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SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION:
INTERLANGUAGE

WHAT IS INTERLANGUAGE?

The term “interlanguage” was coined by an American linguist, Larry Selinker (Ellis, 1997).
Interlanguage is the type of language produced by second and foreign language learners.
In this author’s view, a learner’s interlanguage refers to the structured system the learner
constructs at any given stage in his development. In other words, this term is used to
describe the language system that results from language learning. It draws partly on the
learner’s L1 but it is different from the target language.

The interlanguage that is developed by someone can have:

• Properties and rules of L1
• Properties and rules of both L1 and L2
• Features of neither

The Interlanguage changes all the time but can become fossilized language when the
learners do not have the opportunity to improve.

Example: A learner who has lived in an English-speaking environment for many years
but not attended classes or studied for some time has problems with reported speech or
any part of the language. His interlanguage has become fossilized.

Interlanguage is often heavily influenced by L1 in such a way that it seems perfectly

logical to the learner, although it is incorrect. Generally, the learner’s errors are caused
by three causes:

• Extending patterns from the target language

• Borrowing patterns from the mother tongue. Eg. I will read my book and yours
also. Take me to a library, I need to buy some books.
• Expressing meanings using the words and grammar which are already known
(Lightbown and Spada, 2013).

Interlanguage process is characterized as dynamic, since it can vary or change; for this
reason, it is defined as a process of creation and as a process of restructuring.

Interlanguage is a creation or construction process because language learners

subconsciously and gradually organize the language they hear, according to the rules they
construct to understand and generate sentences (Krashen, 2003). So the errors that are
identified in learner’s output is caused by this process. Because learners of foreign
languages establish the rules of their IL using natural mental process such as
overgeneralization, together with processes similar to those used in the acquisition of the

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mother tongue ignoring the rules of L2 and producing new forms and structures that are
not present in the L2.

(Ellis 1997) On the other hand, one can argue that, it is a restructuring process; the
acquisition of new knowledge directly influences the structure of knowledge which has
already been acquired and vice versa. Thus a learner will organize his/her IL when he/she
receives new evidence about the target language, giving place to IL. Whereby the learner
gradually replaces L1 rules with L2 rules, and thus moves along a continuum from the L1
closer and closer to target language norms; so, a restructuring continuum occurs. For
example, a learner may learn the word went as the past tense of go. Later however, the
same learner, when she comes across the morpheme –ed as used for regular past simple,
may produce the form goed. Later still, went may be used correctly again.

It is important to note that there is an essential distinction among these three terms:
Acquisition, Interaction and Focus on Form when talking about learning L1 and L2.

Acquisition is to pick up language from lots of exposure in natural surroundings.

Interaction is to use language through real communication with other people.
Focus on Form is to pay attention to how grammar pronunciation and vocabulary works.

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LINGUISTIC PROCESSES IN THE
CONSTRUCTION OF INTERLANGUAGE

According to Selinker (in Ellis 1997), the development of IL lies on five central cognitive
processes:

 Language transfer
 Overgeneralization of target language structures
 Transfer of training: How the L2 is taught.
 Strategies used in the second language learning: How learners approach learning
L2.
 Strategies used in second language communication: Ways that learners try to
communicate with others in L2.

➢ LANGUAGE TRANSFER

Language transfer means using sounds, expressions or structures from the L1 when
speaking in L2. Richards and Schmidt (2002) defines transfer as “the use of elements
from one language while speaking another”.

When the L1 and L2 are similar, i.e. they share related linguistic features it is more
probable that transfer will occur.

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However, it is important to note that language transfer can take place from other second
languages that the learner knows, not necessarily only from the mother tongue. For
example, a Spanish learner of English as an L2, who already knows some French as an
L2, may be more likely to transfer from French into English than from his/her mother
tongue (Spanish).

Positive and Negative Transfer

The effects of language transfer can be of two types:

• Positive transfer: this is the kind of transfer that facilitates learning and happens
when there is a coincidence of elements between the L1 and the L2.
e.g. marking plural on the ends of nouns

• Negative transfer (interference): this is the kind of language transfer that refers
to the use of a structure or element of the L1 that is not appropriate in the L2,
thereby producing an error or it is difficult to understand.
e.g. putting an adjective after the noun

So, when learning a second language both sorts of transfer should be considered to make
a complete analysis of it. From a pedagogical point of view, we can say that it might be
useful for teachers to draw their students' attention to similarities and differences between
the L2 and their mother tongue, so as to consciously encourage positive transfer and to
warn students of areas of possible negative transfer.

Talking about IL development it is also necessary to consider that language universals

play an important role in transfer.

Language universals are those linguistic elements which are common to all languages. So
they work as an overall guiding principle in second language acquisition, interacting with
both native language and target language systems.

We cannot always predict which elements of L1 that learners will transfer to their L2
learning. Cognitive accounts of L2 learning, on the other hand, have identified that one
of the main constraints that governs transfer from the L1 to the L2 is that of learners'
perceptions of what is transferable and what is not.

There are considerable similarities and differences between English and Spanish related
to Grammar, Vocabulary and Pronunciation that have an effect on transfer that the
teachers need to focus on in order to help students in the second language acquisition. For
example

• Both languages have a structure based on tense. The basic structure is the same but
different functions change the position as adjectives.

• For Spanish we make a difference in adjectives about gender: feminine and masculine
or in number; singular and plural, but in English it does not exist.

• Inflections in verb conjugation are heavier in Spanish than in English.

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• Spanish pronunciation is very similar to its spelling but English has a strong difference
between both.

Ellis (1997) provides a clear example, this time considering the transfer of certain features
of pronunciation:

English contrasts the sounds /t/ and /d/ word initially (tin/din), word medially
(betting/bedding), and word finally (wet/wed). German, however, only contrasts these
two sounds word initially and word medially. Typologically, the word initial contrast is
unmarked and the word final contrast marked. It can be predicted, then, that English
learners will have no difficulty learning that the word final contrast does not exist in
German, but that German learners will experience considerable difficulty in learning to
make the final contrast in English. This is what has been found to occur. (1997:70-1)

➢ OVERGENERALIZATION OF L2 MATERIAL

Generalization may be considered a fundamental process in the construction of an IL.

However, overgeneralization also occurs and this is characterized by the extensive use of
a grammatical form of the L2 in situations where another rule applies. Bardovi-Harlig y
Hartford (2005) argues that overgeneralization is an over application of an interlanguage
feature in contexts in which it does not occur in target-language use (e.g. 'He ated ice-
cream'). Learners use rules from the second language in a way that native speakers would
not; this is why overgeneralizations result in errors.
Not all of the time the erroneous structures of overgeneralization come from a learner’s
mother tongue; they can also come from the overgeneralization of hypothesis about the
structure of that language the learner form when they are learning a foreign language. In
this process both the interlanguage system and those of the L2 are combined. This process
of overgeneralization has been compared to the same sort of process that operates for
children learning their mother tongue (Rowe and Levine, 2009).

There are two main features of overgeneralization: regularization the tendency to use
regular forms where possible (as illustrated in Ellis' 'He ated ice-cream' example above),
and simplification that is to simplify elements and structures.

Thus the learners reduce forms of the language in their intent to simplify the complex
system of other languages. A few examples will shed some light on this process:
• no understand
• he champion
• is man

Here we can see clearly that the learner is making life easier for himself by, in the first
example, leaving out the pronoun 'I' and the auxiliary ' don't '; in the second example the
verb 'to be', is ignored, and finally the pronoun 'he', plus the article 'a' are skipped. Note
how the meaning of each of these messages remains clear, despite the grammatical
reduction.

In some other cases, errors are motivated by the learner’s lack of knowledge of the lexico-
semantic features in either language.

➢ TRANSFER OF TRAINING.

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Transfer of Training, means that students’ interlanguage is being influenced by the way
they are taught. Certain teacher’s techniques can encourage erroneous uses of different
forms. Sometimes this phenomenon occurs when the teacher used to develop exercises of
transformation that provokes the acquisition of language in a way that is not being used
by native speakers. Richards (2006) suggests that some EFL teachers, who are non-native
speakers used to over emphasize, for example, the form of the present continuous which
may lead students to use it in situations where the present simple is required.

e.g. I am admiring you.

The author mentioned above also underlines that certain teaching techniques can actually
encourage erroneous uses of different forms, as in this transformation drill:

Teacher Instruction Student

"he walks quickly" change it to present continuous "he is walks quickly"

Here the teacher is asking a student to transform a sentence from the present simple to the
present continuous. Richards suggests that this standard kind of transformation exercise
can cause errors of overgeneralization.

Moreover, he/she should be cautious of the order in which language is presented since if
he/she does not follow a sequence providing the input of the language, the natural order
of acquisition may be altered and as a consequence negative transfers can happen. For
example, many course books present the present simple before the present continuous;
whereas morpheme studies have shown that both native speakers and L2 learners acquire
the present simple after the present continuous.

Regarding the order of acquisition, we can say that the acquisition of each linguistic
feature is a gradual and complex process. We can generalize that for the learner is very
hard to acquire the third person singular –s. This is a feature that normally they get after
irregular past tense. Past irregular is a morpheme that appears early in the order of
acquisition. However not all of the students are already aware of the tense in which they
are speaking to; and compound tenses are acquired further later.

As a corollary, we can say that negative transfer is due to two reasons.

• Language teaching in the classroom does not always follow the natural order of
acquisition.

