working with young language learners
25
4.3 English in the environment
26
4.4 Starting points for the teaching of English in grade 1/year
6 27
4.5 Introducing and activating vocabulary
28
4.6 Planning topic-based work
34
4.7 Using children's literature (stories) in the English
classroom 36
4.8 Using songs and rhymes
37
Topics for discussion
37

5.0 THE CONCEPT OF TEXT
38
5.1 Different types of text
38
5.2 Discussing the term authentic
38
Topics for discussion
39

6.0 DEVELOPING LISTENING COMPREHENSION
40
6.1 Using listening material
40
6.2 Listening comprehension activities
41
Topics for discussion
42

7.0 DEVELOPING READING COMPREHENSION
44
7.1 Read! Why?
44
7.2 Choosing reading material
44
7.3 Pre-reading activities
45
7.4 The reading process
47
7.5 Approaches to reading
47
7.6 While-reading activities
48
7.7 Post-reading activities
50
7.8 Ideas for a classroom library
50
Topics for discussion
51
Appendix 1: The 'top-down'/'bottom-up' model (Christine Nuttall) See p
101
Appendix 2: My Reading Diary. See p 102

8.0 READING ALOUD IN THE ENGLISH CLASS
52
8.1 Teacher reading aloud
52
8.2 Pupil(s) reading aloud
52
8.3 Towards oral proficiency
53
Topics for discussion
56

9.0 DEVELOPING ORAL PROFICIENCY: FROM PURE PRACTICE TO
COMMUNICATION
57
9.1 Using the textbook as a basis for developing the pupils' oral skills
57
9.2 Setting priorities and objectives
58
9.3 Some guiding principles for the realisation of objectives
58
9.4 Applying principles to an analysis of the textbook
59
9.5 Developing oral skills: practical ways and means
59
9.6 Towards communication in the classroom
62
9.7 Assessing spoken English in the classroom (based on the EVA Project)
65
Topics for discussion
65

10.0 GRAMMAR AND USAGE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND
LEARNING
67
10.1 The place of grammar: some principles to be considered
67
10.2 Suggested model for explicit grammar teaching
68
10.3 Suggestions for some practical tasks to be used in the process
69
Topics for discussion
70

11.0 DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS
71
11.1 Pre-writing activities: writing linked to other language skills
71
11.2 Types of writing: the communicative purpose
71
11.3 Requirements for good writing practice in English
71
11.4 Writing as an interactive process
72
11.5 Assessing written work (EVA project)
74
Topics for discussion
75

12.0 PLANNING FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
76
12.1 Background
76
12.2 How to start your preparations
76
12.3 Planning foreign language teaching: Didactic reflection and discussion
77/78
12.4 Suggested outline for the planning of a teaching unit of 4 - 6 lessons
79
12.5 Suggested outline for the planning of one lesson
80
12.6 What to observe in your practice period.
Some practical guidelines
81

13.0 COURSE BOOK EVALUATION
83
13.1 Introduction
83
13.2 Suggested criteria for Course Book Evaluation
83/84

14.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS
87

LIST OF USEFUL MATERIAL FOR TEFL IN THE PRIMARY AND
COMPREHENSIVE CLASSROOMS
88































1.0 INTRODUCTION

"... the complex circumstances of teaching and learning languages - with
different kinds of pupils, teachers, aims and objectives, approaches,
methods and materials, achievement - make it inconceivable that any single
method could achieve optimum success in all circumstances."

From Peter Stevens, New
Methods in Perspective (1980)

These few lines by Peter Stevens sum up the predicament of foreign language
didactics and methodology over the years. New ideas and principles for
foreign language teaching have emerged, but until some decades ago few of
them had any profound effect on foreign language teaching (FLT), and were
soon replaced by new ones. The bases of these ideas have often been linked
to one or more of the areas psychology, linguistics (structuralism) or
language for communication, and in later years this has been in combination
with a view of "language as culture and culture language", with a related
shift of focus from teaching to learning. Once a particular idea or
principle has gained ground, it has been a popular 'sport' to jump on the
bandwagon, tending to see foreign language teaching and learning from the
new perspective only and forgetting about, and often being very