Topic 2: Strategies, Approaches and Techniques
Strategies, Approaches and Techniques
1)Give clear guidelines and give everyday activity ‘’homework’’ to the students to:
-Listen to the news or podcasts
-Listen to local songs
-Listen to an audiobooks
-Watch YouTube videos in the language you’re learning
-Watch a film or TV series in the evening
-Listen to native speakers talking in the bus/supermarket, coffee shops…
Instruct them to make notes and develop some of their favorite subjects. You can then discuss and analyze those interactively in the classroom.
2)Choose materials suitable for A1 level – ideally you would be able to transfer the main idea, but still have new vocabulary and grammar to look into and teach to the students.
3)To be relevant to the aims you have: for example if you focus on teaching them how to be able to have informal conversation, then TV shows, news, talk shows etc. would be useful, but if you would like to teach them to have formal conversation with specific vocabulary, it would be best to choose documentaries, or podcasts covering the topics of interest
4)It is essential to highlight to them that for anything they listen to, it is important that they like it and are interested to it, as for them to have the motivation to continue doing it for a longer period of time!
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- Create a comfortable environment in the classroom, as for the students to feel relaxed, and comfortable in exposing themselves into talking.
- Encourage them to talk amongst themselves in Greek – talking to others that you know in a new language, helps to reduce timidity and anxiety when having to talk in public. When you speak, you train your brain, mouth and tongue to coordinate with one another. They learn to produce the correct sounds and shapes at the correct time. To speak a new language, you need to train your facial muscles.
- Encourage them to voice-record themselves or others speaking inside or outside the classroom, so that they can hear and correct themselves and discuss their self-evaluation in the classroom.
- Sing – learning through songs is one of the funniest ways to practice. Find the lyrics of some of their favorite songs and…turn the music on!
- Video them while speaking so that you can see the articulation and movements of the mouth and lips. Discuss the results and feedback in the classroom.
- Let them read out loud – it is important for the students to start articulating and producing sounds and words in Greek language so that your brain and muscles can get used to it
- Play Shadowing – It is a technique for when you’re watching a movie or TV show in your target language. Instruct them to listen to a line or two, pause the movie and repeat the line. They should imitate the character as closely as possible.
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- Encourage them to read books with a lot of dialogues (i.e. comic books) – it helps connect and interact with the everyday speech.
- Choose texts that the students will like. Make it easier and more enticing for them to spend some time reading it.
- Encourage them to learn in chunks – try to remember collocations and phrases that are natural to the language.
- Be patient and receptive. If the students face difficulties in reading, use the context. Using the logic of the context and making connections with what the students already know is one of the best reading techniques you can use.
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- Having basic writing skills means to be understood, even with the simplest sentences and words. Start with teaching them how to write simple words at the beginning with simple and comprehensive sentences.
- Write like you speak – invite them to think about what they would like to say not how they would say it! It is important to start speaking without thinking about grammar rules, which make the experience less pleasant.