• The types of tasks assigned by the teacher are not appropriate and they result in a
negative generalization process.

This is why courses could be designed to offer more suitable input for students in terms,
not only of pedagogical activity types, but also in terms of language item sequencing.

➢ STRATEGIES

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Wei and Cook (2009) describe strategies used in the construction of IL as: Procedures
used in learning, thinking etc. which serve as a way of reaching a goal. Ellis y Larsen-
Freeman (2009) defines learning strategies as a series of skills used with a particular
learning purpose in mind.

Strategies are commonly divided into learning strategies and communicative strategies,
although there are other ways of categorizing them.

In language learning, learning strategies and communication strategies are those

conscious or unconscious processes which language learners make use of while learning
as well as while using the language.

➢ LEARNING STRATEGIES

Learning strategies, according to Ellis (1997), are "the particular approaches or

techniques that learners employ to try to learn an L2". Among the different types of
learning strategies, the three main types to be mentioned as a summary are:

1. Cognitive strategies are those involved in the analysis, synthesis, or transformation

of learning materials. An example is 'recombination', which involves constructing a
meaningful sentence by recombining known elements of the L2 in a new way.
2. Metacognitive strategies are those involved in planning, monitoring, and evaluating
learning. An example is 'selective attention', where the learner makes a conscious
decision to attend to particular aspects of the input.
3. Social/affective strategies concern the ways in which learners choose to interact with
other speakers. An example is questioning for clarification (i.e. asking for repetition,
a paraphrase, or an example).

Along this chapter we have discussed about the relationship between the learning
processes of the L1 and the L2, and the degree of similarity or difference between them.
Talking about learning strategies, it has been maintained that the learning strategies used
for the L2 are very similar or the same as the ones employed for the L1. Larsen-Freeman
and Long (1991-2014) in their definition of the term do not distinguish between L1 and
L2 learning strategies. Specific processes such as overgeneralization or simplification
seem to operate in both L1 and L2. However, in the case of L2 learning the individual
also has at his/her disposal an L1 which offers the possibility of using transfer as a
learning strategy.

➢ COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES

Communication strategies have been defined in a number of different ways:

• A manner or ability employed by a speaker to express his meaning when faced
with some difficulty (Johnson K, 2005).
• A reciprocal endeavor of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations
when requisite meaning structures are not shared (Rowe and Levine, 2009).
• Potentially conscious plans for solving what an individual presents to itself as a
problem in reaching a particular communicative goal (Richards and Schmidt,
2002).

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• Techniques of how to handle the unevenness in linguistic ability in these
situations successfully through tactics for managing speech (Lou Leaver, B. M.
Ehrman and B. Shekhtman, 2005).
• Communication Strategies are inevitable in oral communication for language
learners, since these strategies keep speakers flexible, and confident, they also
make communication more effective (Zheng, 2004)

There have been many attempts to classify communication strategies from different
points of view. The taxonomy included here is the one developed by Tarone (1980).

Tarone's taxonomy is as follows:

1. Avoidance: avoidance of certain linguistic features which learners consider difficult.

• Topic avoidance: avoidance of the topic rather than avoidance of specific
linguistic features.
• Message abandonment: giving up trying to communicate a message in the
face of difficulty.

2. Paraphrase: repeating what has just been said using other words.
• Approximation: trying to paraphrase in order to 'approximate' (get a closer
understanding of) what an interlocutor says.
• Word coinage: inventing words, either based on the L1 or the L2 in order to
get a meaning across.
• Circumlocution: talking around a subject, or describing something when the
exact word for the concept is not known, in order to make oneself understood.

3. Conscious transfer: consciously transferring a feature of L1 or another L2 to the TL.

• Literal translation: literal translation L1 into the L2.
• Language switch: resorting to the mother tongue or another L2.

4. Appeal for assistance: asking the interlocutor for help.

5. Mime: the use of gesture to illustrate what is being said.

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FOSSILIZATION IN INTERLANGUAGE
 Interlanguage patterns which seems not change, even after extended

WHAT IS FOSSILIZATION?

Fossilization is naturally related to interlanguage, so it is a fundamental phenomenon of

all SLA and not just for adult learners but for young too. Lou Leaver, B. M. Ehrman and
B. Shekhtman (2005) define fossilization as the process whereby a learner's IL
development stops and in any way is below the language norms.

According to Ellis (1997) it is very difficult to get a native-like proficiency in the target
language and fossilized errors show "non-target language variability in at least some
grammatical features", in other words a stage of fossilization can obstruct learner’s
development in restructuring his/her interlanguage. For example: The persistent omission
of -s addition when the subject is 3rd person singular present simple.

When the learner fossilizes the way in which grammar or another feature of the language
were acquired do not change anymore, in the process of rule formation and hypothesis
testing, the learner does not ‘see’ any errors, so he/she does not correct himself/herself,
even if they receive feedback and the errors are still present. No matter what the age of
the learner or amount of explanation or instruction or even the amount of exposure to the
target language they have, the learner cannot experiment improvement even though
he/she continuous his/her learning.

Ellis (ibid.) also comments that sometimes the learners may well succeed in reaching
target-language norms if the discourse has been planned while failing norms of language
use in unplanned, spontaneous discourse. The fossilized speakers are less sensitive to the
forms provided in the input, as well as less able to maintain new, target like forms in their
own speech.
CAUSES OF FOSSILIZATION

Ellis, N. y D. Larsen-Freeman (2009) suggests there are two kinds of factors affecting
fossilization: internal and external factors.
Internal factors embrace:

• Age. This author argues that when learners reach a critical age (over 12 years old)
their brains lose plasticity; with the result that certain linguistic features cannot be
mastered.
• Social and psychological factors. Learners make no efforts to adopt TL cultural
norms and the result is that the IL is not at the target language level.

External factors include:

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• Communicative pressure. It occurs when the learner feels a pressure to
communicate ideas that require the use of language that exceeds his/her linguistic
competence.
• Lack of learning opportunity. It refers to lack of opportunity for receiving input
and producing output. In other words, there is no chance to use the language as in
daily life.
• The nature of feedback on learner's use of L2. According to the author mentioned
above when the learners receive positive feedback signaling ‘I understand you’
even if they are committing mistakes, their interlanguage formation stops. On the
opposite negative feedback signaling ‘I don’t understand you’ could help avoid
fossilization.

THE LEARNING OF A SECOND LANGUAGE

HOW DOES A LEARNER LEARN A SECOND LANGUAGE?

The learning of a second language is not the result of a single factor, but of several
variables of different types: These may be divided into three independent variables
(teaching, learner and context) and two dependent ones (learning and outcome) which are
conditioned by the previous ones.

• Teaching makes reference to the teaching practices that are being performed to
provide educational instruction. Factors such as the type of methodology used, the
syllabus selected, the teacher’s profile and the resources available play a significant
role.

• Learners make allusion to the cognitive, affective, physical and psychological

conditions that may directly affect them. Cognitive conditions including intelligence
and cognitive style or aptitude for language learning; Affective conditions include
attitudes and motivation towards learning and finally, physical and psychological
factors such as age and personality.

• Context is contextual conditions where language learning takes place. For example,
it is very different to learn English in second language environment than in a foreign
language situation because the opportunities for language use and practice will vary
considerably from one to the other.

• Learning is influenced by the previous three. It consists of two kinds of processes:

unconscious and conscious. The former processes cannot be controlled directly by the
learner and are determined to a high degree by the L1 and the amount of exposure and
comprehensible input the learner is exposed to. The latter are monitored by the learner
and they include the mechanisms used by the student in their learning. The
educational instruction also plays an important influence.

• Outcome is also predisposed by the three described above, it deals with the result of
the whole learning process, that is, the proficiency level the learner reaches as well as
several aspects of language performance, such as errors and external reactions to the
language, the people and the culture that the target language represents.

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Furthermore, the learning of a second language should not be regarded as a linear process.
One should not think that a language is learned in chunks according to different, already
established, degrees of difficulty, going from the simplest to the most complex. If teachers
operate with syllabuses and with teaching units or lessons, it is mainly for pedagogical
purposes rather than for learning requirements. The learning of a second language could
be compared to a cycle; it is necessary to go back to areas already studied at some point
to consolidate them. This explains the inclusion of consolidation or revision units in most
modern textbooks.

INPUT

Input can be defined as the language information or data the learner is exposed to and has
access to. Ellis (1997) describes it as "the language that is addressed to the L2 learner
either by a native speaker or by another L2 learner".

The nature of the information a student receives may vary according to the form of
exposure. It could be natural setting when somebody has the opportunity to travel abroad,
or formal instruction; and the medium used for its transmission which could be speech or
writing or a combination of them both. For example, an average secondary school student
in our country receives input from different sources: the teacher, textbook, readers, audio
and video tapes, other students in the class, satellite TV, etc.

According to different observations we can see that it is quite clear that simple exposure
to linguistic information is not enough for a SLA. For example, we may last a good
number of hours to listening to the radio in English or any other language, but that does
not mean that at the end of this long and tiring period we will be in a position to speak or
even understand English. This suggests that input should be modified or adapted in some
way so that actual learning may take place. As regards Krashen (2003) argues that for
acquisition to occur, input should always be comprehensible, it means it should be slightly
above the student's language level, but something they can understand.

The concept of input is also important because the way the teacher provides the input
determines the methodology and even the type of syllabus to be used in the classroom.

