Informative Education For EFL/ESL

Informative Education for EFL/ESL

Grammar is the system of a language. People sometimes describe grammar as the “rules” of a language, but in fact, no language has rules*. If we use the word “rules”, we suggest that somebody created the rules first and then spoke the language, like a new game. But languages did not start like that. Therefore, Informative education for ESL/EFL is here to help

Languages started by people making sounds which evolved into words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. No commonly-spoken language is fixed. All languages change over time. What we call “grammar” is simply a reflection of a language at a particular time.

Therefore Tourandtakein will give you some informative education for EFL / ESL learners.

Do we need to study grammar to learn a language?

The short answer is “no”. Many people in the world speak their own, native language without having studied its grammar. Children start to speak before they even know the word “grammar”. But if you are serious about learning a foreign language, the long answer is “yes, grammar can help you to learn a language more quickly and more efficiently.”

It’s important to think of grammar as something that can help you, as a friend. When you understand the grammar (or system) of a language, you can understand many things yourself, without having to ask a teacher or look in a book.

Check out your grammar via our FREE test, courtesy of Cambridge – TEST 

See the correct level you/he/she ( pronoun/subject ) should be in!

So think of grammar as something good, something positive, something that you can use to find your ways – like a signpost or a map.

We also teach online as well as have lesson resources/plans for learning English as a foreign language with our educated, experienced, qualified teachers within a classroom and online environment, Skype/Zoom/Classin, just please drop us an email and say hello:)

If you feel that you would like more grammar lessons at any level/age group, We now have a shop with some of our lesson plans, covering all levels/ages.   (Lesson/resource Shop)

Another great addition to our resource/plan catalog is our FlipBooks

Example: Click on the picture or insert this URL https://heyzine.com/flip-book/12a0ce2e93.html#page/8  Password tourandtakein

A good listener will listen not only to what is being said but also to what is left unsaid or only partially said.

Effective listening, therefore, involves observing body language and noticing inconsistencies between verbal and non-verbal messages, as well as just what is being said at any given moment.

For example, if someone tells you that they are happy with their life but through gritted teeth or with tears filling their eyes, you should consider that the verbal and non-verbal messages are in conflict. Maybe they don’t mean what they say.

Listening is therefore not just a matter of using your ears, but also your eyes. There are ten principles behind really good listening.

1. Don’t talk, listen.

If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two tongues and one ear.

Mark Twain

When somebody else is talking listen to what they are saying, do not interrupt, talk over them or finish their sentences for them. Stop, just listen.

When the other person has finished talking you may need to clarify to ensure you have received their message accurately.

2. Prepare Yourself to Listen

Relax.

Focus on the speaker.  Put other things out of mind.  The human mind is easily distracted by other thoughts – what’s for lunch, what time do I need to leave to catch my train, is it going to rain – try to put other thoughts out of mind and concentrate on the messages that are being communicated.

3. Put the Speaker at Ease

Help the speaker to feel free to speak.

Remember their needs and concerns. Nod or use other gestures or words to encourage them to continue.

Maintain eye contact but don’t stare – show you are listening and understanding what is being said.

4. Remove Distractions

Focus on what is being said.

Don’t doodle, shuffle papers, look out the window, pick your fingernails or similar. Avoid unnecessary interruptions. These behaviours disrupt the listening process and send messages to the speaker that you are bored or distracted.

5. Empathise

Try to understand the other person’s point of view.

Look at issues from their perspective. Let go of preconceived ideas. By having an open mind we can more fully empathise with the speaker. If the speaker says something that you disagree with then wait and construct an argument to counter what is said but keep an open mind to the views and opinions of others.

6. Be Patient

A pause, even a long pause, does not necessarily mean that the speaker has finished.

Be patient and let the speaker continue in their own time, sometimes it takes time to formulate what to say and how to say it. Never interrupt or finish a sentence for someone.

7. Avoid Personal Prejudice

Try to be impartial.

Don’t become irritated and don’t let the person’s habits or mannerisms distract you from what the speaker is really saying.

