👀 My question: What's the difference between warm-up and lead-in?

📓 Warm-Up: A general activity to get students focused, energized, and ready for the lesson. It may not directly relate to the main topic (a quick game or casual chat).

📓 Lead-In: A specific activity that introduces or prepares students for the main topic of the lesson, often by activating their prior knowledge (showing a picture or asking topic-related questions).

❥ Stages of Listening Activities:
Listening lessons are structured in three main stages, aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop higher-order thinking skills:

1. Pre-Listening (Lead-in):

♡ Activates students’ background knowledge through activities like teaching new vocabulary, describing pictures, engaging in discussions, or predicting the topic.

♡ Purpose: To prepare students for the audio content and provide context.

2. While-Listening (Presentation):

♡ Listening for General Understanding (Gist): Focuses on the overall theme or main idea.

❕We DON'T have just listen!

❕We Don't have "Listen to the listening". (Let them know what are they listening to. Podcast, interview,..)

♡ Listening for Specific Information: Answers detailed questions like “who, what, when, where, why, and how.”

♡ Language Learning Focus: Students work on stress patterns, intonation, connected speech, or grammar.

♡ Exposure (set the context) → notice (when you want to teach grammar) → practice

3. Post-Listening (Application):

♡ Students produce output such as speaking or writing.

♡ Tasks can include discussing the topic, sharing personal experiences, or transitioning to another learning cycle.

♡ Thinking time → share with your partner → share with me (TPS)

❥ Two learning cycles lesson (Family and Friends, Big English) they speak two times (before and after learning grammar)

❥ The teacher should teach them listening skills (before you play with angosht mobarak you have to teach them how to find key words and you get them to read Qs and guess the answer)

❥ Anchor words help your learners navigate through the audio file (IELTS)

❥ If they are not able to answer questions? we give them

the audio scripts and ask them to underline the answer.

❥ Give them a purpose to listen to the audio (find the adj.)

❥ They don't need to understand all words. (just able to answer questions and blocking words)

❥ First give them the task then play the file. (Let them know what are they going to listen to)

❥ Intensive Listening
This stage emphasizes language learning and can include teaching grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.

It may occur either:

♡ After While-Listening and Before Post-Listening (e.g., to prepare students for production).

♡ After Post-Listening (e.g., to refine skills based on the lesson).

❕If you don't have intensive it's like you're testing their listening skills.

❥ Two Approaches to Listening Lessons:

♡ Pre → While → Post Listening:

Relies on students’ existing knowledge at each stage.

♡ Pre → While → Intensive → Post Listening:

Intensive listening introduces language points before moving to production.

♡ Pre → While → Post → Intensive Listening:

Students first engage with the content and produce output before receiving detailed language instruction.

🌟Contextualize listening tasks with (CCQs), form-focused activities, and meaning clarification.

❥ Purpose of Listening Lessons:

Listening activities are important, even when students know vocabulary and grammar, because they teach:

1. Keyword identification.

2. Short answer formation.

3. Problem-solving strategies for listening comprehension.

❥ Why do we need to teach grammar? We can communicate just by learning vocabulary, but in order to communicate formally, more academically, we need grammar.

❥ What is grammar? Grammar refers to how we organize, combine, and change words and groups of words to make meaning.

❥ Grammar:

1. Use

⭐grammar always has exceptions.

⭐we should teach it indirect.

⭐we Never say: make sentence with will.(give them the context)

⭐DO NOT tell rules and terms to young learners.

2. Pronunciation

⭐It's important and most of teachers don't pay attention.

3. Form

❥ Mistakes in Teaching Grammar:

❕Focusing too much on rules (form) while ignoring meaning and pronunciation.

❕Treating grammar as something only for writing—it’s important for all communication.

❕Asking students to make sentences without context, which doesn’t help them understand grammar in real- life use.

❥ Approaches to Teaching Grammar:

♡ Context-Based Approach:

Teach grammar through real-life examples, stories, or texts instead of just rules.