INTERACTION

Interaction consists in communication raised between the listener and speaker or reader
and writer. Along an interaction a lot of input is produced
When two or more people are communicating, asking questions arise spontaneously.
Many investigations have demonstrated as a result that learners who were given the
opportunity to ask questions and check their comprehension of the text understood it
much more than those learners who listened to a more simplified version but had no
opportunity to interact while doing the task.

The interaction fosters the negotiation of meaning that is the communication between the
speaker and listener. Through negotiation of meaning the listener provides feedback to
the speaker letting the communication flow.

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To promote interaction, the teacher should create contextualized activities that make
reference to daily situations, and provide a purpose for communication. The teacher is
favouring these characteristics when creating a context for the students to be able to speak.
Furthermore, when they are working with personal information, daily situations are
enhanced which contain a rich and varied input very necessary for the process of
acquisition, and obviously they have a purpose for communication.

Good classroom environments that encourage interaction should meet the characteristics
listed below (Ellis, 1997)
• Teacher should provide high quantity of input to the learner.
• Learners have to have a need to communicate in the L2.
• Exposure to a high amount of directives (commands, orders).
• The learner needs the opportunity to listen to and to produce language used for
different language functions.
• Exposure to a high quantity of "extending utterances" (e.g. requests for
clarification and confirmation, paraphrases and expansions); and
• Opportunities to freer practices for experimenting using "new" forms).

THE ROLE OF FORMAL INSTRUCTION IN THE LEARNING OF A SECOND

LANGUAGE

The role of formal instruction in second language learning has been a highly controversial
issue. Many researches have always argued that students do not need to learn the usage
of the language, which are explanations of how the language works but the use of the
language that refers to exposing students to interactions resembling real life situations
and using real materials.

On the other hand, many investigators maintain that formal instruction does affect
language acquisition even though their studies are not all conclusive.

There are three different positions that explain classroom SLA regarding formal
instruction:

1. The non-interface position Krashen (2003). He distinguished between “acquired”

and “learner” knowledge and argued that they were independent. According to this,
formal instruction failed to influence the natural route of SLA, as this was said to be
a reflection of acquisition.
2. The interface position maintained among others by Stevick (1980) defended the
notion that "learned" or explicit knowledge could turn into "acquired" or implicit
knowledge if there was enough practice.
3. The variability position (Tarone et all, 2009) saw acquisition and language use as
closely related. Thus, different types of knowledge arose from and are required for
performance of different language tasks.

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TEACHING LINGUISTIC
SKILLS

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TEACHING VOCABULARY

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION (WHAT TO TEACH TO MY STUDENTS)

Vocabulary is an essential element in learning a foreign language. It cannot be taught or

learned in complete isolation from the rest of the linguistic components: grammar,
phonetics, phonology, notions and functions. As noted by Audrey Fisch and Susan
Chenelle (2014) vocabulary learning is evident when students are able to use the new
words, i.e. they can use them to write and speak fluently and they can understand its
meaning and purpose when they read and hear because its usage as well as its meaning
can be demonstrated this way.

According to Katherine McKnight (2015) as a result of both research and practice, we

understand that the teaching of vocabulary requires more than simply asking students to
find a list of words in a dictionary; define them and use them in a sentence. Students must
experience the new vocabulary in a situational and linguistic context and not in isolation.

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The basic vocabulary of each lesson should be recycled in a variety of contexts for
students to achieve sufficient experience to assimilate and become part of their
knowledge.

Scott Thornbury (2002) suggests that a teacher should teach students to obtain a potential
amount of vocabulary to help them start and sustain a conversation in a foreign language.
To do this, a teacher must take into account basic criteria for teaching vocabulary, such
as:

• Students’ levels and needs depending on their social and cultural backgrounds.
• Their interests, which represents a great resource of motivation for learning.
• The words, expressions, terminology and instructions that students need to take an
active role in the classroom.
• Words and expressions most frequently and most commonly used; and the words
according to the lesson to facilitate its understanding.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “KNOW” A WORD?

According to Larsen-Freeman (2003) to know a word implies have knowledge about:

• Word definition and aspects of meaning like: denotation, connotation (if it is a neutral
/ positive word or if it has a negative image), appropriateness and meaning relations
(e.g. synonyms, antonyms, lexical sets).
• The language form, i.e. what part of speech it is: a verb, a noun, an adjective, etc.
• The pronunciation and spelling. Taking into account that in English there is often no
relationship between how a word is pronounced and how it is written, it is necessary
students learn these two aspects in the new vocabulary.
• Collocations. It is the way that words combine with each other, or occur together. For
example to ask a question you “raise your hand” no “lift your hand”.
• Word families. What associations it has (e.g., words that are similar or opposite in
meaning)
• Cultural information. It implies to be informed of different contexts where the word
can be used.

HOW SHOULD WE TEACH VOCABULARY?

Vocabulary learning will be successful, only if the new words are integrated into long-
term memory, which has an enormous capacity and its contents are durable over time.
Based on this idea, we agree with George Yule (2010) that it is very important the teacher
makes the learners practice the word that has been presented coming up with many ideas
for learning and practicing vocabulary, so that they will be able to recall and use the word
later in any different circumstance. In the Internet TESL Journal it is reported that students
generally need to see, say, and write newly learned words at least seven times before they
can be said to have learned them (Yun and Cervantes, 2006)

For this purpose students need to develop learning strategies to internalize the words of a
language and to incorporate new ones to their knowledge. Ferlazzo and Hull (2012) argue
that the teaching of vocabulary should develop an interest and curiosity to learn among

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students. They should be provided with rich and varied language experiences, and
teaching strategies to address new words. This includes teaching a range of context clues
as the following mentioned below, as well as tasks that according to Charlene Cobb &
Camille Blachowicz (2010) provide a potential practice to internalize the learned
vocabulary, such as:

• Helping students learn to look around the word (context clues) and within the word
(parts of words) when they are trying to determine its meaning.
• Working in environments that arouse the students’ interests like rooms full of books,
magazines and lexical games.
• Providing them the chance to use the words daily.
• Insert the new vocabulary in the process of reading a foreign language.
• Providing an opportunity to use these new words in discussions or written messages,
in personal dictionaries or playing word games, and all creative activity that the
teacher can generate to develop their curiosity.
• Developing a repeated rehearsal of the new vocabulary while it is still in short-term
memory, making an attempt to organize the material simultaneously. It has been
found, according to the authors mentioned above that repeated encounters with a
word, guarantee learning. A student can remember a word that lies along a reading
text at least seven times over spaced intervals.
• Constantly expose students to use new words. Teachers have to bear in mind that the
more decisions learners make about a word the better they will remember them.
Therefore, the teacher should make them use new words in a variety of contexts and
activities: making up stories, structured conversations that allow them to discuss the
readings using the words of the topic; ask and answer questions related to real life
where the new words are included, or use them to complete sentence and expression.

All these strategies provide students with opportunities to participate actively and
manipulate words. They represent valuable information for teachers to guide an
appropriate instruction.

TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING VOCABULARY

When a new word is found in learning English, it is very important to work out its
meaning and then to store it in a written form in some way, so that the learner can
remember and find it again as necessary. David Cross (1995), I.S.P. Nation (2008), Cobb
and Blachowicz (2010) present several ways of making clear the meaning of a word and
learn that may be used alone or in combination, which have been adapted in this book.

1. Realia
Realia are objects and real things that are available in the school and many objects which
can be brought into the classroom.

2. Pictures, flashcards, photos, charts, diagrams

The teacher can collect useful pictures from magazines, newspapers or photographs; or
he/she may use the blackboard to make rapid sketches of simple things. These should be
drawn at home on a flashcard.

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3. Body movement
This technique uses facial expressions, gestures, using hands and arms, mime and actions
to show meaning. Memory generally responds better to visual stimuli than words so these
are very effective methods. They are direct, they are interesting and they make an
impression on the class.

4. Word Sets or word families

They are groups of words that are sufficiently closely related to each other. There are two
types of word families:
Form-base families is a grouping of words derived from the same base. Teacher can refer
to affixation when teaching meaning of this type of word families. It could also be used
word formation charts to list the concept noun, personal noun, adjective, adverb, and verb
form of key vocabulary.
e.g.
Concept Noun Personal Noun Adjective Verb
Censorship censor censored censure
Economics economist economical economize

Meaning-base families: They reveal links and patterns of meaning.

E.g. Football: referee – goal – stadium – footballer.

5. Definition
It is the description of the words using an explanation of its meaning in English. This kind
of linguistic approach is not suitable for beginner’s classes because they do not have
enough knowledge of vocabulary to understand the definition.

Soil: Soil is the substance on the land surface of the earth in which plants grow.
Coach: It is a bus, but one that makes long distance journeys.

6. Synonyms / Antonyms
They are items that mean the same or nearly the same of the unknown word and words
that have an opposite meaning of it.
Synonyms: clever = intelligent home = residence
Antonyms: Hot cold full empty

7. Illustrative Sentences
It is to give a sentence or a sequence of sentences to create a linguistic context in which
the meaning of the unknown word is illustrated. This definitely provides the best way of
showing the meaning of a word, because in this way it can be demonstrated its usage as
well as its meaning.

He is very lazy. He gets up late and then he does nothing all day.
(It is not enough just to say “my brother is lazy” – It doesn’t show what lazy mean. We
need to add: “He gets up late and then does nothing all day” to show the meaning of the
word.