Everybody has a different way of speaking – some people are for example more nervous or shy than others, some have regional accents or make excessive arm movements, some people like to pace whilst talking – others like to sit still.

Focus on what is being said and try to ignore styles of delivery.

8. Listen to the Tone

Volume and tone both add to what someone is saying.

A good speaker will use both volume and tone to their advantage to keep an audience attentive; everybody will use pitch, tone and volume of voice in certain situations – let these help you to understand the emphasis of what is being said.

9. Listen for Ideas – Not Just Words

You need to get the whole picture, not just isolated bits and pieces.

Maybe one of the most difficult aspects of listening is the ability to link together pieces of information to reveal the ideas of others. With proper concentration, letting go of distractions, and focus this becomes easier.

10. Wait and Watch for Non-Verbal Communication

Gestures, facial expressions, and eye-movements can all be important.

We don’t just listen with our ears but also with our eyes – watch and pick up the additional information being transmitted via non-verbal communication.

When we talk about writing skills, we usually think of the basics: the ability to write sentences and paragraphs correctly with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. But a lot more than that goes into writing well. Ambitious writers strive to consistently produce better writing

Fundamentals of Writing. … These three factors are very distinct from each other and could be said to be the anatomy of what is being dealt with in this often diffuse term “writing”. The first factor is what is being communicated. The second factor is how that is communicated. The third factor is the reader.

These principles of good writing should help you practice the art. Work on each of them regularly and you will get good at writing.

1. Grammatically correct:

Grammatical errors are an unpardonable sin! Have you ever seen a building with slanting walls jutting at odd angles instead of a straight structure supporting the edifice?

Grammar, in writing, is like the straight walls that give the piece its beautiful, erect structure. Good to look at and sturdy in construction. With the basic structure gone wrong, the intention and feelings behind your words don’t matter.

2. Active Voice: 

Makes communication clear and direct. No one can forget the “The cat ate the mouse” and “The mouse was eaten by the cat” example from our school time. Yet, we usually put the rat at the beginning of our sentence even though we are actually talking about the cat. Doing this confuses the reader and he realises midway through the sentence what you are really talking about. Active voice, apart from making the meaning clear, also helps form less wordy sentences.

3. Concise:

Nothing kills written communication like long winding sentences. Many writing professionals talk about simplicity and clutter.

They say one needs to edit and re-edit one’s work to ruthlessly strike out every single word that does no service to your thought or language. We do tend to use a lot of unnecessary words and have a lot of scope for making our writing more concise and clear.

4. Structure:

A clear beginning, middle, and end. Let’s look at the building we mentioned earlier. How would it look if we had floors stacked haphazardly instead of neatly piled up one on top of the other?

The structure is like the floors that lead you logically to each floor of thought. And also tells you where it’s leading you to. It is more challenging to understand the chain of thought in written communication than when it is expressed verbally. Hence, it is our duty to stay on track to be able to guide our readers better.

5. Choice of words: 

Simple or complicated? The words that you use determine your style. Your writing could be easy on the reader or have a lot of long, hard words just for embellishment, hampering the readers‘ comprehension.

What is more important is to be able to use the right words that convey the exact meaning. Words can convey positive, negative, strong, or weak messages depending on what you choose to express yourself. Hence building your vocabulary is important.

6. Audience:

The most important element of your writing! Unless you are writing your personal journal, you need to constantly keep your audience in mind. Whether you are writing for a bunch of 5 yr olds or for science scholars – the style will differ. You can’t treat all audiences equally.

7. Punctuation: 

Yes, it still matters! Thanks to all forms of instant chat, we seem to have forgotten that commas and semi-colons exist for a reason. But when you communicate formally or are writing meaningful prose, you cannot afford to ignore this important principle of writing. “Let’s eat, grandpa” and “let’s eat grandpa” is a huge difference that punctuation can make or the lack of it.

Careful proofreading is critical for the effective outcome of your message

8. Proofread: 

Always! Twice! Heck, as many times as it is required to get it perfect. I am paranoid when it comes to proofreading. And trust me! This has only helped me send out error-free communication all the time, even if it is one-liners on email.

