Task 1: Read chapter 5 “Reading” from Scott and Ytreberg´s

book: Teaching English to Children” (pp: 49 – 48) and answer the

following questions:

Approach to reading: many 5 to 10 year olds are in the process of learning to

read in their own language. Whether or not they have mastered the skill in their
own language, and whether or not their own language is written in the Roman
alphabet, will have an effect on the initial stages of teaching reading in English.

a) Which are the different ways to approach the introduction of reading in

a foreign language?
1. Phonetics: this approach is based on letters and sounds. Basically, we teach
the pupils the letters of the alphabet, and the combination of letters, phonically –
as they are actually pronounced.
2. Look and say: this approach is based on words and phrases, and makes a
lot of use of flashcards – words written on cards like this:

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It is usual to start by teaching everyday words, which are already familiar to the
children. The teacher shows the children the word and says it while pointing to
the object. The children repeat the word. This happens several times with each
word.
The introduction of the words only takes a short time, and goes quite quickly, so
the teacher may spend 5 minutes of a thirty-minute lesson on 4 new words.
There are a lot of word recognition games which can be done at this stage:
- Matching words and pictures
- Pointing to the object on the card,
- Guessing which card teddy has picked out the hat
and so this approach encourages recognition of a range of words and
phrases before “reading” a text.

3. Whole sentence reading: here the teacher teaches recognition of whole

phrases and sentences, which have meaning in themselves. This often means
a story, which the children read for the first time themselves after the whole text
is familiar to them. The words are not presented in isolation, but as whole
phrases or sentences.
4. Language experience approach: this approach to reading is based on the
child´s spoken language. The teacher writes down a sentence for the child to
read which is based on what the child has said. For example:
This is me.
My sister is nine. She is in class 3F.
This is a postcard from my uncle in Milan.

b) Which method to choose?

No matter which approach to reading you take as your basic approach, you
should remember that all these approaches are a way in to reading and are not
an end in themselves. You will probably want to make use of all the methods
described at some stage in the process of learning to read.
Five to seven year olds Eight to ten year old beginners
5 to 7 year olds are likely to take The majority of 8 to 10 year olds will
longer to learn to read in a foreign already be able to read a bit in their
language than eight to ten year olds. reading skills to English. This means

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 Some children starting school are not that you can spend much less time
familiar with books or what they are teaching the mechanics of reading,
used for. They have to go through the and concentrate on the content.
process of doing reading-like
activities first – reading from left to
right, turning the pages at the right
place, going back and reading the
same pages again, etc.
Picture books with and without text
are invaluable at this stage,
(illustrations in a book for young
children matter almost as much as
the words themselves).
- Sentence structure,
paragraphing, grammar – none
of this means anything to most
pupils at this age.

STARTING POINTS:
These are some examples of possible starting points for a class of 6 year
olds who have English for three short lessons a week:
1. Reading a story from a book.
2. Reading a class story.
3. Reading texts based on the child’s language.
4. Reading familiar nursery rhymes or songs

Reading techniques:
-
 Carol Read (2007). 500 Activities for the Primary class. Macmillan
Publishers (p: 17)
Section 1: Listening and speaking
When children start learning English at primary school, there is usually an
emphasis on developing listening and speaking skills. Through listening to
English, children are led naturally into speaking. From using single words and
formulaic language, children gradually develop the ability to produce
language and to interact with others in a more extended way.

Learning to speak:

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Speaking is a complex skill and the difficulty for children learning a foreign
language should not be underestimated. Although children are good at imitating
and may acquire better pronunciation than older learners, they are still
developing language and discourse skills in their L1. Their age and level
of social, cognitive and emotional development need to be taken into
account when planning activities in English.

Speaking skills can be broadly divided into two areas:

Spoken interaction Spoken production

SI refers to the ability to ask and SP refers to the ability to

answer questions and handle produce language, for
exchanges with others. example, in a rhyme.

It is important to develop children´s competence in both these areas in order to

build up confidence and lay the foundations for future learning.

Initially children will benefit from activities which require lots of repetition and
which help them to memorize vocabulary and “chunks” of language and
acquire pronunciation in a natural way.

Many of the language children produce in the early stages of learning will be
single words or short formulaic utterances, eg I´m fine. There may also be a
tendency to mix languages, eg in the case of Spanish-speaking children,
Dáme el rubber (give me the rubber), Mira! El monkey está allí (Look! The
monkey´s there). Rather than explicitly correcting language mistakes, it is best
to respond to children´s meaning and what they are trying to

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communicate. As you do this, you can remodel or recast what they say, eg
yes. You´re right. The monkey´s there!

Very young children may be reluctant to speak at first, and it is important to give
them time to listen and absorb the sounds of English before participating
actively. Insisting on participation is likely to be counter-productive. The best
strategy is usually to provide lots of opportunities for speaking activities
in a very secure and non- threatening way, eg through choral repetition of
action rhymes or choral counting games, and allow children to join in
when they are ready.

In order for children with only minimal linguistic competence to start learning to
communicate in English, it is important to establish simple classroom routines
from the outset. These include, for example, greeting and goodbyes at the
beginning and end of lessons, asking for permission, eg to go to the toilet,
sharpen pencils, get crayons, etc and classroom language, eg I don´t
understand. / Can you repeat that, please? Even very young children can be
taught the following 3 phrases formulaically:

- I think…
- Maybe…
- I don´t know…
and then be encouraged to use regularly in class “discussions” eg
T: (pointing to picture) Who´s behind the bush?
P1: I think it´s a lion.
P2: Maybe it´s the elephant.
P3: I don´t know.

Further reading:
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/kids-and-speaking

Task 2 Read the different activities for developing listening and speaking

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 skills in the book: “500 activities for the Primary Classroom” (pp: 20 – 47).
Choose one activity that you and your group would like to put into practice
next class.
You have to explain the activity, give instructions, organize the class (in
pairs, groups, etc). You have to decide and tell us if the activity you have
chosen is for presentation, practice 1, practice 2, practice 3 or production.

Bibliography
 CAROL READ, 500 Activities for the Primary Class, Macmillan
Publishers, 2007 (p: 17)
 SCOTT, WENDY & YTREBERG LISBETH, Teaching English To
Children, 24th impression- Longman, 2010.
 https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/kids-and-speaking