8. Scales
The meaning of some words can be illustrated by related them to something showing
variation from one extreme to another. For example you can show the meaning of the

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adverbs of frequency or adjectives describing various degrees of happiness, fear, size,
usefulness, etc.
Horrible nasty unpleasant pleasant nice wonderful
Always usually often sometimes seldom never

9. Hyponyms
They are items that serve as specific examples of a general concept. Example: Dog, lion,
mouse, cat are hyponyms of animal

Fruit ------ Superordinate

______________________________

Apple peach pear watermelon ----- Hyponyms

10. Special grammatical features

Teachers can teach certain grammatical features to make the meaning clear, like:
Collocations (words that naturally go together), spelling features or focus on
pronunciation.

Enjoy watching videos (enjoy is followed by another verb in –ing)

Collocations: Do homework NO Make mistake
Pronunciation: conception – reception – communication

11. Translation
Translation can be notoriously inaccurate but it is used when another alternative is not
possible.

12. Labels
Well, when I was training to be a teacher, this was very popular and useful for me. It
consists of getting sticky labels and writing words on them and then sticking the bits of
paper onto the thing the sticky label represents.

PRESENTING NEW VOCABULARY

As it was already discussed, the best way to present new vocabulary is in context, words
in action, i.e. into a text of reading or listening, into conversations, or stories and so on.

However, when the teacher makes specific references of meaning, or wants to present
specific individual items, the way of presenting will depend on the learners’ level, the
familiarity that they have with the words, the difficulty of the items and their teachability.

The most effective way to present new vocabulary to students is to combine different
techniques, so that they understand the meaning clearly. Each technique should be very
quick and they all reinforce each other. The presentation should not extend so far into the
lesson that no time is available to put the words to work.

Example: Presenting the word “smile”

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In order to present this word, the teacher can combine the following techniques:
• Present a picture with a smiling face.
• Show a smile with facial expression.
• Define the word: Smile is to curve upwards the corners of your mouth because
you are pleased or amused.

VOCABULARY EXPANSION

When students come across a new word, they are likely to be interested in learning other
related words, Lightbown, P. and Spada, N. (2013) suggest that this presents a natural
opportunity for vocabulary development, what they calls “vocabulary expansion”.

There are two techniques to expand students’ vocabulary: By using synonyms or by

related words. E.g. Let’s expand vocabulary from the word COOK

a) By using SYNONYMS: Cook, bake, fry, boil, grill

They are words of the same type and have the same general meaning.

b) By using RELATED WORDS: Cook, stove, pot, spoon, fork

They refer to objects that might be used when talking about cooking.

Possible techniques to introduce sets of related words like those are:

- Introducing the new words and writing them on the board.
- Eliciting the new words from the students and then write them on the board.
- Then use them in questions.

2
TEACHING GRAMMAR

WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

Grammar, as other subskills, is very important to make sure communication is produced.

Grammar is a set of rules that define how words (or parts of words) are combined or
changed to form acceptable units within a language (Díaz, 2006).

Sometimes it is defined as “the way words are put together to make correct sentences”
(Ur, 2012). It is the analysis of each word individually (verbs, nouns, adjectives,
preposition, conjunctions, and articles).

The role of grammar in the different methods of language study has changed from time
to time. The traditional notion that learning grammar is a linear, step by step process has
largely been replaced by a view in which the development of grammatical competence is
seen in terms of communication.

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When talking about the real role of grammar teaching in the classroom, according to
Diane Larsen Freeman (2003), it is important to focus on form, meaning and use. It means
that when teaching a structure, it is necessary to focus on how it is formed, what it means
and when or why the structure is used. For example

You should practice English

FORM: Should + V (Base Form)

Meaning: Suggestion or recommendation
Use: To give advice in a polite way

The material presented in order to learn it should be meaningful and relevant to learners’
daily lives.

METHODS TO TEACH GRAMMAR

DEDUCTIVE VS. INDUCTIVE

DEDUCTIVE APPROACH

Traditionally, grammar focused on the how, it was taught by giving the grammar rules
and examples on the board. The teacher explained in detail its form. Then the students
were asked to memorize those rules and apply them into other examples. There wasn’t
any attention to the message the expression was trying to convey, the criteria of success
were based on the accuracy with which it worked. It was called Deductive Method.

Advantages
• It goes straight to the point, so teachers don´t take up much time.
• It is very well accepted by mature students who expect to learn rules.
• It allows the teacher to control the language point.

Disadvantages:
• It may be boring and irrelevant for some students.
• They easily forget what they only hear.
• It promotes a teacher-centered class.
• Students think that learning a language is only knowing the rules.
• It fosters a passive reception.

INDUCTIVE APPROACH

It is a more interactive model that puts grammar teaching into context and promotes the
learning of the ability to communicate. Along the communication activities the learners
see and hear the structures in action (Magrath, 2014). So they pick up the language while
they use it in context, as they did with their mother tongue. To ensure grammar learning,
it has to be introduced in a topical interactive way that is into a context rather than in
isolation. The learners need to become so involved in the activities, so that they learn
grammar while they are using the language without having to think about the rules. Only
after an extensive practice the students are induced to realize the grammar rules by

19
themselves without any prior explanation about the grammar point, so the rules become
evident through the given examples. This is called Inductive Method.

Advantages
• Students are more actively involved in the lesson.
• Rules that the learners discover by themselves are more memorable and the students
don’t forget them easily.
• It is learner-centered.
• It fosters an autonomous learning.

Disadvantages:
• Its process takes longer than expected.
• Students can confuse or get the wrong rule.
• It can frustrate students who are accustomed to be told the rules.
• It demands more lesson planning.

GUIDED DISCOVERY METHOD

Alfeiri, Brooks and Aldrich (2011) outlined discovery learning as a process where the
learner must “find, the target information, independently and with only the provided
material”. Guided Discovery is an approach that promotes inductive learning, meaningful
communication, critical thinking development and problem solving tasks (Caprario,
2013). According to the mentioned authors it involves a modification of inductive
approach, in which students should be exposed to the language from the beginning, they
make inferences; then the students' attention is focused to explicit rules and practice.

When using Guided Discovery method, four steps should be followed:

1. Exposure to language through examples or illustrations

It can be done using visual or verbal techniques; it means that the teacher can use
illustrations, examples or a combination of both. Examples can be developed in isolated
sentences or the teacher can expose the students to the language working in context trough
listening or reading texts.
Using context helps to make grammar relevant and alive as well as to understand its
meaning clearly and easily.

a. Using illustrations: The teacher can present a structure by showing it directly using
things students can see or using gestures, pictures or realia. E.g.

a nurse an engineer a dentist an artist

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b. Using examples or context. The teacher may think of a real or imaginary situation to
demonstrate the meaning, e.g.
My father is an architect and my mother is a teacher.

2. Observation and analysis of the language through guided questions

The teacher has to focus student’s attention to the significant point of the structure he/she
is trying to present by using questions, by completing gaps in sentences or rules or by
matching, etc. Through these activities, students analyze, hypothesize, compare, construct
and generate knowledge about how the language works.
Along this step, the teacher scaffold essential knowledge to be sure learners are arriving
to a right conclusion and clear understanding of the rule. E.g.
(use a or an)
He is …… engineer
She is …… teacher
He is ……. Artist

In this example the teacher might ask:

What’s the difference between the professions presided by a from those presided by an.
Ask students to circle the first letter of each occupation.
Ask them to rewrite the words in two separate lists: One column for a and another column
for an.
What the occupation words have in common within each column.

3. Statement of the rule

The teacher gets the students to state the rules. Based on the observation, questions or
activities performed in the previous step, the students derive rules from the examples and
construct their new knowledge. E.g.
1. We use ……… before vowel sounds.
2. We use ……… before consonant sounds.

4. Application of the rule in practice tasks graded by difficulty or complexity.

The teacher makes students develop tasks and exercises from more controlled practice to
more communicative and meaningful. E.g.
Semi controlled practice: Multiple choice based on meaning, slot filler with choice
of answers not provided. E.g.
Write a or an
……… aunt
……… uncle
……… country
……… elephant
……… architect
……… doctor

Free Exercises: Giving opinions, defending points of view, engaging in natural

communication. E.g.
Write about the jobs of all members in your family.

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Guess the jobs of other students’ parents.
Is your father a driver? No, he’s not a driver
Is your mother an assistant? No, she is not an assistant

3
LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS

DEFINITION

In simple words, Penny Ur (2005) defines language functions as all of the purposes with
which we use the language. According to the purpose we decide what to say on the basis
of what we want to achieve.

A function is a reason for communicating. In the language, we usually use phrases to

make functions. This is called the Exponent.

Example 1

Exponent Context Function

Patient speaking to a Describing feelings

doctor

I am so tired
Girl speaking to mother Requesting to stop
while doing homework doing homework

Example 2

P: What are you going to do tomorrow?

R: I’m going to visit my grandmother

These items help us to illustrate structure as well as communicative function: The prompt
is an instance not only of a perfect interrogative (using BE GOING TO), but also asking
and answering about plans for an immediate future.

Example 3
A: Can we go to the cinema?
B: Oh no, I don’t like going to the cinema

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A: What about a swim, then?
B: Oh no, I don’t like swimming when it’s cold outside.

Structurally, the learner is practicing the use of the modal can and the use of –ing after
like. Functionally, she/he is learning ways of making and rejecting suggestions.