♡ Text-Based Approach:

1. They read text.

2. They answer comprehension Qs.

3. Find examples from the text.

4. Checking meaning by CCQs.

5. Teacher highlights form of the target.

6. Controlled practice.

7. Game or song (free practice)

❥ The Role of Grammar Practice:

♡ Improve accuracy

♡ Improve fluency

♡ Reorganize their knowledge

❥ Types of Grammar Practice:

♡ Controlled Practice (Focus on Accuracy):

Activities: Drills, gap fills, jumbled sentences, or sentence transformations. (close monitoring, on spot correction)

♡ Free Practice (Focus on Fluency)

Activities: Discussions, storytelling, letter writing, or games. (Don't forget feedback)

Mistakes might not be corrected right away, students may not always use the target grammar.

❥ Example of Teaching Grammar (Conditional Type 2):

A teacher used pictures to introduce the topic.

⭐ CCQs ⤳ to ensure students understood

⭐ Many drills for pronunciation

⭐ Wrote the form on the board

Students worked in pairs to create sentences while the teacher monitored.

❥ Scaffolding:

1. Start with close monitoring (e.g., guided tasks).

2. Move to distant monitoring (e.g., group activities).

3. End with invisible monitoring, where students practice independently, with feedback if needed.

❥ Which one has a higher priority, vocabulary or grammar?

"Vocabulary is like blood for muscles." we need vocabulary to express our ideas.

❥ Answer to my questions about learning through acquisition:

✧ For adults we use a planned way of teaching (deliberate)

✧ We also have incidental way of learning (watching a movie and learn vocabulary and etc.) but for TOFEL or IELTS exams we can't use this method because it takes too much time.

✧ Which one is more effective, deliberate or incidental? (Both of them. It depends on your goals)

✧ For very young learners 1. hearing 2. listening 3. learning (incidental)

❥ Vocabulary aids comprehension by providing the reader with a tool or instrument.

❥ A continuum of word knowledge (from "no knowledge" stage to reach "decontextualize knowledge") by using the word in the context they can remember the word.

We should make them and help them to practice words more and more so that they don't forget it easily.

❕Error: NOT just the source of knowledge.

❕Error: Monolingual dictionary.

❕Error: Giving them so much of knowledge. (less is more)

❕Error: Make a sentence or example with words. (because at the beginning of the continuum is a mistake, we can use fill in gaps tasks)

❕Error: take a long time to present the word.(do it quickly)

⭐GUIDING how to teach vocab:⭐

❥ pre-teach blocking v before reading/listening.

❥ DEFINITIONS are tools we can't use them always. (combine definitions. don't ask them to memorize them)

❥ Review or revise? Revise is better because they have to add or eliminate to their information.

❥ CONTEXT: 1.directive (academic texts give hints, clues that help you guess) 2. non-directive 3. mis-directive

❥ What they need to learn a word?

1. meaning

2. pronunciation

3. form (syllable and part of speech)

⤳ Teaching Vocabulary:

1. Introducing the topic

2. Elicitation (don't introduce but help them get the meaning)

3. Teach words one by one

4. Make sure they got the meaning ￫ CCQs

5. Pronunciation ￫ Drills

6. Fix information by controlled practice

7. Free practice

❥ We can use:

✧ Photos, videos, drawing

✧ Gestures and actions

✧ Showing lexical relation (b1,b2,..)

❥ Different Levels:

✧ A1 and A2: basic user (no synonyms, antonyms)

✧ B1,B2: independent user

✧ C1,C2: proficient user

👀 Is our context helpful? can they guess the word?

⭐ Immediate practice is important!

⭐ Workbook is not necessarily homework!

⭐ Songs and games are free practices.

❥ Get to know our students is very important at the beginning of a course. We need to be able to establish a good connection with them. I really liked the way Professor Afkhami communicated during the first session of the TTC course. Since it was the first session, I was very stressed, but her warm and friendly demeanor taught me how to connect with language learners.☺

❥ We discussed about different jobs and compared them to teaching and I realized the importance of being a teacher. we are role models for our students, and we need to be mindful of every single one of our actions.

❥ Roles of a Teacher:

1. Planner: They prepare lessons and materials that meet students’ needs.

2. Facilitator: They encourage students to join discussions and share ideas.

   ⭐ Don't ask for volunteer but give them time!

