Today’s Prayer
(jesuitresource.org)
Almighty God,
Thank you for the beauty and majesty we see in each
of your creation.
Thank you for the opportunity to care for the world
you have made.
We ask that your blessings would rest upon each one
of us and that you would give us great vision and
enthusiasm for our teaching ministry.
Bless the efforts of our hands, the bonds between
our students, and the influence of our work on them.
As we gather and share together now, let your Holy
Spirit guide and lead us towards all forms of truth
and goodness. Amen.

Outline of Today’s Session
I. Attendance Check (beginning and end)
II. Review and Synthesis of the Previous Input
III. Discussion and Sharing of Today’s Input
Teaching the Four Language Macro Skills:
Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing
IV. Presentation of Asynchronous Task

Teaching the Four
Language Macro Skills
(Harmer, 2003, pp.68-97)

Teaching Listening

What is listening?
"Listening is a complex, active process in
which the listener must discriminate between
sounds, understand vocabulary and
structures, interpret stress and intonation,
retain what was gathered..., and interpret it
within the immediate as well as the largest
socio-cultural context of the utterance.
Co-ordinating all this involves a great deal of
mental activity on the part of the learner.
Listening is hard work..."(Vandergrift, 1999, p.
168).

Why teach listening?
1.Get students to listen to spoken English (e.g.,
conversations, dialogues, monologues, discussions,
interviews, instructions, etc.)
2.Expose students to the different varieties and
accents (e.g., American English, Philippine English,
Singaporean English, etc.)
3.Help students to acquire language subconsciously

What are the fundamental principles behind
the teaching of listening?
1.The tape recorder is just as important as the tape.
2.Preparation is vital.
3.Different listening stages demand different
listening tasks.
4.Students should be encouraged to respond to the
content of a listening, not just to the language.

What kind of listening should students
do?
Face-to-face interactive situations (e.g.,
conversations, interviews, telephone
exchanges, lectures, announcements,
directions, stories read aloud, plays, songs,
news broadcasts, radio programs, etc.)

What are the common problems associated
with listening?
1. speed of delivery
2. limited vocabulary and structure
3. failure to recognize 'signals'
4. lack of contextual knowledge
5. difficult material
6. poor audio
7. poor understanding of the material
8. poor listening habits

Teaching Speaking

What is the communicative view of language?
(Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 161)
“Language consists not merely of
grammatical and structural features, but
categories of functional and
communicative meaning as exemplified
in discourse.”

What are the reasons for speaking?
*Expressing ideas and feelings
*Expressing a wish or a desire to do something
*Negotiating or solving a particular problem
*Maintaining social relationships
*Asking for assistance and advice
*Asking for directions
*Making an appointment
*Discussing arrangements
*Talking socially to a variety of people
*Ordering food at a restaurant
*Buying food at the market

What are the characteristics of spoken language?
1. the use of pauses and fillers (e.g., erm, uh, well, okay,
etc.)
2. repetition of words and phrases
3. the use of generalized vocabulary (e.g., thing, nice stuff,
place, lots of, etc.)
4. incomplete and short sentences
5. very little subordination
6. very few passives
7. not many explicit logical connectors
8. frequent reference to things outside the text
9. the use of slangs, colloquialisms, and idioms
10. usually unplanned

What are some problems in teaching speaking?
1. Shyness and inhibitions
2. Thinking paralysis
3. Low participation among students
4. Use of the mother tongue in the target language
5. Limited vocabulary and structure
6. Limited knowledge of the topic
7. Poor speech habits

What are some principles in the design of speaking
activities?
1. Use group or pairwork to give students' support
2. Base the activity on easy language
3. Make a careful choice of topic and task to
stimulate interest
4. Make students aware of the purpose of the
activity and conditions/criteria for its success
5. Correct speech errors judiciously

Teaching Reading

What is reading?
"Reading is the ability to draw meaning
from the printed page and interpret this
information appropriately" (Grabe &
Stoller, 2002, p. 9).

Why teach reading?
1. to help students in their academics
2. to develop the love for reading
3. to facilitate writing skills
4. for language acquisition: vocabulary,
grammar, punctuation, etc.