All of the time when we use a grammatical structure, we also carry out any language
function; it means that when we say something we do something. For example:

WHAT WE SAY GRAMMATICAL FUNCTION

STRUCTURE

This radio doesn’t work Negative Simple Present Complaining

I’m sorry Present Tense To Be Apologizing
Can you come to Interrogative Modal Can Inviting
dinner? There to be Warning
There is a car coming!! Present Progressive Describing actual
She is reading a book Tense actions

HOW FUNCTIONS ARE EXPRESSED

A single function can have more than one exponent depending on the context or situation.
For example:

This is a request function performed in different ways:

It is hot here! Could you open the window?

Please, open the window!
I was wondering if you could open the window
Would it be possible for you to open the window?
Asking for directions can be done in a variety of ways depending on the context and the
status of the speakers:
Excuse me, could you tell me where ......?
Do you know where ...?
How do I get to ......?

As it is shown, a function can be interpreted in different ways. In deciding what language

to teach, the teacher may decide which ones are more important for which levels.

He/She needs to bear in mind the level of difficulty, the level of transparence, that is if
the meaning is clear; and the level of formality. Those are the factors we need to consider
when selecting an exponent to use in order to express a particular function, which are:

• Context (situation, place, time)

• Relationship (between speaker & listener / writer and audience)

In other words, it means, we should express our thoughts according to the situation, what
we want to say and to whom we are speaking to. The levels of formality could be: Formal,
Informal or Neutral.

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Look at the exponents below and how they have been ranked in order from most informal
(1) to most formal (6).
• Could I offer something to drink?
• Fancy a drink?
• Would you like a drink?
• Do you want a drink?
• I would be delighted to offer you some refreshment. What would you like?
• Coffee?

1. Coffee?
2. Fancy a drink?
3. Do you want a drink?
4. Would you like a drink?
5. Could I offer something to drink?
6. I would be delighted to offer you some refreshment. What would you like?

When expressing an idea, we also have to be aware of whether it’s appropriate. It is an

important part for using functional exponents accurately. It refers to whether a word is
suitable for the context it is being used, i.e. getting the level of formality right. For
example:

Coffee? Among friends during a break in the school

Could I offer something to drink? Among colleagues in a business meeting.

The teacher should also start from easy to complex. For example, she/he would teach:
“Could you open the window?” before “Would it be possible for you to open the
window?”

WHY ARE FUNCTIONS IMPORTANT?

Exploring the work of Ur (2005) on the importance of teaching functions, we can see they
are helpful for the following reasons:

1. Focusing teaching on mere structures, with lists like: verb to be, there is/ there are,
present continuous, present simple, future, etc. is very dull and uninteresting while
focusing teaching on what students can actually do with the language with lists like:
introductions, invitations, apologies, requests, etc. result in being more stimulating
for them.

2. The teacher can use a function in order to give a context for the teaching of a structure,
in which case students will learn more. You may encourage the use of students’
imagination and humor by practicing any structure. E.g.

If + Present Simple, will + Verb stem in the context of the function: Think of ten
different ways of completing the final sentence below.
You are failing at bringing your English homework to class for a long time. Your
teacher has asked you to do it again and again until he/she says, “If you don´t bring
the homework once more, I will………”

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3. Through the function you can choose the appropriate form to say something
according to the situation and the person you are talking to.
Would you like dinner on Saturday? Or
Could I invite you to dinner on Saturday?

4
TEACHING PRONUNCIATION

The ultimate goal of language teaching is to encourage learners to acquire a good

pronunciation that is the act of speaking clearly and in a correct way in order to be
understood by those around the speaker. Learners need to develop their communicative
competence, as Grant (2014) points out they don’t need to get a perfect pronunciation but
to develop functional intelligibility (ability to make oneself relatively easily understood),
and functional communicability (ability to meet one’s own communicative needs)

Pronunciation involves features at segmental and suprasegmental level. According to

Seferoglu (2005), segmental aspects of the sound system include individual vowels and
consonants. Suprasegmental features relate to sounds at the macro level. Yule (2010)
suggests that linking, stress and intonation are essential suprasegmental features. Once
learners are aware that English words have a stress pattern, that words can be pronounced
in slightly different ways, and that the pitch of the voice can be used to convey meaning,
they will know what to pay attention to for acquiring a good pronunciation.

Regarding this idea Seferoglu (2005), recommends that training should be focused on
suprasegmental features of pronunciation—not segmental aspects to acquire
communicative competence. On the other hand, it should be approached holistically; it
means that the teacher has to teach pronunciation as an integral part of oral
communication, embracing pronunciation into their classes (Rajaduari, 2001).

PRONUNCIATION FEATURES

CONNECTED SPEECH

When English is spoken naturally, we often link words together. Linking is

a phenomenon in which two sounds are connected between adjacent words and
pronounced in a continuous flow from one word to another. The following are some of
the phenomena that occur when pronouncing words or phrases (Yule, 2010):

1. CATENATION- If the second word begins with a vowel sound, the consonant at the
end of the first word can link to it. Eg. Lots of money

25
2. INTRUSION- If the second word starts with a vowel, and the first word ends in a
vowel sound, the sounds /w/, /j/ and /r/ can link the words together. Eg. go out

3. ELISION- If the second word begins with a consonant sound, and the first word ends
with one or two consonant sounds, the final consonant sound of the first word can
disappear. Eg First thing

4. ASSIMILATION- If the second word begins with a consonant sound, the consonant
sound at the end of the first word can change so that it is more similar to the one that
follows it. Eg Handbag

It is of vital importance for English learners to practice linking to get a quite clear and
comprehensible speech, for two reasons: First, because these two features do not exist in
the Spanish sound system. Second, by practicing these features students will become
aware of a basic difference between the two languages and will be interested to know
about other features of the English sound system, which may help them to improve their
oral production and their listening comprehension skill.

STRESS

Stress plays an important role in learning the English language. Certainly if the learners
are not able to use a good stress they won’t be understood and communication will be
broken. Most English words have one strongly stressed syllable that sound longer, louder
and higher in pitch than the other syllables. Speech can be hard to understand when the
strongly stressed syllable is not clear or the wrong syllable is stressed.

Word Stress
The following words can be sorted into two groups according to the number of syllables
each word has

3 syllables 4 syllables

Photograph Photographer

Photography

Photographic

Photogenic

• Any word with two or more syllables will have one syllable which is stressed. This
syllable sounds stronger than the other syllables.
• In a word family, the syllable which is stressed can change. This is called shifting
stress.
• The shifting stress within a word family is controlled by the prefixes or suffixes which
are used to form each word.
• There are rules which affect the pronunciation of words with particular prefixes or
suffixes.

26
Rules of Word Stress: An Introduction

Look at the following examples. What do you notice about the stressed syllable?
Are these examples of shifting stress?
Athlete athletic infinite infinity

The suffixes “-ic” and “-ity” influence the pronunciation of the words in these word
families by causing the syllable before the suffix to be stressed.

In contrast, look at the following examples. Does the use of the suffix “-able”
cause the stress to shift?
Fashion fashionable rely reliable

The suffix “-able” doesn’t change the word stress from that in the ‘root’ word

Regarding stress another important issue of syllables stress is that there are a lot of words
which mean very different when the stress is changed from syllable, for example:
DEsert desSERT
MESsage masSAGE
ARabic aeRObics

Even into a sentence one syllable is more stressed than the others and the speaker can
convey different meanings according to it. In general, one or two words in a sentence are
most important to express the speaker’s meaning and intention. E.g.

She spent thousands of dollars.

“Thousands” is stressed to mean that it was a lot of money. Speakers have to bear on their
minds that the stressed vowel is long and loud.

Sentence Stress and Rhythm

Try to say this (click your fingers while pronouncing)

Line ■ ■ ■ ■
1
One Two Three Four

Line One And Two And Three And Four

2

Line One and a Two and a Three and a Four

3

Line One and Two and Three and Four

4 then a then a then a

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This is an example of why English is called a stress-timed language. This means that we
stress important words which tell us the most important information such as nouns, verbs,
adjectives and adverbs, which are called content words.

In the lines above, the main message was to count “One, two, three, four”. The other
words such as articles, conjunctions and prepositions, which are called function words
are important for the grammar to be correct but are not usually very important to the main
message. These words are not stressed, to help us speak fluently with a natural rhythm,
we usually make these words fit into the rhythm of the sentence by changing sounds and
leaving sounds out and they are shorten in only one sound: a/ᵊ/.

In contrast to English, in some other languages such as Spanish, in each word one syllabus
is always stressed more than the rest, and into a sentence every word is pronounced. For
this reason, a language such as Spanish is known as a syllable-timed language (Grant,
2014). English language learners often tend to pronounce in an unnatural manner due to
the inclination to pronounce each word correctly as they do in their own native language
which causes an abnormal stress that often origins misunderstanding. If the teacher
focuses students’ attention on the “stress-timed” quality of English, he/she will help them
to improve their pronunciation skills.

INTONATION

English speech is like music in that it uses changes in pitch. Speakers can change the pitch
of their voice, making it higher or lower. These can be very sudden or gradual and can
be put together in various combinations as a way to imply meaning, attitude or intention
by raising or lowering the pitch of our voice in varying degrees (Lane, 2010). We learn
the intonation patterns without externalizing rules or analyzing them, instead a great deal
of exposure and practice is required.