After you finish writing, read and re-read and check for typos and grammar errors. Check for concision and cut out every single word that doesn’t add meaning or obscure it.  And check for meaning – does it convey exactly what you want and has no scope for miscommunication.

Suggested activity: Pick up a topic and write a few lines or paragraphs on it. Start by planning the structure and write a few lines or paragraphs. You can then proofread for other elements like grammar and concision.

 Top 5 Writing Tools for Writers:

1. Microsoft Word – Microsoft Office also has an established word processor in Microsoft Word.
2. Grammarly – Of course, we couldn’t list our favourite writing tools without mentioning Grammarly!
3. Twords
4. Evernote
5. Google Docs

If you found this of interest, please subscribe and share within your social media circle, it just may help you also receive valued written content for future accurate meanings from family, friends, and people you communicate with, as many communicative means are lost through new applications which cut out the basics.

Phonics focuses on letters and sounds. Fluency- Oral reading fluency is the ability to read with accuracy, speed, and proper expression. Vocabulary- Refers to words known to communicate effectively. Comprehension- Reading is built on the ability of students to understand what they read.

Five Pillars of Reading.

The five essential components of reading are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary/language development, and comprehension.

Reading instruction starts by teaching students to sound out one word at a time. Repeat exposure to this word will eventually help the child recognize it by sight. The more vocabulary children recognize the less cognitively demanding reading becomes, as they only need to decode unfamiliar terms.

Children – Adults acquire most of their vocabulary through reading when they take a guess at the meaning of an unknown word using contextual clues.

As their vocabulary grows and they recognize more words, they become faster and more adept at understanding meaning, including the gist, main ideas, and specific details of a text.

Literacy skills are one of the most important areas of ability children develop in their first few years at school.

They begin by sounding out words and learning to recognize common vocabulary from books and classroom materials. With sight, reading, and spelling practice comes greater fluency.

Reading speeds up and comprehension of more complex texts becomes possible as vocabulary knowledge grows exponentially. However, not all students find learning to read such an easy process.

Struggling readers can quickly fall behind their peers and may develop low self-esteem and a lack of confidence as a result.

Because reading ability impacts performance across all areas of the curriculum, including writing skills, it’s important to provide adequate strategy training as early as possible. Ideally, remediation is tailored to the individual student’s needs, particularly when a learning difficulty is involved.

Different learning difficulties impact fluency in reading but one of the most common conditions is dyslexia. If a student has poor reading skills and a somewhat inconsistent approach to spelling –they may be dyslexic.

Concept development and vocabulary

Children learn new words at an incredibly fast rate. The most important predictor of vocabulary learning is the number of words that children hear from adults (for example during interactions, conversations, play, book reading).

As students learn new words, they begin to understand and describe increasingly complex concepts (for example concepts to do with space, size, quantity, categories, and time).

Comprehension

Reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and integrate with what the reader already knows. Fundamental skills required in efficient reading comprehension are knowing the meaning of words.

The ability to understand the meaning of a word from discourse context, the ability to follow the organization of passage and to identify antecedents and references in it, the ability to draw inferences from a passage about its contents.

The ability to identify the main thought of a passage.

The ability to answer questions answered in a passage, the ability to recognize the literary devices or propositional structures used in a passage and determine its tone, to understand the situational mood (agents, objects, temporal and spatial reference points, etc.

Conveyed for assertions, questioning, commanding, refraining, etc., and finally able to determine writer’s purpose, intent, and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer (discourse-semantics).

Ability to comprehend text is influenced by readers’ skills and their ability to process information. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual words, which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read.

There are many reading strategies to improve reading comprehension and inferences, including improving one’s vocabulary, critical text analysis (intertextuality, actual events vs. narration of events, etc.), and practicing deep reading.