What kind of reading should students do?
1.Strike a balance between real English texts
and students' capabilities and interests
2. Topics and types of reading texts depend on
who the students are: business people =
business texts; mixed group = varied texts
(from magazines, letters, reports, stories,
menus, advertisements, play extracts, recipes,
instructions, poems, reference materials, etc.)

What reading skills must students learn?
1. Noting Details
* answer 5WH-questions
* recognize key words in the text
* identify action words and idioms
* describe traits of characters in the text
* formulate 5WH-questions about the text
2. Following Printed Directions
3. Getting the Main Idea
* identify key sentence in the text
* tell what the text is about
* give a title to the text
* identify the mood of the text

4. Organizing Ideas
* order the events as they happen in the text
* classify ideas under proper headings
5. Outlining
* distinguishing general from specific ideas
6. Summarizing
* giving the main idea of the passage
7. Making Inference
* answer questions with information directly or indirectly stated
in the text
8. Making Generalization/Conclusion
* perceiving relationships of ideas

9. Study (Life) Skills
*knowing how to read the following materials:
advertisement, catalogue, graph, chart,
encyclopedia, dictionary, diagram, magazine,
newspaper, telephone directory, map, schedule,
instructions, etc.

What are the principles behind the teaching of
reading?
1. Reading is not a passive skill.
2. Students need to be engaged with what they are
reading.
3. Students should be encouraged to respond to the
content of a reading text, not just to the language.
4. Prediction is a major factor in reading.
5. Match the task to the topic.
6. Good (reading) teachers exploit the texts to the
full.

Teaching Writing

What is writing?
Writing is a recursive process
which involves planning,
composing, and revising.

Why teach writing?
1. Reinforcement
2. Language Development
3. Learning Style
4. Skill

What kind of writing should students do?
1. It depends on their ages, interests, levels,
needs, and purposes.
2. In general, students benefit a lot from
writing in a number of (everyday) styles.

What are the features of writing?
1.vocabulary and sentence structures (word choices,
sentence boundaries, stylistic choices, etc.)
2.grammar (rules for verbs, agreement, articles,
pronouns, etc.)
3.mechanics (handwriting, spelling, punctuation,
capitalization, etc.)
4.organization (paragraphs, topic and support,
cohesion, and unity)
5.content (relevance, clarity, originality, logic,
evidence, etc.)

What are the types of writing?
1. Narrative - to share a story
2. Descriptive - to evoke/capture images through
specific and informative language
3. Argumentative - to make a stand and
convince or persuade the reader
4. Expository - to inform the reader
a. definition/exemplification/illustration
b. process/sequence/listing/enumeration
c. cause-effect
d. classification/division
e. comparison/contrast

How should teachers correct writing?
1.Focusing on one area/aspect, e.g.,
punctuation, or spelling, or grammar, etc.
2.Preparing a list of written symbols to be
given to students (e.g., S - spelling; WO - word
order, Cp - capitalization, etc.)
3.Giving a constructive comment
4.Talking to a student

Let’s look at the big picture
☺
The Role of a Language Teacher…
"A language teacher creates within his/her
classroom a positive atmosphere, a way of
learning conducive to promoting listening,
speaking, reading, and writing through
support, encouragement, and positive
outcome."

Asynchronous Task by Pairs
Deadline is on Wednesday.
Design a semi-detailed Learning Plan for teaching any or a
combination of the four language macro skills based on your teaching
guide. Follow the template below. (See also the sample plan.)
I. GRADE/YEAR LEVEL:
II. TOPIC/SKILL: (specific enough for one session)
III. APPROACH:
IV: MATERIALS/REFERENCES:
V. OBJECTIVES: (three-level domain)
VI. PROCEDURE: (specific steps for each segment are provided)
A. Motivation (a technique or task to catch learners’ attention)
B. Presentation (a technique or task to prepare learners for the topic)
C. Discussion (a technique or task in giving the input/lesson)
D. Practice/Production (a technique or task for learners to practice/use the skill/s before
evaluation)
VII. EVALUATION: (a sample test to check learning outcome)
VIII. ASSIGNMENT: (a take-home task to enhance/enrich learning outcome)