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Abstract:
Teaching English as a foreign language can be a difficult task, but it can also
be very rewarding. It is important to be patient with your students and make sure that
they are following your lessons. It’s also necessary to use different teaching methods, such
as games, projects, and activities in order to keep your English learners interested and
engaged in the language-learning process
Key words:
overhearers, Practice using L1 (mother tongue) strategies, Rehearsal time,
Develop interactive listening exercises, Transactional and interactional language, English
as a second language (ESL).
Introduction
While it is a bit of an exaggeration, students clearly feel that classroom-based
speaking practice does not prepare them for the real world. Why do students so
often highlight listening and speaking as their biggest problems? Partly because
of the demands of listening and speaking and partly because of the way speaking
is often taught. It usually consists of language practice activities (discussions,
information-gap activities, etc.) or is used to practice a specific grammar point.
Neither teaches patterns of real interaction. So, what can we do in the classroom
to prepare students for real interaction? What do students need? Practical
suggestions and what language should we teach? How do we get students to use
new language Further reading What do students need? Practice using L1 (mother
tongue) strategies, which don’t automatically transfer.
An awareness of formal/informal language and practice at choosing an
appropriate language for different situations. The awareness that informal spoken
language is less complex than written language. It uses shorter sentences, is
less organized, and uses more ‘vague’ or non-specific language. Exposure to a
variety of spoken text types. The ability to cope with different listening situations.
Many listening exercises involve students as ‘overhearers’ even though most
communication is face-to-face. To be competent at both ‘message-oriented’
or transactional language and interactional language, language for maintaining
social relationships. To be taught patterns of real interaction. To have intelligible
pronunciation and be able to cope with streams of speech. Rehearsal time. By
PRACTICAL APPROACHES
TO THE MAIN PROBLEMS
OF TEACHING ENGLISH
FOR B1 LEARNERS AS A
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
https://doi.org/10.47689/STARS.univer-
s i t y - 5 - p p 4 1 9 - 4 2 3
Jizzakh branch of National University of
Uzbekistan named after Mirzo Ulugbek
Faculty of Psychology Philology and Foreign
Languages, student.
SHERALIEVA SHOIRA TO‘LQIN QIZI
sheraliyevashoira1411@gmail.com
«Yangi O‘zbekiston: Moliyaviy hisobotning xalqaro
standartlarini joriy etishda muvaffaqiyatli
xalqaro tajriba» 16 dekabr, 2022 yil.
422
giving students guided preparation/rehearsal time they are more likely to use a
wider range of language in a spoken task.[1]
Materials and method
Transferring L1 strategies
When preparing for a spoken task, make students aware of any relevant L1
strategies that might help them to perform the task successfully. For example,
‘rephrasing‘ if someone does not understand what they mean. Formal/infor-
mal language gives students one or more short dialogues where one speaker
is either too formal or informal. Students first identify the inappropriate lan-
guage, then try to change it. Also, show students how disorganized informal
speech is.
•Vague language
•Using typescripts of informal speech, focus on examples of vague language.
•Different spoken text types
•Draw up a list of spoken text types relevant to the level of your class. Teach the
language appropriate for each text type.
•Interactive Listening
•Develop interactive listening exercises. Facetoface listening is the most com-
mon and the least practiced by course books. Any form of ‘Live listening‘ (the
teacher speaking to the students) is suitable.
•Transactional and interactional language
•Raise students’ awareness by using a dialogue that contains both. It could be
two friends chatting with each other (interactional) and ordering a meal (transac-
tional).
•Real interaction patterns
Teach real interaction patterns. Introduce the following basic interactional pat-
tern: Initiate, Respond, Follow-up. This is a simplification of Amy Tsoi’s work. See
Tsoi (1994)[1]
The following interaction could be analyzed as follows:
A: What did you do last night? (Initiate)
B: Went to the cinema (Respond)
A: Oh really? (Follow-up)
What did you see? (Initiate)
B: Lord of the Rings (Respond)
Have you been yet? (Initiate)
A: No, it’s difficult with the kids (Respond)
B: Yeah of course (follow-up)
Understanding spoken English after a listening exercise gives students the type-
script. Using part of it, students mark the stressed words and put them into groups
(tone units). You can use phone numbers to introduce the concept of tone units.
The length of a tone unit depends on the type of spoken text. Compare a speech
with an informal conversation. In the same lesson or subsequent listening lessons,
you can focus on reductions in spoken speech, for example, linking, elision and
assimilation. Preparation and rehearsal before a spoken task, give students some
preparation and rehearsal time. Students will need guidance on how to use it. A
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sheet with simple guidelines is effective. Real-life tasks try to use real-life tasks as
part of your teaching. What language should we teach?[5]
Spoken language is both interactional and transactional, but what should teach-
ers focus on in class? Brown and Yule (1983) suggest the following:
When teaching spoken language, focus on teaching longer transactional turns.
This is because native speakers have difficulty with them and because students
need to be able to communicate information efficiently whether in their country
or in a native-speaker country.
Teach interactional language by using an awareness-raising approach. For ex-
ample, monolingual classes listen to a recorded L1 conversation before a similar
L2 recording.
For recordings of native-speaker interactional and transactional conversations,
have a look at ‘Exploring Spoken English’ by McCarthy and Carter (1997). It not
only contains a variety of text types, but each recording comes with analysis.
How do we get students to use a new language?
