Teaching receptive skills from "summary" of The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer
Receptive skills, such as reading and listening, are an important part of learning English. This topic explores the various strategies to help students develop these skills effectively.- Listening and understanding is a fundamental skill when it comes to learning a new language. To help learners, we as teachers need to understand the key techniques for teaching receptive skills.
- Allowing plenty of pauses during listening activities encourages students to further process and organize their thoughts, promoting increased engagement and higher accuracy levels.
- Pair work and small group activities can be used to increase concentration in class, giving supportive and accountable environments where everyone is involved in exploiting the language used.
- Furthermore, playing recordings slowly supports comprehension and reduces anxiety. For more advanced learners, debate or role play activities that explicitly focus on comprehending will help develop their confidence to engage in conversation.
- In addition, they also provide an excellent opportunity for guided interaction among learners; such activities require sharing and recognizing ideas amongst one another.
- Regularly recycling and revisiting topics builds well-rounded awareness and reinforced comprehension, helping learners to become further confident in receiving any type of communication in the target language.