Intonation is used to signal ends and beginnings in conversation. It is used to show

whether a situation is open or closed. It is used to show expectations. As a general rule
we can say that this is how intonation occurs in English:

FALLING INTONATION (indicates 'completeness')

1. Statements It's ten past three.

2. Instructions Listen for the dial tone.
3. Most Wh-questions Where are you going?
4. Question tags expecting You've done this before, haven't you
Agreement / Confirmation
5. End of a list I bought some apples, pears and
Oranges.

RISING INTONATION (indicates 'incompleteness')

1. Yes/No questions Have you been here long?

2. Question tags when you're You aren't leaving, are you?
unsure of the answer
3. Question tags where both So you found it, did you?

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parts are affirmative

FACTORS THAT AFFECT PRONUNCIATION LEARNING

Linguistic variables.- Concern with the first language of the learners. The system of
sounds of English is similar to Spanish system in consonants but more different in vowels,
rhythm and intonation. The teacher has to prioritize the teaching of prosodic features of
a language. Suprasegmental issues should be covered such as the stress-timing described
above, so that the speakers can get intelligibility in their production of the target language;
as well as to focus on the production of those phonemes which do not exist in the mother
tongue, like the sound /t/, so that learners can produce a language that even though is not
native like, will be clear to maintain communication (Pitt, 2009).

The Age Factor- Many studies support the hypothesis that age determines the accuracy
of a learner’s pronunciation. Biological changes take place in the brain after certain age,
people loose certain abilities after this age; this is why the younger a person is the better
he or she will have an accurate perception of the sounds of the new language. However,
there have been cases of adult people who learned to speak a second language fluently,
still with a foreign accent.

Amount of Exposure- According to the language learning theories, learners acquire

language primarily from the input they receive, as we don’t live in an English-speaking
environment neither surrounded by English speakers, this input is very limited so it. The
interference of L1 in pronunciation inhibits its acquisition and is something hard to be
erased.

Attitude- Lane (2010) argues that students who are more concern about their
pronunciation, tend to pronounce better than those who are not. Regarding that, we have
to mention Nasser’s work (2014) on acculturation. He defines acculturation as a learner’s
acceptance to a target culture and the desire to be socially integrated in that culture. These
are two basic deeds that result in good pronunciation. It has also been shown that those
learners who show positive feelings toward the speakers of the new language tend to
develop more accurate accent (Harmer, 2012).

Motivation- If learners have a personal or professional goal for learning English they
will be encouraged to get a good pronunciation (Masgoret & Gardner, 2003)

Amount and type of instructions- Generally, based on experience, we have seen that
teachers are disposed to see pronunciation as the less important skills when teaching a
language and they focus most of the time in training learners in other areas of the
language. Sometimes it is because teachers do not have the background or tools to
properly teach it. We agree with Joanne Kenworthy (1997) that the group of students we
are working with needs to be taught how to produce accurate sounds and stress of words
and sentences, and they also need explanation and exercise to improve it.

Institutional variables- As mentioned above sometimes the institutions do not have the
necessary resources (tape recorder, laboratory, multimedia room) to put up a good
exposure, exercise and explanation of all of the pronunciation features, which affect its
development (Pitt, 2009).

29
Methodological variables- The distinct problems of transfer our students perform are
due to a lack of consistency in teaching and training. No matter what method the teacher
is applying, he/she should always focus students’ attention to segmental and
suprasegmental features of the language to be able to communicate clearly, fluently and
accurately. So, teachers have a greater compromise than before to be well prepared in all
of the pronunciation aspects.

STRATEGIES TO ACCURATE PRODUCTION OF SOUNDS

THE TEACHERS’ ROLES

Below, important roles and strategies the teacher has to perform to affect students’
motivation and concern for a good pronunciation is mentioned:
Helping learners hear and produce- The teachers should help their students pick up the
sound system of the language by listening to other voices and being exposure to variation
in pronunciation by using audiotapes and videotapes. Pitt (2009) shows that learners need
exposure to conversations to be able to hear variation in pronunciation.

Furthermore, they can give students some hints to enable them to imitate the new ones
and practicing words; specially focusing their attention on those sounds that do not occur
in their native language and cause problems in learning English like /sh/ an /ch/
(Kenworthy, 1997).

Providing feedback- The teachers have to provide students with information about their
performance. They also have to get information about their progress, difficulties and
needs with pronunciation. Teachers can get valuable information by using a checklist
while learners are working in pairs or groups to note when a student is not understood or
when different students make the same mistake in pronunciation (Grant 2010) for his/her
classes

Building awareness and concern- It deals with speaking English daily and find
opportunities to be exposed to the language as much as possible. Learners need to know
what to pay attention to because in speaking English when a particular word is stressed
or there is a change in the pitch of voice this can affect the message that is sent to the
listener. So, teachers should provide training of the prosodic features of the language:
word stress, intonation and rhythm (O’Brien, 2004; Bailly & Holm, 2005) that affect
tremendously in comprehensibility. The same thing with sounds, so the teachers should
make students aware of the right way to produce the sounds by showing them the
articulatory description, i.e. the teacher has to describe the position of the organs of speech
for producing the sounds. They can also make comparisons with the nearest sound in the
student’s native language.

Planning variety of Activities- Harmer (2012) stressed the need for meaningful
communicative tasks in the language classroom, including those that focus on
pronunciation. Using adequate types of exercise and activities and also keeping in mind
the different learning styles by which some activities fit better to some learners than others
can be very helpful in developing a good pronunciation.
Some of them are as follows.
• Pronunciation exercises that relate to daily use of English like role-plays.

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▪ The introduction to IPA symbols (International Phonetic Alphabet) for higher levels;
and performing exercises and language lab activities.
▪ Tasks like reading aloud allow students to concentrate on pronunciation skills too.
▪ By imitation, making students imitate the sounds of English using drills in the
classroom.
▪ It is useful to contrast sounds by presenting minimal pairs, so that the students can
hear the difference clearly.

5
TEACHING DISCOURSE
DISCOURSE

Discourse is the language in use, it means that it is the language used to interact or
communicate with each other in real situations for real purposes. Such a language
involves interaction between participants in a conversation, either between reader and
writer, or lecturer and listener, and the combining and relating of utterances. Writers and
speakers need suitable language to structure ideas in the form of a coherent discourse. To
do so, they have to link and develop information, ideas or arguments in logical sequences.

WHAT MAKES A TEXT?

A text is the product of discourse. A text, even a short text, contains many facets of
language. Text can be used for both written and spoken language. It usually refers to an
extract or complete piece of writing or speech. The main characteristics of a text are
(Yule, 2010) :

• Self-contained. Constitutes a complete and independent unit in and of itself. In other

words, it contains within itself all the necessary parts for completeness. A self-
contained dictionary defines every word contained within it.

• Hang together. A text is cohesive. Cohesion concerns the way words, sentences and
utterances we hear or see are mutually connected. Cohesive devicet help to establish
relationship across sentences or utterances of the surface text. Cohesion is
linguistically explicit.

• Make sense. A text is coherent. Coherence is described as the relationship that link
the words in a text to create meaning for an audience. These relationships are in terms
of the functions of the ideas within the discourse.

• Have a clear communicative purpose. A text communicates meaningful ideas.

• Are recognisable text types. It could be one of the following:

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Written Text
Action: e.g. public signs, product labels and instructions, recipes, maps, TV-guides,
bills, menus, telephone directories; social contact: e.g. letters, postcards, greeting
cards; information: e.g. newspapers, magazines, non-fiction books, textbooks,
advertisements, reports, guidebooks; entertainment: e.g. light magazines, fiction
books, poetry, drama, film subtitles, games.

Spoken Texts
Action: guidelines or directions given, teacher instructions; social contact: telephone
conversations, chats; information: lecture, presentation, political speech;
entertainment: jokes, radio programs

• Are appropriate to their contexts of use. It deals with the culture of the language.
Normally each language has a Schema/schemata: "Schemata lead us to expect or
predict aspects in our interpretation of discourse". It helps the organization and
interpretation of one's experience (Brown, 2007). Schemata can also be culture-
specific; for example:

The schema of a wedding ceremony varies according to culture because spoken texts
in particular are governed by the social context which determines the shape of the
discourse and the language used. This is thanks not only to a knowledge of language
but of knowledge of social conventions and/or the ability to make assumptions
regarding the situational context

TEXT FUNCTIONS

A text has two functions:

Transactional.- The main purpose of transactional language is to communicate

information. E.g. a lecture

Interactional.- The main purpose of interactional language is to establish social

relationship. Eg. A small talk

The most important elements of a discourse are: Cohesion and Coherence. Regarding these
two aspects of a discourse, Harmer (2012) points out that a text is cohesive if its elements
are linked together; and a text is coherent if it makes sense. It should be clear that these
are not the same thing. However, they are closely linked.

COHESION

Cohesion is the result of the use of cohesive ties to link together all the propositions in a
text. A Cohesive text contains what is called cohesive devices. These are words and
phrases that enable the writer or speaker to establish relationships across sentences or
utterances and help tie the sentences in a text together (Lightbown and Spada, 2013).
These devices provide cohesion to texts, it means that the sentences are joined and mixed
together. They flow smoothly from one to another within a discourse. Lack of cohesion
results from many factors such as: incoherent ideas and misuse or insufficient use of

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functional connectives. The teachers can overcome this problem by teaching cohesive
devices.