3. Monitor: They check how students are doing in three ways:

   • Close monitoring: Watching closely and FB.

   • Distant monitoring: Watching from afar feedback later.

   • Invisible monitoring: Watching students without them knowing.

     ⭐ Be careful about the time you make their mistakes.

4. Diagnostician: They find out students’ strengths, weaknesses, and goals.

5. Language Resource

   
   

   
   

   
   

❥ Four factors Influencing Learning:

1. Facilities ⤳ Tools like whiteboards and online platforms (e.g., Padlet) help them stay interested.

2. Materials ⤳ Like books, videos, podcasts, and games can make learning fun.

3. Teachers ⤳ Their knowledge, skills, and ability to use different teaching methods.

4. Learners ⤳ Students’ goals, past experiences, and the ways they like to learn.

❥ Leaners:

• Goal? choose what level they want to go up. (daily experiences? specific exams?)

• Expectations are personal.

  ⭐Knowing students’ backgrounds and goals helps teachers plan better lessons.

❥ Learning Styles:

♡ Visual: Looking at images. (just learning preference not completely visual or auditory)

♡ Kinesthetic: Learning by doing activities or using their hands.

♡ Verbal: Reading, writing, and talking.

♡ Interpersonal: Learning with others in groups.

♡ Intrapersonal: Learning alone by thinking and reflecting.

❥ The process of teaching reading consists of three main stages: Pre-Reading, While-Reading, and Post-Reading.

1. Pre-Reading

♡ Activate Background Knowledge: Discuss the topic, show pictures, or play a video to prepare students for what they are about to read.

♡ Teach Blocking Words: Introduce essential vocabulary that students need to understand the text's main ideas.

2. While-Reading

♡ Develop Comprehension: Use techniques like:

♡ Skimming: Quickly reading to get the main idea.

♡ Scanning: Searching for specific information (answering detailed questions).

♡ Intensive Reading: Focusing on understanding the text in detail and analyzing language use.

3. Post-Reading

♡ Engage in Tasks: After reading, students should do activities that help them reflect on the text, such as discussions, writing summaries, or practicing vocabulary and grammar.

✒️ New words should be taught before or after reading? (good q)

❥ What is reading?

"Process of constructing meaning from written texts. It's a complex skill requiring the coordination of interrelated sources of information." (it's not the written text)

🌟 Background knowledge (the more you got information about the topic, the better you understand the text.)

❥ Common Challenges and Solutions

❔Understanding Words but Not the Text:

Reason: Lack of background knowledge or vocabulary. (large lexicon and challenging structure)

Solution: Use easier texts or provide more context before reading.

🌟In some texts the context is difficult not the structure. (help them understand the context by sending video, photos...)

❔Over-Reliance on Dictionaries:

Reason: Teaching too many new words.

Solution: Focus only on blocking words and encourage guessing meanings from context.

❔Inability to Recall Information:

Reason: Lack of clear objectives.

Solution: Specific tasks before reading to guide focus.

❔Slow and Unenjoyable Reading: (extensive reading)

Reason: Reading material is too challenging.

Solution: Less challenge (a little lower than their level)

❥ Best Practices in Reading Instruction

🌟Teach only essential vocabulary (blocking words).

♡ Give students tasks before reading. (never ask Qs after reading.)(First task then text🫣)

♡ Skimming and scanning for better comprehension.

♡ Use reading aloud selectively to check pronunciation.

❕Avoid having only one person read aloud while others are silent.

❥ Reading lessons:

1. Top-down: Focus on comprehension

Pre ⤳ (similar to listening)(sometimes watching or listening is pre reading!)

While ⤳ skimming for gist then for SI (no read aloud)

🌟Intensive reading: teaching new vocab or grammar (without this part we're just testing not teaching)

Post ⤳ follow up tasks and FB.

❥ Just like listening part we also have:

♡ pre-while-post

♡ pre-while-intensive-post

♡ pre-while-post-intensive

✒️ Why should they read aloud? how? when?

🌟We don't play file in skimming and scanning.