Please share within your social media circle, if you found this interesting and will help others:)

These lesson plans help students to learn the English language through the five modules: Grammar, reading, speaking, listening, and writing: Below are some briefs for delivering the lesson, remember deep down you are a teacher! A  teacher of your children’s progress from the day he was born, so be confident in yourself first and foremost. Enjoy:)

Our Lesson plan shop for all levels:)

Helping students learn basic English language structures and vocabulary. In a context, we have to begin the process by teaching basic structures, such as colors, numbers, basic messages, and classroom survival language. Classroom survival language includes things like basic greetings and instructions, for example: How to say (Hello, how are you?)  After we teach basic structures and vocabulary, we can move on to basic communicative competencies. The age of our students is a major factor to take into consideration. People of different ages have different needs, competencies, and cognitive skills. In our first years of life we develop listening skills first, then speaking (14 months of age), then we go to school and begin to learn reading and writing. These are called the four basic language skills. This is what we adapt to learning a new language. Starting from scratch!

Basic teaching methods per lesson:

• Have a warm-up with the student, tongue twisters ( google tongue twisters ) (helps pronunciation, speak slow and fast with each one). Review the last lesson.
• Tell them the objective of the lesson and what you expect ( 3-5 minutes.)
• Show each slide or lesson picture. Each lesson plan is 25-40 minutes, try to stay within that time schedule.
• Use TPR – Total physical response. Example: gesture with action, so hands, face, a bit like sign language. Nose, point to it!
• Remember repetition (repeat), especially for young learners is vital.
• Vocabulary, check that they know all meanings of sentences, paragraphs, etc..If not by explaining, draw the meaning. Have a dictionary on hand.
• Try to use the four basic language skills (as above.)

Use instant correction on pronunciation.

• Show examples on a regular basis. Pronounce with them, if your English is limited-use an English App ( download from apple or google store to your smartphone ).
• Building confidence in students. A lack of confidence can turn into frustration or lack of motivation.
• Encouraging students is a must, well done, that was excellent, clap, give them self made stars etc..introduce Interest in language study beyond the classroom.
• Try to be creative with assignments.
• Assign homework activities and projects. Check on them, follow up, and be patient!
• Remember, don’t be afraid to have your own techniques to suit your child/students. As teachers, we realize every student is different and unique, therefore plan around the strengths and weaknesses.

The above is just a basic of teaching practices and we hope it helps if you feel you need a live online experienced teacher, please drop us a brief or your requirements, and please subscribe, share for more lessons.

If you feel that you would like more Vocabulary lessons, We now have a shop of lesson plans covering all levels.   LESSON PLAN SHOP🙂

See you soon, enjoy your lesson and stay safe.

A Brief History of Methodologies

Teachers around the world are following The Communicative Approach–CA (also known as Communicative Language Teaching – CLT) to teaching languages but it has not always been that way.

Teachers are in a transition phase of going from the Grammar Translation Method to The Communicative Approach as there is a greater need for communication among people around the world.

Teaching languages has been influenced by linguistics and psychology throughout history. Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research has been evolutionary and many great scholars have proposed wonderful ideas which were new and ideal at that time, but have now fallen by the wayside.

In this article, we will learn about some of the methods proposed through time, and you will learn some of the fundamental points that can be used in the classroom today.

Since the end of the 18th century, the definitive solution to successful EFL/ESL instruction has been discovered many times. There is always another tried-and-tested methodology from yet another expert theorist who may or may not have had first-hand experience learning a second language.

Before the late nineteenth century, second-language instruction mirrored the so-called Classical Method of teaching Latin and Greek; lessons were based on mental exercises—repetition drills and out-of-context vocabulary drills as well as lots of reading and translations of ancient texts.

Brown notes that languages were “not being taught primarily to learn oral/aural communication, but to learn for the sake of being ‘scholarly’ or…for reading proficiency”. Theories of second-language acquisition didn’t start to pop up until the instructional objective became oral competence.

We will now look at some of the most widely used methods in history and finish with The Communicative Approach which is the method of choice today.

We’re in the process of affiliating with a top worldwide accredited company for future courses – GEP English Exams. Teach, travel, and earn with our TEFL courses. All our TEFL/ TESOL courses will be internationally accepted and accredited.   In the meantime please send us an email with your requirements and we will reply with a solution…