Productive and Receptive Skills in the ESL Classroom - Receptive Skills - Avoiding Problems
So, some of the ways in which we can avoid these problems occurring in the first place is to reteach the vocabulary that's going to be required in the particular activity and the grammar. Now, having said this, it doesn't mean that if we think about a particular article that they're going to read or a listening activity that they're going to listen to. They don't have to know every single word in there but they do need to know a certain number of words in order to actually make sense out of it. Secondly, most of the materials that we'll be using for both reading and possibly for listening will be what's called an authentic material. In other words, it's a real piece of material from a newspaper or magazine that hasn't been created for a particular class and so we need a very careful selection of text in terms of what vocabulary is in there, what actual language uses in there and also the way in which has been written. So the careful selection text. We need to be careful about the choice topic. Is it something that our group is going to be interested in? Is something indeed that they're going to know anything about? One of the most fundamental things that you can do to avoid problems is to create interest before you start the actual lesson. It's very very difficult for students just to go straight into a reading or listening activity without any interest having been generated.
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