(after scanning/ after post reading/ next session)

♡ First we play the file 2. each student read for him/her self 3. read in groups 4. write their mistakes at the same time 5. give them FB 6. drills

❥ Giving them the topic:

♡ Which topic is more effective ⤳ one sentence about the topic and then a specific question. so now they know what are they going to write. (narrow down)

❥ What Writing Should Be Clear About:

♡ Audience: Who are we writing for?

♡ Purpose: Why are we writing?

♡ Structure: How do we write?

♡ Context: Where we're going to write?

❥ Writing Skills:

♡ Handwriting

♡ Spelling

♡ Punctuation

♡ How to write sentence

♡ Organizing paragraphs and overall text

♡ Text cohesion and maintaining logical flow

♡ Style appropriate to purpose and audience

❥ Goals for Writing:

♡ Fluency: Writing naturally and smoothly.

♡ Accuracy: Ensuring grammatical and structural correctness.

♡ Creativity: Developing engaging and purposeful writing.

(writing for a purpose)

❥ How to help them write?

♡ Positive Attitude: Making a supportive and cooperative environment for writing. (reduce red marks)

♡ Real Writing Tasks: Use relatable tasks for students.

♡ Give them sufficient time to practice and improve writing. ♡ make sure they understand the structure.

♡ Encourage teamwork in writing activities.

♡ Constructive Feedback: Focus on selective corrections and highlight improvements.

♡ Brainstorm ideas

♡ Sometimes they need to analyze a sample.

♡ We start with controlled practices.

SO?

❥ Preparing Learners for Writing

♡ Pre-writing Activities:

Gather information through reading, listening, or discussion.

Brainstorm ideas and analyze sample pieces.

♡ Controlled Practice:

Use gap fills, matching, or sentence-ordering exercises to guide practice.

Provide clear models and structured examples.

♡ Drafting:

Begin with drafts focused on specific writing topics ( a bad travel experience).

Encourage thinking in an organized.

♡ Editing and Revising:

Teach students how to self-evaluate and improve drafts collaboratively.

📎One question to ask about writing lessons: process or product?

❥ Process-Based:

♡ Emphasizes pre-writing, drafting, revising, and finalizing.

For Example: Group writing activities like school magazine articles or storytelling.

❕Not for young learners

❥ Product-Based:

♡ Focuses on the final outcome, ensuring grammatical accuracy and specific formats. (the final product is important)

(Give them a sample)

❥ Sub-skills to Develop:

1. Choosing relevant vocabulary

2. Spelling and punctuation

3. Structuring and editing sentences and paragraphs

4. Creating cohesive ties across text

5. Paraphrasing

🌟 Use coded feedback (underline errors).

🌟 Encourage self-correction and reflective learning.

❕Common Mistakes:

♡ Spelling, punctuation, incorrect tenses, missing words, unnecessary words, word order, subject-verb agreement.

❥ Dictogloss Activity

♡ Provide a paragraph at the students’ level.

♡ Steps: 1. Review relevant vocabulary and grammar.

2. Read the paragraph aloud for students to reconstruct in groups.

3. Compare with the original and evaluate collaboratively.

Goal: Practice grammar, cohesion, and fluency in a controlled way.

❥ Difference Between Errors and Mistakes:

♡ Errors:
Occur when learners don't know the correct form. Errors reflect their current stage of learning (interlanguage). These need to be taught or re-taught.

♡ Mistakes:
Happen when learners know the correct form but fail to apply it, often due to anxiety, overgeneralization, or transferring from their first language.

🌟 Native speakers make mistakes, not errors.

🌟 Mistakes are correctable; errors require teaching.

❕Types of Mistakes:

🗯️ Grammar Mistakes:

"She go" (auxiliary verb issues)

"I live in .... for five years" (tense mistake)

🗯️ Lexical Mistakes:

"I did a lot of mistakes" (wrong collocation)

"Defend the environment" instead of "Protect the environment."

🗯️ Pragmatic Mistakes (Politeness):

Saying "I want" instead of "I would like."

"Please sit over there" (informal phrasing for formal settings).

"Teacher, teacher" (MR. Miss...)

🗯️ Pronunciation Mistakes:

Mispronouncing sounds or stress in words.