The following are two types of essential cohesive devices reported by Brown (2007),
Yule (2010) and Lightbown and Spada (2013):

GRAMMATICAL COHESION

The grammatical ties are: Reference / Ellipsis / Tense / Conjuncts.

A. REFERENCE. Pronouns and articles are often used to refer to certain things in a text.
Pronouns references (Personal, Demonstrative, Comparative: he, she, it, this, that,
other) e.g.
My mother used to work as a teacher, but she is a housewife now.
They asked him to go there.
You failed the test. This is bad news.

Reference is classified to be either: anaphoric, cataphoric, or exophoric.

• Anaphoric (back) reference talks about something previously mentioned in the text.
E.g. I can see a bird. It is singing. (It refers backwards to bird.)

• Cataphoric (forward) reference talks about something to come in the text. E.g. When
they arrived at the house, all the participants were very tired. (They refers forward to
participants.

• Exophoric (outside) reference talks about something that is not in the text. It could
be related to something in the text or it could be general knowledge. eg. the world (it
is generally known that there is only one world and so it is shared definite knowledge
between reader/writer).

B. ELLIPSIS. Thornbury (2005) defines ellipsis as “the set of resources by which full
repetition of a clause or clause element can be avoided”. He distinguishes between
substitution and ellipsis proper, where the latter one is a missed out element. This
element occurs in an incomplete sentence, and the gap is to be filled by elements from
a previous message. Robert Stainton (2006) introduces the definition of ellipsis as
“recoverability at the level of form”. He also speaks about co-ordination that occurs
when clauses form a single element of structure. e.g.

The thieves have stolen our TV and drunk all my whisky.

The thieves have stolen our TV and they have drunk all my whisky.
How did you enjoy the paintings? A lot (of the paintings) were very good but not all
(the paintings)

C. CONJUNCTS (Linking devices). They are used to establish a logical relation

between parts of text. They are:

• Additive (Relations of addition, exemplification, similarity, emphasis)

• Adversative (Relations of contrast oral alternatives)
• Causal (Relations of cause and result)

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• Temporal (Relations of sequence in time)

Examples:

I went to the cinema and saw a terror film

They were watching T.V. when she arrived.
They studied hard. Therefore they deserve to pass.

LEXICAL COHESION

Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in a text are related in terms of their meaning.
The way the content of sentences is linked contributes to a specific interpretation of a
text. Lexical ties could be: repetition, synonyms, superordinates or lexical set. e.g.

Repetition is realized in instances that embrace the same lexical item used across the
sentences. e.g.

Hand me the book. That book on the table.

A synonym is a word that has the same or similar meaning as another word. Synonyms
are used to avoid repetition of the exact same word

A superordinate is a lexical item whose meaning is included within that of another word.
Dontcheva and Povolná (2009) argue that it dominates the earlier one in the lexical
taxonomy. General words can be characterized by familiarity. Many general words carry
a connotation of attitude on the part of the speaker. These can be general nouns like: thing,
stuff, person, woman, man, or general verbs, like, do and happen. General nouns and
verbs do not carry much information. They depend mostly on the co-text for their
meaning, so that hearers or readers can identify what a particular word is referred to.
General words are also described as superordinates of a higher level. e.g.

Pneumonia has arrived with the cold and wet conditions. The illness is striking everyone
from infants to the elderly.

COHERENCE

Coherence is described as the relationships that link the ideas in a text to create meaning
for the readers or listeners. It means that there is a sequence or affinity that exists between
them. These relationships are not only in terms of the ideas they share but also in terms
of the functions they perform within the discourse (Thornbury, 2005).

Coherence requires connection and mutual support of the different beliefs or facts. It
means that the information about one idea also gives some information about another
idea. An idea can support another by providing an explanation, evidence or argument to
the previous one.

Notice in the following examples that there are not formal links between the utterances,
but they are coherent. They both have functional links which are related to
speakers’/listeners’, writers’/readers’ shared knowledge.

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A. What time is it? B. It’s almost twelve thirty
A. It’s hot in here. B. I’ll open a window.

But, see the following example

“The Austrian composer Mozart was a musical genius. He has a swimming pool. It
actually tingles on your skin to tell you it's working. Water would then come out of
fountains such as the one shown here. And that is why dogs still chase rabbits”.

You may have identified a number of cohesive devices such as pronouns and conjuncts.
However, the text is meaningless - it makes no sense. In other words, it is not coherent.
A cohesive text is usually more coherent and this is why writers and speakers use cohesive
devices to make their texts easier to follow. However, cohesion alone is not enough to
make a text coherent. A text may be cohesive (i.e. linked together), but incoherent (i.e.
meaningless).

(Cohesion is a surface feature of texts, independent of the reader, whereas coherence

results from the interaction between the reader and the text)

In short, Coherence is evident when a text has:

✓ A logical relationship
✓ It is organized in sequences.
✓ The sequences have a precise logical and chronological order
✓ The meaning of each sequence is linked to the other parts

Texts have an internal logic; which readers can recognize even without explicit cohesive
devices. We can understand what the text is about as a whole. Every sentence, every
paragraph, every phrase contributes to the meaning of the whole piece.

Coherence refers to the general sense that a text makes sense through the organization of
its content.

Dontcheva and Povolná (2009) report that spoken language needs the following features
in a discourse:

• Coherence. These features are due to texts needing to make sense as whole
• Spontaneity. These features are due to there being little or no time to plan what to say
• Interpersonality. These features are due to conversations not just being about
exchanging information, they also involve developing and maintaining relationships
• Interactivity. These features are due to participants taking turns to speak, and
responding to what others have said

For coherence in writing, the following features are essential:

• A Macrostructure - Pattern
• Connectivity - relations between propositions.
• Connectivity - surface text by using cohesive devices.
• Appropriate metadiscoursal features

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LESSON PLANNING

WHY IS PLANNING IMPORTANT?

A lesson plan is the basis of effective teaching. It is a kind of map to follow, since the
teacher can make the students move along the class period efficiently and easily (Brown,
2014).

The most important reasons why to plan is important are:

• The teachers need to identify their aims for the lesson.

• Lesson plans give the teachers confidence in the classroom because they know exactly
what to do.
• The teachers have the opportunity to predict possible problems so that they can
consider solutions.
• They can be sure that the lesson is appropriate for these students at this level.
• It is a tangible effort that provides rhythm to a class.
(Adapted from Scrivener, 2012 and Ur, 2012)

A lesson plan is a flexible guide and not a fixed itinerary that must always be viewed as
subject to change if the circumstances call for it. So the teachers should keep those things
that work well and throw out those which don’t.

PLANNING A LESSON

The ability to produce a lesson plan is part of teacher’s assessment. The lesson plan sets
out what the teacher hopes to achieve along the lesson and how to get it, so he/she needs
to find out exactly what the lesson plan should contain and how to apply it effectively.

The teachers should be alert to the following points when planning:

a) Choosing appropriate material for the class - It will focus on a particular topic, a
particular structure or a skill of the language. It is essential to determine what supplies
are required to achieve the stated lesson objectives.
b) A variety of activities and skills – They should keep the students’ interests.
c) Sequencing of the activities in a logical order - It should begin with easier tasks and
build up to more difficult ones.
d) Be conscious of the organization of the plan – It is understandable, the plan contains
clear instructions and transitions from one stage to the next, it contains additional
examples, demonstrations and illustrations to make each point clear.
e) Thinking of the timeline on each component – It is necessary to determine whether
the time is sufficient to do or cover what the teacher intends and for the students to
produce meaningful outcomes.

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f) Be careful with the beginnings and endings – It should contain something that
impact and exert a pull on the student’s interest. Be sure to summarize what has been
covered and learned at the end, so that you can start the next lesson plan by reviewing
it.

STEPS OF A LESSON

With twenty years of EFL teaching, I think the following is a guide that contains the key
points that a teacher could follow to plan a lesson, without intended to say that this is the
only one.

• Preliminary Information – It is a description of general information about the plan.

This information sets the boundaries or limits of the plan. You can include: (a) the
grade level of the students for whom the plan is intended; (b) the specific subject
matter; (c) the topic; (d) the name of the teacher; (f) methodology that is being used;
and other information based upon on the school standards.

• Setting appropriate goals for a lesson – To make sure a lesson plan will teach
exactly what the teachers want it to; they need to develop clear and specific objectives
in terms of what the students will be able to do at the end of the lesson. We need to
establish main aims and subsidiary aims.

Main aims are the primary objectives or purpose of the whole lesson. Subsidiary aims
are the purposes of individual parts of a lesson that lead to achieve the main aim.
Examples:

✓ To distinguish between /p/ and /b/ at the beginning of words when speaking
or writing.
✓ To be able to use present progressive to describe what other members of the
family are doing while the student is learning English.
✓ To ask for and give information about some places.

Objectives should also be directly measurable. In other words, make sure you will be
able to tell whether these objectives were met or not.

• The pre-requirements.- Those necessary to begin the plan are:

✓ Warm up activity to pull the class together and prepare the students to start the
lesson proper. Something that captures students’ attention and gets them
interested in the current lesson. These activities should be fun and quick.

✓ Review - As a lesson gets under way, it is also necessary to refer back to a related
previous lesson. Recycling earlier material helps students remember and learn it.
It also helps students make connections between what they already knew and what
they are about to learn.

