ENG 413: Theories and strategies in English learning / teaching

Kent Lee

Center for Teaching & Learning
Korea University

Contents

Handouts and links

Below are handouts and links related to what we've discussed in class; many of these are required.

Items with a book icon are longer booklets or manuals that I have written; please keep in mind that these items are somewhat rough and preliminary materials.

Intro & teaching methods

Teaching philosophy and styles

Teaching methodologies

The most important ones here are the ALM, PPP, Direct Method, CLT and TBLT videos. The others can be skimmed.

Examples of poor teaching

Fictional and non-fictional examples

Learning psychology

  1. Notes on Krashen's theories
  2. Learning styles
  3. Simplified MBTI assessment (May not be as accurate as a full MBTI; please do not share this handout with others)
  4. MBTI personality types for teachers
  5. Notes on motivation
  6. Encouraging student motivation (Newstead & Hoskins, 2003)

Course & lesson design

  1. Scaffolding
  2. Introduction to course, syllabus, and lesson design
  3. Questions: using questions and leading class discussions
  4. Intro to group work in classrooms: understanding why group activities and active learning methods work; understanding group dynamics; grading and assessment; and making groups work
  5. Group activities: different types of group activities that you can try in teaching
  6. Invention activities [optional]
  7. Griffiths: Teaching & learning in small groups [optional]
  8. Horgan: Lecturing for learning [optional]

Teaching grammar

  1. Grammar teaching: Practice or consciousness-raising (Ellis)
  2. Info gap examples [class handouts etc.]
  3. Overview of inductive grammar activities
  4. Grammar activities manual (Draft version; skip the first section, which consists of unorganized notes. Look at the sections on lesson plans and group activities; then browse some of the examples.)

Specific grammar topics [optional handouts ]

  1. Grammar handbook
  2. Summary of article patterns
  3. Definite & indefinite articles: Complete guide
  4. Other topics [most are in the above handbook]: Gerunds & infinitives -- Perfect tense -- Modals guide -- Phrasal verbs: over & up -- Clause types

Teaching pronunciation

  1. Typical ESL/EFL pronunciation issues of Koreans
  2. Proununciation manual
  3. Pronunciation pedagogy guide
  4. Side (sagittal) view of vocal organs
  5. IPA chart (way more detail than you'll ever need) [optional]

Practice materials for stress and rhythm

The following may be useful for more practice with rhythm and intonation, and for more (quasi-) communicative activities, pair work, or group work. Many of these are in the above pronunciation manual.

  1. Simple rhymes -- Poems, limericks, longer rhymes, etc. -- Dialogues and monologues -- Shorter readings -- Longer readings
  2. Jazz chants

Pronunciation teaching videos

  1. Pronunciation: Teaching linking
  2. Pronunciation: Vowel phonemes in context
  3. Pronunciation: Compound stress
  4. Pronunciation:

Other skills

  1. Discussion questions: Teaching language skills (and lesson plans) for in-class work and discussion
  2. Notes: Teaching reading
  3. Notes: Reading psychology

Here are some optional readings below.

Listening & speaking

  1. Developing discussion skills in the ESL classroom (Green et al.)
  2. Conversational English: An interactive, collaborative and reflective approach (Tsang & Wong)
  3. Listening in language learning (Nunan)
  4. The changing face of listening (Field)
  5. Raising students' awareness of the features of real-world listening input (Lam)

Reading, writing & vocabulary

  1. Teaching strategic reading (Janzen)
  2. Extensive reading: Why aren't we doing it? (Renandya & Jacobs)
  3. Best practice in vocabulary teaching and learning (Nation)
  4. Current research and practice in teaching vocabulary (Hunt & Beglar)
  5. The writing process and process writing (Seow)
  6. A genre-based approach to content writing instruction (Reppen)
  7. Teaching students to self-edit (Ferris)
  8. Excerpts from White (1995): New Ways in Teaching Writing (for primary / secondary school levels)
  9. Excerpts from Day (1993): New Ways in Teaching Reading (for primary / secondary school levels)
  10. Znarf: politically correct classification paragraph exercises on (alien) world religions. Znarf exercise, & simpler Znarf exercise

Assessment

  1. Assessment: General introduction
  2. Formative assessment: informal pre-class and end-of-class assignments
  3. Rubrics: systematic and time-saving methods of grading and providing better feedback
  4. Sample rubrics from Canadian Assoc. of Second Language Teachers
  5. Sample rubrics from Assoc. of American Colleges & Universities for various higher level cognitive skills (oral communication, analytical skills, ethical reasoning skills, etc.)
  6. Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks - includes rubrics for assessing communicative language skills
  7. Using questions
  8. Giving feedback

Lecture and presentation skills

  1. Lecture expressions - including transitionals and other pragmatic categories like hedges
  2. Using questions
  3. Konglish expressions to avoid
  4. Typical collocation errors

Job interviews

  1. Typical job interview questions
  2. Job interview questions for teaching jobs
  3. Common mistakes in academic job interviews

Real classroom examples

Optional, for your own viewing pleasure: some videos of English classrooms in Korea featuring young learners.

  1. Teaching kindergarten kids (toddlers, actually)
  2. English for children (plants, plurals lesson)
  3. English hagwon lesson
  4. English class, Bundang
  5. Yongin grade school