🌟 Should with correct their error? We never say mistake correction, we say error correction (but we mean mistake correction😐)

❥ When and How to Correct Mistakes:

♡ Timing:

On the Spot: For accuracy-based tasks or immediately after teaching.

Delayed: For fluency-based tasks or to avoid disrupting speaking flow.

♡ Which Mistakes to Correct:

Feedback can focus on the task or the language.

Prioritize target language mistakes, especially those covered in recent lessons.

♡ Who Should Correct:

Teacher: Most common and effective.

Peer: Suitable for learners comfortable with feedback (B1 and above).

Self: Encouraged for more advanced learners (after B1) ❕Sometimes they are not happy if their classmates correct them.

❥ Techniques for Oral Error Correction

♡ Elicitation: Asking guiding questions (Do we use 'ing' in present simple?). (most effective)

♡ Metalinguistic Feedback: Explaining the rules ("In English, we don’t say...").(effective)

♡ Explicit Correction: Directly providing the correct form. (effective)

♡ Repetition: Repeating the mistake with emphasis.

♡ Clarification Request: Asking the learner to clarify ("Pardon me?").

♡ Recast: Rephrasing the mistake in correct form (least effective as it doesn’t engage learners deeply).

❥ Techniques for Written Error Correction

♡ Explicit Correction:

Teacher provides the correct form for every mistake. Learners rewrite their work.

♡ Highlighting:

Marking mistakes with colors (e.g., yellow for punctuation) for learners to correct.

♡ Coding Errors:

Using symbols or codes ("Sp" for spelling) in the margin, prompting learners to identify and fix mistakes.

Indicating the number of errors in a line without specifying them to encourage deeper analysis.

🌟Always be kind when correcting mistakes, especially during peer correction.

🌟Encourage learners to repeat corrected forms to reinforce accuracy.

🌟Choose correction methods based on the learners’ level and context (avoid metalinguistic feedback for young learners).

❥ Start and End Student-Centered:

♡ Begin and end lessons with student-focused, personal discussions rather than content-heavy activities.

♡ Teachers should step back and allow students to lead.

❥ Free Discussion:

♡ Although discussions can start at B1 level, they require guidance:

♡ Provide useful phrases, vocabulary, and thinking time.

♡ Use open-ended questions instead of "yes/no" or short- answer ones.

♡ Play the "devil's advocate" by not agreeing, even if you do, to keep students engaged.

❥ Discussion Starters:

♡ Small talk (weather, transportation).

♡ Fun activities like guessing famous personalities, analyzing a picture, or using second conditional prompts ("If I were a city, I would be...").

♡ Quizzes with answers revealed at the end, fun facts, and online polls to boost interest.

🌟 Give students time to think and speak without interruption.

🌟 Assign roles (using “six thinking hats”) to structure discussions.

🌟Use materials like Padlet, AI tools, or worksheets to spark ideas.

❥ Types of Speaking Tasks:

♡ Information Gap: Students exchange information to fill gaps.

♡ Ranking Tasks: Learners rank items and discuss their reasoning .

♡ Discussions and Debates: Foster critical thinking and exchange of ideas.

♡ Role-Play: Create scenarios to simulate real-life interactions.

♡ Speeches: Students collaborate to prepare and present.

♡ Dictation: Activities like "running dictation" or peer dictation to practice listening and writing.

❥ Before the Activity:

♡ Define clear goals for the activity.

🌟 Predict potential challenges and prepare solutions.

♡ Allocate time for preparation, speaking, and feedback.

♡ Gather all necessary materials and plan instructions carefully.

❥ During the Activity:

♡ Engage students by linking the topic to their interests and experiences. (this one is really useful)

♡ Write necessary vocabulary or structures on the board.

♡ Ensure the activity emphasizes the process (learning and practicing) rather than just the outcome.

❕Monitor without interrupting, offering help only if needed.

❥ After the Activity:

♡ Constructive feedback, focusing on strengths and achievements rather than errors.

♡ Highlight improvements and areas for growth.

♡ Consider recording activities to review and discuss.

♡ Use delayed correction to address errors while prioritizing fluency over accuracy.