Procedures
• Pre-teaching phase.- It is necessary the teacher to perform an anticipatory set, which
would be a way to lead into the lesson plan and develop the students' interest in
learning what is about to be taught, by activating students previous knowledge about

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the topic and introducing it in a creative and meaningful way. This is a stage where
the new material is presented to the students and they are given small amount of
controlled practice (T – Ss –T) in order to give students input and understanding in
preparation for the practice stage of the lesson. In the presentation the teacher should
focus on: Receptive Skills (listening/reading; mechanical activities; coping and
Accuracy in which the teacher gives the students a good model of how to say things
correctly.

• While teaching phase.- In this phase under the teacher’s supervision the students are
given a chance to practice and apply the skills using words or structures you taught
them in the presentation phase, e.g. making sentences from prompts, making
information transfers, problem solving tasks, asking and answering questions,
developing communicative activities. For doing this, the teacher should think of how
to get the students to practice this through listening, speaking, reading and writing
skills of the language, in a personalized way.

• Post-teaching phase or follow up activities.- In the post-teaching phase you may

want to provide time for independent practice, by giving the lesson concepts further
meaning for your students; so state activities through which students use the language
they have learned to express themselves more freely, e.g. build their own questions,
talk and write about things related with their real lives and surrounding.

• Closure.- This is an activity which help you clarify and reinforce students
performances (Talk about the content of the activity, talk about the structure being
practiced, what was difficult or confusing).

• Assessment/evaluation.- The teacher needs to write the assessment / evaluation

procedure to know whether or not the objectives were reached. There should be a
direct correlation between the objectives and the assessments. e.g. Assuming the
objective was to be able to describe past events, an example would be to have students
narrate what they do the last weekend.

• Assignment.- Finally give a homework to the students being creative. Provide any
necessary explanation before students successfully complete the task.

SOME NOTES:

• It is important that the teacher introduce each stage of the lesson so that the students
can know exactly which the focus of the activity is.
• There isn’t a single lesson plan. You can apply any layout that helps you to state
clearly all of the activities and tasks that will be performed along the lesson.
• While the teacher gets experience should produce very detailed lesson plans to know
exactly what to do at any particular time of the lesson, to be able to plan more quickly
later.
• Even though many teachers will find themselves having to use a course book, it will
be necessary to prepare a lesson plan base on this book adapting material to particular
students’ needs and characteristics and putting their own ideas for what they want to
achieve in a class.

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4
ERROR CORRECTION

ERROR CORRECTION ISSUES

Language learning involves making mistakes. Regarding why students make mistakes,
we need to consider three different types: (Scrivener, 2012).

When the students use a language item they really don’t know yet, they produce an error.
When the students use a language item they were taught but they misunderstood, they
produce a mistake.
When the students use a language item wrongly because they are distracted or are not
paying attention, they produce a slip

Language teaching involves correction but to what extent is it important to correct to our
students?

As teachers, we must think of correction as a way to provide information or feedback to

students in order to support their learning. Moreover, if students have many opportunities
to make mistakes, they will have a better chance of working out better rules and improve
their language.

The immediate and constant correction of all errors and when they occur is not necessarily
the best way to improve the learner’s use of the target language. According to Krashen
(2003), mistakes students make are important, unavoidable and natural in the language
learning process. So correcting on the spot does not improve written or spoken language
production. What helps is to allow students formulate what they want to say in a longer
period of time.
The teacher needs to discriminate WHEN to correct and HOW to correct to her/his
students, because the danger of embarrassing the students in front of their peers could
frustrate and inhibit them to learning.

On the other hand, spending much time on correction implies interrupting the flow of a
fluency activity that is the final aim of a lesson.

WHEN TO CORRECT?

When is it important to correct students’ error? Consistent with Adamson (2010), it

depends on the kind of activity we are doing and the aim of the activity. It is not necessary
to correct all errors, all of the time. However, the following situations could be
considered:

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➢ Perhaps the most significant kind of mistakes is that which produces a
misunderstanding. It is more necessary to correct mistakes affecting the meaning than
little grammatical points.

➢ Teacher should correct high-frequency errors, those mistakes that students are
committing all of the time. In this case it is the teacher realizes that if learners are
committing a lot of mistakes in important points, possibly it is because they either
really didn’t understand what have been presented or there is a lack of practice on
that. So the teacher should think of different ways of presenting and practicing the
same point again.

➢ If students are committing mistakes related to the structure they are learning at a
particular lesson, teachers should correct.

➢ Different mistakes of form produced when we compare students’ English with

Standard English. They can be caused by first language influence, misunderstanding
a rule, a decision to communicate as well, a lack of concentration or by a mix of these
and others. E.g.

I have to realize the homework. There is a transfer from L1 to L2.

I e-speak a little English. There is a pronunciation problem.

What many researchers and class practitioners argue is to deal with spoken and written
error retrospectively, i.e. making a note of them when they occur and returning to them
at a later stage.

There should be time in class to just encourage fluency. The teacher should not correct
the students when she/he is paying attention to what they want to say, unless it affects the
communication.

Of course, successful communication also depends on a certain level of accuracy. So the

teacher’s job is to help students progress through fluency to the accuracy use of the
Standard English (Ur, 2012). In other words, they will need a lot of practice using the
language to be able to produce it accurately.

CORRECTING SPOKEN ERRORS

There are different techniques that a teacher can use to correct students’ errors. Scrivener
(2012) remark, the following as the most common ones:

Self-correction with teacher’s help

Generally, the students prefer to correct their own mistakes than have somebody else to
do it. It is a good thing since the students remember it easier because they themselves
actually did it.

• Repeat sentence up to error. The teacher says the wrong with a questioning
expression on face. E.g.
T: David - What do you do in the morning?
S: I am get up at six

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T: I ....am..... get up? Mmmmmmm. Again please

• Use finger coding. The teacher can often indicate the place of error using a finger
model. Use one hand to point the fingers on your other hand to indicate the words of
a sentence or a question. Stop on or wiggle the finger when a mistake has been made
to focus the students’ attention. This is good for correcting word order, missing words,
subject-verb agreement and wrong word choice. E.g.
Classes begin seven o’clock
There is a missing word: at (The teacher can count out the words on her fingers
showing that something is missing).

• Gestures. They will vary according to different cultures and customs. E.g. Worried
look and hand outstretched to ‘hold’ that sentence.

• Facial expression. Teacher can adopt a voluntary movement of muscles beneath the
skin of the face to show a mistake has been committed; e.g.
Surprise, frown, raised eyebrows.

• Tell them. The teacher can also give a directive to correct the error without giving
them the correction itself. E.g. Say things like: “Change the pronunciation, change the
verb, change the third word.” ‘Something is wrong in that sentence’

Teacher’s correction

The teacher can use a variety of techniques as mentioned above to highlight mistakes or
he/she can give the correct form and say the whole sentence by himself/herself.

• Echo correcting. In this technique the teacher repeats the sentence with changed
intonation or rhythm (use your hand to emphasize intonation and your ‘beating’ arm
to indicate rhythm.
S. The motorcycle was invent in 1885
T: Yes, good – The motorcycle was invented in 1885.

• Ask a question.
S. I go to the market yesterday.
T. Are you talking about the past or present, Louis?
Give an explicit explanation
Go is in the present tense. You need the past tense here.

Peer Correction
It is a strategy in which students help each other arrive at the correct form. Generally,
when a student cannot answer properly, the teacher could pass the question to another
student and then returns to the student who made the mistake again so that he/she can say
the answer correctly; e.g.
T: What do you do in the morning, Dennis?
S1: I am get up at six.
T: Well, nearly (more or less) Can anyone help? .... Yes, Louis?
S2: I get up at six.
T: Yes, Dennis?
S1: Ah, I get up at six.

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This technique helps to involve the rest of the class because both students are listening to
and thinking about the language and there is less dependence on the teacher, but it should
be used with care so that the first student does not feel criticized or humiliated.

CORRECTING WRITTEN WORK

Correcting written work is time-consuming for the teacher and discouraging for the
students.

Several authors, like Harmer (2012), Adamson (2010), Lightbown, P. and Spada, N.
(2013) maintain that correcting written work sometimes has little effect on students’
progress, so for doing it the teacher should consider alternative strategies.

➢ Correct mistakes selectively.

That is, you should not correct all the mistakes in a piece of writing but only in certain
areas like: verbs, articles, prepositions, etc., according to the students’ needs and
according to the purpose that you established before.

➢ Correct mistakes writing on the board.

The teacher writes the correct form on the board or gets a student to come to write
them. While the students correct their own work, the teacher walks around monitoring
what the students are doing.

➢ Exchange works
The teacher makes students exchange their books or papers and correct each other’s
work. The teacher should draw attention to repeated mistakes among a number of
students, may be on the board or orally for the benefit of the whole class.

➢ Indicate mistakes
With more advanced students, it’s important to correct mistakes individually. To
avoid discouraging the students with so many corrections the teacher can use a more
positive way:

-By underlining mistakes, so that the students can correct by themselves. This would
encourage them to look again at what they have written and think about possible
mistakes.
e.g. My brother enjoys to play tennis.

-By developing a system of abbreviations for showing the mistakes.

The teacher will need to agree with the students on those symbols. E.g.

sp = spelling mistake
wo = word order
wt = wrong tense
xw = extra word
l = something missing
? = the meaning is not clear – I don’t understand

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These abbreviations can be written in the margin or under the word. This strategy also
leaves the students to correct their own mistakes.

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