Types of exercises in teaching listening

1. Motivate exercises: exercises for pleasure and enjoyment. They help to raise learners’ motivation without doing tasks (Listen to stories, anecdotes, jokes, talks, songs, video and films, poems, etc.)

2. Receptive and recognition exercises: they help learners to receive and recognize language forms (phonetic, grammar and lexical items) individually and in structures (sentence patterns) (Listen to the following words and raise your hands when you hear the words with sound [a:]: Car, night, dark, frost, cat, giraffe; Listen to the words and recognize the word “boy” among other words: A baby, a toy, a boat, a boy, a girl).

3. Drill exercises: they help learners to reproduce language forms and meaning orally, in actions or in written form.

Repetitive drill (Listen to the words and try to memorize them – teacher points out to objects and name them. Learners them reproduce the names: a carrot, a potato, a tomato; Listen to the phrases (sentences) and repeat them: on the table, in the box, I like tea, she likes milk, etc.

Comprehensive drill:

Instructions (Listen and perform operations: (draw, complete a map or picture)

Completion (Learners listen and complete a story, dialogue, etc. with words, phrases, sentences while they listen or afterwards).

Finding mistakes (An object (thing, person or place - real or on picture) is described. Learners have to listen and note down any mistakes. The same work is done with texts).

Finding differences between pictures, texts, etc (Learners listen to two versions of a story with or without any pictures and have to identify differences).

Finding the right answer: Tick- off and true/false exercises

Making the order of events

Matching texts, pictures, graphs, etc.

Filling the chart

4. Creative exercises (speech exercises): they help learners to produce their own sentences orally and in written form before or after listening.

Communicative games

Interviews

Dividing the text into parts and title them

Discussion (analyzing, evaluating)

Problem-solving

Summarizing the gist

Retelling

Roleplaying

The content of teaching speaking

Speaking is a process of speech production.

Reasons for speaking:

To take part in conversations, provide information, give instructions, express oneself, request, so on.

In Foreign Language Teaching speaking is a productive skill.

The purposes for teaching speaking:

1. To train learners’ oral speech:

• to construct connected speech in meaningful and logical order, with proper pronunciation, intonation, stress and rhythm, expression, vocabulary and grammar.

• to communicate fluently

• to balance accuracy and fluency.

• to express values and judgments

• to interact

• to speak in different contexts ( at school, in the shop, with strangers, etc.)

2. To stimulate learners to master English language and culture

3. To stimulate learners to think in English.

Principles of teaching speaking:

Approaches	Brief description
Conscious approach	- Giving knowledge of a language and knowledge of how to use the language in communication.
Practical approach	- Providing various speaking exercises according to speakers' age, abilities, level. Participation of each learner in speaking activities is obligatory (in individual form, in pairs, in small groups, with the whole class both fluently and accurately). -Setting relaxed and supportive atmosphere (presentation of new vocabulary, social and cultural norms, help, use of visual aids, mime and gestures). - Reducing of teacher’s speaking time and correction during speaking activities. - Recognizing learners’ problems with pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar.
Structural approach	- Memorization of sentence patterns and their oral language.
Situational approach	- Learning speaking through sentence patterns in different situations.
Different approach	- Teaching of active grammar minimum (for speaking) and passive grammar minimum (for reading and writing). Selection of grammar material should be based also on the principle of frequency (the Present Simple (Indefinite) is frequently used both in conversation and in various texts. Therefore it should be included in the grammar minimum.