Research by Peter Sekihan on Task-based Learning shows that giving students
preparation time significantly increases the range of language used in the perfor-
mance of the task, whereas the accuracy of the language is not as influenced. If
this is so, then it seems sensible to give students preparation time when encourag-
ing them to use a new language. Imagine you have been working on the language
that would be useful for the following task: ‘Having a conversation with a stranger
on public transport’. You have now reached the stage where you wish students
to perform the task. Rather than just give students 10 minutes to prepare and re-
hearse the task, give students guided preparation time.[4]
A simple preparation guide for the task could be a few key questions like:
How will you start the conversation?
What topics are you going to talk about?
How are you going to move from one topic to another?
How are you going to end the conversation?
After the preparation stage, students give a ‘live performance’. This can be in
front of the class or group to group in a large class. This increases motivation and
adds an element of real-life stress. Another way of encouraging students to use
new language in a communication activity is to make a game out of it. Give stu-
dents a situation and several key phrases to include. They get points for using the
language. Similarly, when working on the language of discussion, you can produce
a set of cards with the key phrases/exponents on them. The cards are laid out in
front of each group of 2/3/4 students. If a student uses the language on a partic-
ular card appropriately during the discussion, he/she keeps the card. The student
with the most cards wins. If he/she uses the language inappropriately, then he/
she can be challenged and has to leave the card on the table.[3] ‘Noticing the gap’
happens when learners focus on the gaps in their own linguistic knowledge. This
may happen when students do a dictogloss – sometimes referred to as grammar
dictation. The following is an example of how it works.
What happens if learners do not notice grammar?
Without the chance to ‘notice’ grammar, learners might make errors despite
significant experience with the target language. Learners could also correctly in-
«Yangi O‘zbekiston: Moliyaviy hisobotning xalqaro
standartlarini joriy etishda muvaffaqiyatli
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424
fer rules and patterns about new language based on what they have learned, but
avoid using these structures in real-life situations. The transition from not know-
ing to knowing and using spontaneously is not instant. The transition may take
moments, hours, or even days. Sometimes, it doesn’t happen. However, it is the
teacher’s job to train learners to discover how grammar works in real-world con-
texts.
In one of my A2 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages)
adult classes, we put the present passive simple in context using a text about the
olive harvest. After creating interest in the theme of the lesson, we read at a nat-
ural speed:
There are an estimated nine million olive trees in Palestine, which can produce
tons of oil. Green ripe olives are picked in October by thousands of Palestinian
farmers who work daily for over a month. More than half of the Palestinian popu-
lation participates in the olive harvest. Once the harvest is completed, fresh olives
are sent to the press. Olive oil is then extracted from the olives and packaged in
yellow gallons. The product is not only sold in Palestine but also shipped around
the world. (Text created by We’am Hamdan)
We checked the learners’ general understanding of the text, then we re-read it.
This time learners wrote down keywords. In groups, they tried to reconstruct the
text from memory, as close to the original as possible. Then they compared their
version with another group and worked together to agree on one version. Finally,
we showed the original version on an interactive whiteboard.
During the activity, the learners used their linguistic knowledge and worked out
the meaning and form of the emerging target language. This is how they ‘notice’
the gaps in their current version of English. The process can lead to a restructuring
in their mental picture of the language system.
CONCLUSION
Learning a language is no easy task for many people. English as a second lan-
guage comes with many challenges, especially in terms of pronunciation, context,
and cultural norms. All languages have their idiosyncrasies and learning English
may be daunting to many learners for many reasons. Schools that offer ESL class-
es tend to be in urban areas with high concentrations of minority and economically
disadvantaged students. ESL learners, therefore, are positioned to be highly seg-
regated from English-speaking students. This lessens their opportunities to hear
from and interact with good models of English and peers who are native speak-
easies learners are often faced with culture shock, which can impede their educa-
tion and progress. Culture shock is anxiety that results from losing all familiar signs
and symbols of social intercourse. Many things can attribute to culture shock,
including language barriers, social isolation, unfamiliar weather patterns, different
foods, status change, and living conditions. Even a different type of education sys-
tem can confuse learners and deter them from making beneficial education deci-
sions. Due to language barriers and the unfamiliarity of cultural norms such as bus
schedules and pick-up locations or train and subway routes, an English-language
learner can find it difficult to make time for education and language learning.
Because of these challenges, many learners walk to their literacy programs.
Some juggle multiple jobs and are also taking care of families, so attending a class
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at a literacy program could mean that learners must choose between making it
to the class or eating dinner, helping their children with their homework, or other
priorities. When it comes to literacy instruction, there is a lot of interaction, con-
versation, and value involved. Sometimes, topics covered in instruction may focus
on something culturally that ESL learners do not understand, know about, or even
value. Engaging in conversation is the best practice for ESL learners to improve
their skills and achieve their language and education goals, but if they feel socially
isolated from the conversation, they will make little to no progress. Not only do
they need English language proficiency training, but also cultural knowledge and
education. At SEGi College KL, we have a system of making learning of English
better and easier.[6]
REFERENCES:
1.Abduraxmanova, Z., & Mamurova, M. (2021). THEORETICAL APPROACH TO
SPEECH DISFLUENCIES IN SIMULTANEOUS INTERPRETATION. In
МОЛОДОЙ
ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬ: ВЫЗОВЫ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ
(pp. 43-45).
2.1.Brown, G and G.Yule. 1983. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge Uni-
versity Press
3.2.Bygate, M. 1987. Speaking. Oxford University Press
4.3.Carter, R. and M. McCarthy. 1997. Exploring Spoken English. Cambridge Uni-
versity Press
5.4.Skehan, P. 1998. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford Uni-
versity Press
6.5.Tsui, A.B.M. 1994 English Conversation. Oxford University Press
7.6.https://colleges.segi.edu.my/kualalumpur/problems-faced-by-english-as-
a-second-language-learners/
